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HUMANA CHALLENGE IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CLINTON FOUNDATIONJanuary 18, 2014Patrick ReedLA QUINTA, CALIFORNIA DOUG MILNE: I would like to welcome Patrick Reed to the interview room. Patrick, you're becoming quite the regular here, which is obviously a good thing. Congratulations on your third consecutive 9‑under 63. Three different courses you've achieved that feat so far this week, that being said, I'll just turn it over to you for some comments on today's round. PATRICK REED: It kind of seemed like Deja Vu all over again. When I played today I felt just as confident as I did the last two days and the putter is still working. Obviously. And I'm hitting some great iron shots and hopefully I can continue that into tomorrow. Tomorrow's a long day, you still have 18 holes left to play, so hopefully we'll be able to get it done. DOUG MILNE: We'll take questions. Q. Not many people have a 54 hole lead this big, how do you go about it? What's your mindset and what do you think the strategy would be? PATRICK REED: I'm going to treat tomorrow as if it's Monday qualifier. 18 hole shoot‑out, everybody's tied at even par and hopefully I can go out and do the same thing I've done the past three days. Q. Everybody out here walking around seems incredibly impressed with a PGA TOUR record that you've shot for 54 holes. Are you the only person on course not impressed by it? PATRICK REED: I'm playing great. And any time you set a record on the PGA TOUR it means you're doing something right. Well, a lot of things right. But at the same time it doesn't matter if you have 54 hole lead, I mean all that matters at the end is at the end of Sunday. I mean I'm just to take this afternoon here and rest up and take it hole by hole and shot by shot tomorrow and see if we can close it out. Q. Each of the first two days you've kind of come in here and said well, it was a good round, it wasn't an extraordinary round. Couple bogeys out there today, I assume you feel the same way today about the round? PATRICK REED: Yeah, on the front side the first nine I played I felt like I did a lot of things well. But then on that back side I kind of fell asleep on hole 2. I probably missed about a three and a half, 4‑footer for birdie and then I lipped out, well burnt the end from about 30 feet on the following hole and then I hit a 9‑iron over the green and made bogey on 5. So, I still felt like I left some shots out there. No, not including the par I made on the par‑5 after I only having three quarter 6‑iron in my hand on the 17th hole of the day. So, I mean there are shots out there I could have had, but at the same time it's another 63, I'm pretty pleased. Q. First of all, do you have a mental coach that you're working with, because you keep telling us every day, yes, the Monday qualifier, so how do you prepare for all this mentally? PATRICK REED: Well, no, I don't have a mental coach, but 6 for 8 in Monday qualifiers two years ago and those are 18 hole shoot outs I got myself in the mindset you have to go low, have to make a lots of birdies. And my swing coach Kevin Kirk always reminds me that every time before a round is enjoy your Sunday night as if tomorrow's Monday. And he does that whether it's Wednesday night all the way through Saturday night. So we treat every day as if it's a Monday. Q. Good success. Continue tomorrow. PATRICK REED: Thanks. Q. That brings up another question, what kind of mindset did it take to do Monday qualifiers when you were doing them, besides it being a one round thing, what do you feel like you were good at in those situations? PATRICK REED: Just everything's on your back. You have to make birdies, you have to be aggressive. I'm normally aggressive player. And it was just the mindset that you can go low and you have to prove yourself every Monday. It doesn't matter what day it is, whether it's first week or fifth week, it doesn't matter, you have to go out and produce one round. And I think that's also got me in a good mindset for events like this, where you have to go real low to win events. And there's really no backing down. Q. To follow‑up on putting, what is it like putting out there right now? How great are the conditions, and then in turn, how well are you putting to even make this happen, because obviously a lot of things have to be going right on your putting stroke for this to happen? PATRICK REED: Right, you know, the conditions of the greens are great. I've seen all three courses now, and they seem, every single one of them was really pure. I'm basically, almost seems like I'm in a putting coma. The hole seems huge, it almost feels like I can't miss. And it's interesting because when I do miss a putt I get really frustrated because I almost feel like I should make it. I missed ‑‑ my par putt was like 35 feet and you want to talk about somebody who is really upset after missing a putt, yeah I just went to 6‑under par after missing that putt. You can't really be that disappointed. But, I just trust in the lines I see and really focusing on my speed, because it's making the hole seem larger and larger every time I putt, and it's happened to work and I'm going to carry this over to tomorrow. Q. Have you ever in your life, college, playing with your buddies had three 63s in a row before? PATRICK REED: No, I haven't even come close to three 63s in a row. But at the same time, the player I was back in college and amateur and last year is totally different than the player I am now. We worked so hard, and my coach and I, we have really bought in the whole idea of this Shotstohole program that we looked at on line, through a guy that's helping us out, and it's really allowing us to monitor what we need to work on and we really focused on it this off season and it's working. We plan on keeping it on the rest of the year. Q. Could you go over some clubs and yardages on some holes? The eagle on No. 16. PATRICK REED: 212, hit a pretty full 5‑iron draw and it went up there to probably about three, four feet. Q. On No. 6 where you almost holed out, spun it back and it went right by the hole? PATRICK REED: We had 125 there. Just like on the last hole we had 127. So it was basically the same shot. The only difference is I didn't spin is it that much on the last hole. Q. What was the club? PATRICK REED: 50 degree. Q. On both? PATRICK REED: Yeah. Q. On those Monday qualifiers, do you remember approximately what you had to shoot to get in and were there any situations where you had to make a birdie on 18 or two birdies on 17 and 18 to get in? PATRICK REED: Yeah, there was two situations where you had to make birdie on the last hole to make it in. And we made birdie on both times. And both of those putts I did not read, my wife did. And I made them both. So there's a lot of situations out there where we had to make birdie on the last hole, and that's how we treat it today, because we wanted the 63 today. We actually wanted 62, because kind of seems like that's my hump, I need to get over that 63. But to be able to make a birdie on the last to shoot 63 again, it meant a lot. Q. And like would you have to shoot like 6‑ or 7‑under on those Mondays to get in? PATRICK REED: Easily. Sometimes you had ‑‑ of course there's some you could shoot four or five to get in with when they're really tough golf courses, but also some times where you had to shoot eight or nine. And it didn't matter what day it was, what course it was, we got it done. Q. You won the first one with Justine on the bag and then obviously Kessler now. Compare and contrast caddie styles and how it might be a little different this time around? PATRICK REED: You know, the styles, they're really similar. They're brother and sister and they act in their demeanors so much the same. They don't get too high, never get too low. So it comes down to that, with Kessler on the bag, last week, I felt like we read into putts too much. So this week we decided, I'm going to go with my reads, if I need him I'll call him in and just go with my first instincts and it seems to be working. Q. To your point about your caddie, Kessler, now and Justine, and we talked about it last year, you had said Justine was saving you shots left and right. On the West Coast Swing last year you mentioned that. In what sense may Kessler be doing that or his style in general, does that help you technically with his personality or what? PATRICK REED: It does. There's times, not really this week because we have been playing really well, but at Tournament of Champions there's times that, the last two days, that I wanted to hit 3‑woods on par‑5s when I wasn't hitting my 3‑wood good at all, I was hitting it left. And he made sure I didn't hit them. And those are things that any caddie needs to do, not only Justine or Kessler, but anyone out there. And for them to do that, especially with me, whenever I ‑‑ you know how persistent I am and I'm a very aggressive player‑‑ for them to be able to do that it's saving us shots and also it's helping us to play better. Q. With the success you had last year, playing so well at the Travelers Championship, playing with Bubba Watson there and then of course beating Jordan Spieth at Wyndham, how much do you draw on the confidence of playing well on the PGA TOUR as a whole? PATRICK REED: Those situations, when I played with Bubba that was the first time I played with one of the top players in the world. And I've also never played with someone who hit the ball so far, in my life. He hits it so far. And that taught me a lot to stay in my game, not try to hit it as far as everybody. When other guys are hitting drivers if I need to hit 3‑wood, hit 3‑wood. And there's just little things like that have taken me a long way and progressed, not only in my game, but also mentally to whenever I get in a situation, I know really what to do. Q. Is there a small part of you that wishes Justine was still inside the ropes for this one just because you're such a team? PATRICK REED: Oh, of course. It's Team Reed but at the same time I'm happy she's outside the ropes right now, because she's carrying my little girl. So we're adding to Team Reed and Kessler's now a part of Team Reed. So really it feels just ‑‑ I'd love Justine to be inside the ropes, but at the same time everyone understands and I understand, too, but she says she's coming back and so hopefully he we'll see her back at the PGA. Q. Could you elaborate a little bit about that computer program you were talking about that you and your coach were working with? PATRICK REED: Stuart Leong, he's the one who made it. It's shotstohole. And really what it is, is you enter your stats, and it kind of takes it to the next level. It's, okay, how far is the hole, what club did you hit. Yeah, you might hit the fairway, but did you feel like you hit your target? Did you hit left of your target, right of your target, how far are you hitting into the green and what's your lie like. Did you hit it past the hole, short of the hole, left of the hole, right of the hole. And really the left and right is more a left or right of your target. And putts, same thing. Did you miss it right, left, short, long, distance, uphill, downhill, tells you what kind of breaks, whether it's multi break, I mean it gets very detailed. And the good thing is after you get a certain amount of rounds in there, you can go to your stats ‑‑ and they have a bunch of bars on it. You literally can move the bars left or right and see what you need to improve on. And, I mean, you might move one bar and it might say you only save about .3 shots a round, but on another stat you can move it the same amount and you might save a shot. So it tells you really what you need to work on and what will help you save the most shots every tournament. And that's key to us on being able to dial down our distances. And not only that, but also dial down what we need to work on to be successful. Q. Are you entering all that data yourself? PATRICK REED: Yes. Usually I have Shot Link help me out, but I usually write a lot of it on my pin sheet as it is and when I go home, we'll get home this afternoon and I'll type in this round and see what it is I need to work on. Q. Q‑School here, 13 months ago, it's about a mile down the road, did you advance on the number or get your card on the number? PATRICK REED: We did. Q. Was there any ‑‑ what were those last few holes like? PATRICK REED: Had to make some birdies. I was like 130 something place after two rounds. And shot 18‑under the last four rounds to get in. I think I shot 4‑ or 5‑under that final round to do it. And that was probably the most nervous 3‑footer I ever had in my life on the last hole for par. But we made it, we made it through Q‑School. So it would be great to close off this week and win back here. Q. Was it a long 2‑putt on the last hole? PATRICK REED: Yeah, it was about probably 25, 30 feet. I coasted it down there down the hill to about three and made that. DOUG MILNE: All right, Patrick, congratulations on another great round and best of luck tomorrow. PATRICK REED: Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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