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WASTE MANAGEMENT PHOENIX OPENJanuary 28, 2014J.B. HolmesSCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome J.B. Holmes. J.B., thanks for joining us. Two wins on the PGA TOUR. Both came right here in 2006 and 2008. I guess you're making your second start of the '13/'14 season after a top 25 finish at Torrey Pines last week. With that being said, just a couple of comments on being back here at TPC Scottsdale. J.B. HOLMES: It's always fun to come back here. Obviously I have a lot of great memories. Just getting the season started after a year off, I decided to be back. Last week was fun, so looking forward to, you know, keep going and having some more fun this week. THE MODERATOR: You're fully healed? You had the left ankle issue last year. J.B. HOLMES: Yeah, I'm pretty much, you know, 95%. I'm pretty much where I need to be, so I feel good, I feel healthy. Ready to get a full year of being in healthy for sure. THE MODERATOR: We'll take a few questions. Q. How long did you actually not touch a club? Walk us through that whole process. J.B. HOLMES: Probably close to six months maybe, five or six months, something like that. Q. What was the recovery process? J.B. HOLMES: Well, originally I broke my ankle, and so that took four weeks before I started putting weight on it, started working out and doing a lot of rehab. I had tennis elbow after my brain surgery, developed that, and I have been fighting that for a few years. It was still hurting pretty bad. I ended up having surgery on my arm too just to go ahead and get that fixed. Kind of when my ankle was getting better I ended up having that surgery and took another couple of months before I could really start chipping and gradually got on from there. Just a lot of rehab. Sometimes I was doing ‑‑I had a trainer and was doing rehab three times a day sometimes, going somewhere and doing that for a little while. Luckily that was only a few weeks. I got tired real quick. Q. How difficult was it to go through that whole process, the fact that you couldn't do what your livelihood demands? J.B. HOLMES: You know, it was what it was. I knew I wasn't going to play for a while. Actually, you know, it was actually a pretty good break just to get away from golf for a little while. It's been so much of my life, play and play and play. As long as the seasons are here, you don't get a break very much. I just tried to look at it getting a break, get away, recharge the batteries. A lot of stuff had to be done to get ready to get back, so I worked hard the whole time and was ready to come back. Q. What did you do besides rehab? J.B. HOLMES: Not much else. Pretty much was working out or doing rehab. That was pretty much filling up my day. And I got married, so I got remarried and I got to spend time with my wife for a year not traveling. That was nice. Then once I could start swinging and stuff, I was doing that, but I lived in one spot for a whole year. That was nice. I hadn't done that before (smiling). Q. So if you're at 95%, is that 95% of the ankle? J.B. HOLMES: No, it's probably on the arm. The ankle is probably ‑‑it's probably about 95% on both of them. Q. So with your swing, can you swing full out or do you have to throttle it back a bit? J.B. HOLMES: Yeah, I can. I can hit it ‑‑the other day I was hitting 120 on my swing speeds, which was pretty much what it was when I left, so, I mean, it's there. I've just got to be careful, and, you know, I have to ice my arm and a lot of precautions, stuff like that. It's more, you know, preventive stuff right now, not really as it's injured or weak, you know what I'm saying? I just have to take care of it and make sure it doesn't come back. I'm just trying to be careful that way. Q. Sometimes after you come back to the game even after a couple of weeks, the first couple of swings it's almost like you've never played before. What was it like coming back after brain surgery for that period of time? J.B. HOLMES: Brain surgery was a lot different than this. You know, brain surgery, my neck muscles were real tight and I couldn't turn my head, do full shoulder turns. It affected my golf swing a lot more than this did. By the time I was really ready to come back and hitting balls, my ankle was solid. I wasn't too worried about that. I eased into it. With the arm, I really didn't touch anything for a while. When I came back I started hitting on tees before I really impacted the ground. My swing, I had to swing easy for a while, so I didn't feel anything was wrong with my swing. It was definitely a lot easier to come back from this than it was swing‑wise from the brain surgery. Q. Didn't feel new in any sense. It was the old comfortable swing you could come back to? J.B. HOLMES: Yeah. Once you do something for 30 years, it never really feels old. Q. Was there any caution about getting bad habits with any of the pain when you came back? J.B. HOLMES: I mean, there's always that. I had my swing instructor come down a little bit and look, but, you know, I was hitting the ball really good, you know, starting out, hit everything really straight. You know, some of the problems that I had before, controlling my club face a little bit, my right arm, I think the surgery weakened up my arm a little bit, made it more ‑‑I've been right‑hand dominant my whole life, so I had a lot better club face control, actually. Actually, the surgery might have been a great thing for me because it fixed a few things I struggled with so far. So I have been hitting, ever since I started back, I have been hitting it great the whole time. Really haven't had the issues that I had before, and, you know, taking a year off, I worked with my swing instructor, Matt Killen, and learned a lot of stuff. I feel really prepared. And when I mishit a shot now, I understand it a lot more what I did and what was going on. I'm able to fix it pretty easy. Q. When was the last time you Rollerbladed? J.B. HOLMES: March 8. That was the last time. (Laughter). Q. So where did you get ready for the season, living in Kentucky? J.B. HOLMES: I live in Florida. I live in Orlando. I live at Isleworth. So I was practicing there, working out there. Yeah, Kentucky, it's pretty tough to practice too much in the winter. Q. Do you have still have the Rollerblades? J.B. HOLMES: I don't know. They're probably ‑‑I probably tried to give them to somebody. Q. On the golf course, if you were to describe the 16th hole to people and to only use one word, what word would you use? J.B. HOLMES: Arena. I mean, I think this is the only place you can ever get that feeling where, you know, a football player or basketball player has that feeling all the time and there is a stadium and the arena is around you. You get that, you know, that professional feel. That's the only time you ever get it here in golf. So it's a different experience, for sure. Q. Off the top of your head, is there a funny instance that happened to you or somebody in your group the last few years? J.B. HOLMES: Just a bunch of yelling. (Smiling). It's a fun hole. I can't really think of one thing or one experience that really comes out. But it's definitely an experience every time you come up to that hole, for sure. Q. Everybody wants to talk about the 16th hole, but the finishing stretch of 17 and 18 can be tough. Talk about that and how important that is versus the attention that 15/16 gets. J.B. HOLMES: I mean, any of the last holes coming into the tournament is definitely important, so, you know, this stretch is actually‑‑ you know, it's unique. A lot of stuff can happen with. You know, 16 is not really a long hole, and you can definitely make a birdie there. 15 is a chance where you can definitely make an eagle. 17, if you drive it on the green, definitely hit a eagle but you could hit it in the water and make a double. Same with the par‑5, if you miss the green on 16 in the wrong spot, it's a hard up‑and‑down. 18 there is water and bunkers. So it's a really good finishing hole. You can have somebody go out there and finish strong and shoot 2, 3, 4‑Under on the last several holes and have somebody hit in the water and finish 3 or 4‑Over. You can see big swings there. It's exciting. Every hole is important, but these are good finishing holes, a lot of fun. Anything can happen. THE MODERATOR: Your two wins coming here, do you find yourself getting a lot of maybe extra attention, "JB" yells from the crowds? J.B. HOLMES: Yeah, I won here a couple of times. You know, I'm very fortunate that the fans remember me and I get a little bit more cheers than maybe some other places. It's always nice to come back. THE MODERATOR: Last question. In light of your brain surgery and so forth, do you find a lot of people picking up on your story? I know at the Deutsche Bank I introduced you to the kid who had the same exact surgery, same thing. Is there a community of people that maybe heard about your story that have picked up on it? J.B. HOLMES: Yeah, there has been several people. It's been more prominent than I thought maybe it was. So there is a lot of people that seemed to have it, so it's nice to get out there and show people you can come back from it, that it doesn't really have the, you know, to change the way your life is. Luckily I didn't have it severely. Some people have it really severely, almost impossible to come back to get to 100% or wherever before they had the symptoms. Hopefully, you know, people can look up at me and have hope and that they can fight through it, and hopefully they are successful with it. You know, maybe I can be somebody to look up to or look at and maybe go into it and have hope, I guess. Q. Was there any aftereffect, any lingering effect from the surgery and the condition? Does it affect you in terms of golf or lifestyle in any way? J.B. HOLMES: The brain surgery? Q. Yeah. J.B. HOLMES: My neck muscles will get a little bit tight. You know, I have to keep those loose. Other than that, a six‑inch scar in the back of my head, not really. THE MODERATOR: You still have the piece of your skull? J.B. HOLMES: Yeah, it's still at home. THE MODERATOR: Best of luck this week. We appreciate you coming. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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