Brandt Snedeker Preview Press Conference Wyndham Championship 2024

okay we'll get started we'd like to welcome brand sneer into the interview room here at the Windom Championship it has just been announced a few minutes ago brand 2024 recipient of the PGA Tours pain Steward Award presented by Southern Company an award given for character sportsmanship and charitable giving can't think of a better player congratulations if we can yeah uh yeah thank you it's been uh still kind of feel humbled by The Experience um it's been something I've known for a couple weeks now and been hard to keep my mouth CU I'm so so excited about it but um it's uh something I kind of early on in my career I kind of circled to something I'd like to accomplish out here because fortunate enough my rookie year to go actually go to the paint Stewart award dinner on Tuesday night TOUR Championship my rookie year and saw um how suton get it that night and saw what it meant to him and how he it kind of affected him in such a positive way and um I went to it every year I played the Tour Championship and just saw these Heroes and icons of mine um kind of breaking down stage and and going through what they've given back in their communities and kind of reinforce what the tour is all about right about sportsmanship about affecting your your hometown your your your um having your foundation affecting your hometown in a positive way doing stuff the right the right way and so I always really thought highly of that and um you know my family's off from Springfield Missouri where pay was grew up and um I grew up a huge pain Stewart fan so having this kind of come full circle right now was really special and something I'm so proud of and and um kind of humbled by by to say the least well congratulations once again we received the award officially Tuesday of the Tour Championship and but now we'll move on to the Windom Championship making your 16th start at an event that I know you love our 2007 and 2018 Champion if we can get some comments on being back here at sedville yeah it's always a good feeling you know this week feels super special to me every year you know you always come back to a place you won the first time place I've won the last time and now to tie this award into it this week being announced I'm I'm super happy to be here in a great mine um obviously been a tough year for me on the golf course but I've been grinding and practicing hard and feel like I'm close to doing something really good and hoping all these things kind of line up this week for a good week for me and you know Lord willing the weather will not be as bad as forecasted and we can get it in and play 72 holes and have some fun all right good stuff we'll open it up to our questions we'll get a microphone to you yeah we'll start with John and then go to Kevin um the award is a lot about sportsmanship and things like that do you recall something maybe in your junior golf career or maybe when you're on as a professional where that really came to pass where you had to you know had to call your own penalty or something like that yeah you have you know being out here in tour or playing junior golf you always have things that pop up I remember my freshman my first year on tour was in the last trip of the Australian Open and I had a chance to win the golf tournament and uh was in the rough on the 16th hole and the ball moved I knew it moved my caddy saw it move and I remember telling my cat I was like you see that and he was like no I did not see that and I was like no it moved he's like dang it so I called a shot I end up losing by shot called Peno myself so that stuff happens on tour all the time and you know I'm a Bally in karma and so you know I don't want any bad karma on my side so I've always tried to play by the rules and um do stuff the right way and try to help people understand it's the way we play golf out here and um you just make sure make sure I do stuff the right way it's kind of the way my parents raised me and still believe that all right Kevin mention on your family having ties to Springfield Missouri what what are those ties when do yeah but my my dad's um from there grew up there my mom this college they been college at jewy College there in Springfield I still have family that lives there um my grandmother actually knew Payne Stewart's father and that's how she became a golf fan she didn't play golf and she's actually got me started in the game of golf so you know indirectly through Payne's father I kind of got playing golf in an early age I probably wouldn't have and so um really cool to have that kind of connection with him and um I got I talked to Tracy on the phone when I got the award which is really cool for me to spend some time with her and explain my story and what her husband meant to me growing up and so um probably one of my biggest regrets out here on tours I never got to meet him you know I wish I really could have I've gotten to do so many cool things in the game of golf and um meet all my icons pretty much and and he's the one I probably would have loved to have met the most and so um that's one thing I'll obviously never get to do but super special be have my name on his trophy when you think of him or what he brought to the game and kind of his flare in the moments what what comes to mind so much I mean he brought his personality you know I think the biggest thing I loved about pain was you you saw how he was feeling you saw him interage with the interact with the crowd um you saw how he loved the game of golf how how passionate he was about it and then also you saw what he was as a family man later on his life later on his career how much that meant to him and um you know I think of the sportsmanship I think of the rider cup at um I can't I think it was Brook line where he gave kin his last putt to lose the match um because he knew it wasn't it was the right thing to do like the crowd's gotten a little out of control at that point in the r was pretty much over so those are a few things that kind of stick out to me and um just uh just the way he lived his life and the way his passion for not only a game of golf but um for giving back and um for his family I think is what kind of resonates with me and um you your foundation's part of the Corn fairy Tour event in Nashville and you're a corn fairy tour Alum what's it mean to kind of be a part of that and support the young players yeah you know I feel like uh it was kind of a perfect fit for me you know I feel like uh the two years I spent out there on the corn fairy tour were so important to my development and just felt like Nashville needs to have an event and it lined up perfectly with what we believe in and trying to get back to our local community and giving these guys a chance to chase their dreams you know they're all one swing away one week away from changing their lives and being out here on tour and so to be part of that has been been super fun and getting to meet a lot of the young guys do it that way has been awesome are there any um kind of younger players that you've come across or mentored or been particularly impressed by the way whether it's their game or their approach to well I've got I'm so old now out here I've mentored a lot not mentored but I've been impressed by a ton of these guys games now you know these guys come out so much I remember the first time Xander when he first got his C card and saying okay this sounds different the way he hits the golf ball is way different than any I hear out here Scotty Sheffer lost our event in the playoff in Nashville um before he uh got his tour card and I remember see watching Scotty play just going gu like this guy's different he gets it high and far and not scared of anything and um so I've got to see all these guys grow up and and come out here on tour and be great young players so it's been you I got to play with seah theala a couple times last year and so impressed by his game and and what he can bring to the table and you I think it's just a great time for golf in America right now I really do I mean between will Wills Al tourus all these young guys we have on tour that are pushing the needle so far for us it's been awesome so it's definitely a kind of a what do you say about um the motivation that you have to keep grinding and keep getting after I don't like losing yeah so I don't like losing these guys you know they play differently than I do doesn't mean I can't play with them so you know injuries and all kinds of off the course stuff that kind of come in play last couple years so it's been nice this year to be injury-free in play and kind of feel like it's taking me a lot longer to get back to where I'm playing good but um I'm kind of ready to go now John does this place make it a little more comfortable for you I mean is this kind of the what you need it's amazing you know you there's a reason why tiger won nine times at Tory Pines and seven times at Memorial and all you go the same place because you get good feelings and you have good feelings of the places you tend to play well uh this place Pebble Beach for me Tory Pines they all have that feeling I seem to play well there every year so when you come to places like that and you have that good feelings going it makes golf a lot easier you're not stressing about as much stuff because you realize it it's come Thursday it's going to be fine you know how to play the golf course you know what it's going to take to win you know it's take to be successful around here and just to go out there and execute it you look at your I've passed it once this week already yeah it's nice to see it I I can remember the round pretty clearly I'm not that old yet I still remember that it wasn't too long ago but uh yeah it's good a lot of good Mo Joe let's go back to Kevin and then in terms of the grown up in the game you mentioned your grandma could you kind of reflect a little bit on that what what that looked like how old you were and kind of where yeah I was six years old when I got my first set of Club she gave him to me my dad had played a little bit of golf but not a ton and uh she was just obsessed she didn't play but she was obsessed and so um I went to stay with her one summer in West Plains Missouri a little small town outside Springfield and she uh got me playing and just kind of I came home and just fell in love with it and made my dad take me on the weekends and kind of grew from there and so um just you know through that one little Act of getting me a set of golf clubs or and that one little interaction she had with pay dad kind of started this whole process so um it's kind of cool now to see it you know 37 years later to be sitting here in front of you and being at that War means a ton to me and pay is someone who he had a little mid-career L and then kind of found it and rejiggered his mind a little bit and got to that level again what do you think that says about golf that you can really have these yeah I mean you saw it last year with Lucas Glover I mean Lucas had a was struggling all a sudden at John Deere he played great one one here and um you know it can just happen that quick you know and so it's it's why I love theame game you know you're never out of it you're you're never as bad as you think you are you're never as good as you think you are you're some always somewhere in the middle so um I'm trying to give myself a lot of Grace this year and say man this has been a long year for you but I practice hard I'm ready to go and I'm waiting for that kind of good role to come and when it does I'll be ready to take advantage of it all right let's go to Steph we've seen some kids that you've mentored or who have played sneds tour yeah um kind of go on and make their first tour starts how fulfilling is that to see versus like personal Career Success can't wait for a kid to get his tour card that's played on SNS tour growing up you know it's the same Juni tour I grew on playing up um so to have a kid like blades Brown who made a start this year made a cut on PJ tour who played on our tour um is really cool to know that you know I didn't have anything to do with it that he was going to do it whether that tour was there around or not but to have him have opportunity to play when he's a super young golfer and compete and teach him some core values about what we believe is really cool and to take it from there and for him to grow the way he has has been awesome to watch and I can't wait for more young guys and young girls to go go on to play college golf and professional golf off that tour it's been really cool to see and super fulfilling something I didn't really know what I was getting into when I did it I just doing it because I thought it was the right thing to do and um been blown away by the amount of parents and kids have come up to me thanking me for doing that and um it's been awesome because I you know to have 2200 kids playing on your junior golf tour and playing 212 events or something this year it's crazy to think about and so um it's been a great thing for our state and for junior golfers around around around our state even outside of our state they travel in to play it all right anything else all right with brand once again on behalf of everyone in this room congratulations we couldn't be happier appr thank