.
Q. What does it mean to be back in Colorado given your roots? I know you haven't lived here for a bit, but what does it mean to come back here?
BRANDT JOBE: This was a big one for me because I don't know how many more I'm going to be playing. Obviously I'm getting up there in age. To be able to come back here, this one, I had to qualify, so I actually did it in Colorado Springs, too, so I picked the last spot and did the qualifying. This one for me, this was important to get here.
I enjoyed it so much the last time I was here. It was so difficult, and it was a great venue. The tournament was fantastic.
You don't know how many more times you're going to get to play in Colorado and do that, so this was big for me.
Q. (Indiscernible) playoff to get here?
BRANDT JOBE: I did. It was a 4 for 3, and you figure you got pretty good odds there, but I made it really difficult.
Q. How difficult?
BRANDT JOBE: I had to make a 20-footer for par on my second playoff hole, while he had a two-footer, just to stay in it. And then I beat him on the next hole.
Q. Given what you did seven years ago here, do you have any high expectations going into the week?
BRANDT JOBE: I think when you play in these events, you can't have, like, the big expectations because there's so many variables. Am I going to get a good draw? Is the wind going to blow? How is it going to be?
It's so tough. There's a premium on every ball strike.
But I figured here I have a little more knowledge than most. I've played here so many times, had success the last time I was here.
With all that, I like my odds better, but these venues, it's hard to predict how you're going to play because there's so many variables. It's the whole game. You can't just have a week where I'm putting good. If I don't hit a fairway, it doesn't matter how good I'm playing.
That's why this is kind of the complete package, and this course is going to test you because those greens are very difficult, and you saw the rough yesterday. It's difficult. It's going to be a challenge.
But I look forward to it. I've done this enough that, hey, it's fun to try, fun to see what happens.
Q. Is it easy to adjust for the altitude for someone that's grown up here?
BRANDT JOBE: I do it a little differently than everybody else does with sea level. Everybody else is adding it up, I'm already ready to go. I kind of know how my clubs go anyway. A lot hasn't changed. Then how everybody has their way of percentages and the way I look at it maybe is a little bit different, but that's just for me.
Q. How many rounds do you think you've played here?
BRANDT JOBE: I was just asked that. I've got to say it's at least 50 rounds, maybe more.
Q. That gives you some comfort level, obviously?
BRANDT JOBE: Yeah, the hard thing is, sure, you know the golf course, you know the greens and how things break, but we didn't play it in five-inch rough and the greens were rolling at times 15. Yesterday I had never seen it that fast.
First of all, one of my buddies hits it about 20 feet, and I watched him hit it two feet, and I watched it go 20 yards off the green. I'm like, they'd better do something, something is happening. Today they were a little slower.
But I think having local knowledge of knowing how the ball is going to fly, what you're going to see, how I've played the course in the past, that helps. But then it comes down to the variables. You're going to hit fairways, you're going to hit greens, you're going to get some good lies and bad lies.
There's a lot of luck in this, too. There's a lot to it. But I figure I've got probably a little better start than most here.
Q. Can you walk us through the injuries the last couple years?
BRANDT JOBE: It's stunk. It's been horrible. It's been almost to the point of depressing. I had hip surgery at the end of 2022. I did it at The Steadman Clinic by Dr. Philippon, and what he told me is in four months you're going to be ready to go. So I quit playing out here in September, didn't play the last eight events in order to get the surgery to be ready to go in 2023.
First of all, I came out of the surgery, and I had to have shoulder surgery from my hip surgery. You guys figure that out. I'm going to leave that to you.
Q. A labrum or something?
BRANDT JOBE: Things didn't -- I tore my shoulder apart. They ripped it apart. Came out of the surgery screaming. They subluxed my collarbone, too. So I was having all the problems with here and nothing here.
After eight weeks, you go up, come back; now I know I've got to have shoulder surgery. I was like, I tried to play a couple events, that didn't work out very well, and ended up getting the shoulder surgery. Tried to get the rehab for the hip, never went. Hip never worked.
To walk, tried to play again, and at the beginning of 2024, and I had to walk up -- I couldn't walk. Now I ripped my left hip apart. So I went to a different gentleman in Dallas, Dr. Scheinberg, and had my left hip done. I was perfect.
I mean, I'm literally in eight weeks, I felt great. Now, that was early, but I was playing in three months.
Problem is is during that left hip surgery I had to do rehab and I had to sit on my right and I couldn't do it. So we did an MRI and found out I had a ton of scar tissue in my right hip. And he said, Well, I can probably make your right hip a little bit better, but I don't think you're ever going to be perfect.
So I went down there and I said, let's clean it up, let's do it. I woke up and he's sitting on my bed stand, he goes, We just hit a home run. I said, What do you mean? He said inside the joint he had put a screw and the screw had backed out, so you've been tearing up the inner part of your hip for two years and no one knew it.
So now I've gotten healthy. So I've had right hip surgery, left hip surgery, right hip surgery, right shoulder surgery. I was only supposed to go in and have right hip surgery. That was supposed to be done in three months. Simple.
Q. How is the hip connected to the shoulder?
BRANDT JOBE: It's not, so that's a great question. I can't get an answer to that one, either.
Q. You literally came out of surgery --
BRANDT JOBE: With a subluxed collarbone and my shoulder torn apart.
You ask the questions, what happened. I obviously have a pretty good idea now doing my research what happened, but you can't get people to be honest, and that was disappointing. You go to the best place -- and I'll say this right here, but I went to the best place in the country, the best doctor in the world to do what I was doing to do because of what I do for a living and walked out with him not even talking to me anymore. And that's pathetic.
I would tell you, I would tell everybody. I would never go there again. You're numbered. Because there's 20 professional athletes a week walking through there. 19 of them do well and you don't? No one picked up the phone to see how I was doing.
Believe me, I've talked to him just recently and told him -- I was embarrassed with him, and I'll say that right now, you took two years of my life, my golf, and I'm not even the same person I was. Is that fair?
The thing was, at the time, I think I was 10th or 12th on the Money List, I'm playing some of the best golf I've played in my career. So you just took two years away from me, and I've spent this whole year trying to figure out how to play because my right hip doesn't work, it's so loose. So when I go to swing, everything wants to fall here and I can't get back. I never had that problem before.
I will say to you all, it's really pissed me off, and people there have really pissed me off. I'll tell you what, I didn't get what I paid for, let's put it that way. I got a hell of a lot more in the wrong way.
Q. Was there one blessing being able to see your son more?
BRANDT JOBE: I did get to do some things with my son. That has been a blessing, so we will say that. I got to go through all the process, everything he's gone through, a lot of Minor League games I was showing up.
I can tell you I was in Erie, Pennsylvania, it was 28 degrees, I had full rain gear, everything, hats on, and he's pitching and I'm going, This is pretty cool. There was about 20 people watching, but I was one of them. It's tough. Erie was a tough one with the weather because you get right off the lake until it got warm.
Grand Rapids was really great because they supported that place so incredibly well. Then Lakeland, Florida, I went down, south Tampa and everything, your skin was going to melt off and he's out there pitching. We've done it all. But got a lot nicer going up to Detroit and got to go in the Playoffs and watch that, and then this year unfortunately he had Tommy John last week, Monday morning in Dallas, so I was there for that.
That's inevitable for someone that throws 100 miles an hour and does it for six innings, stays above 95. It's going to happen. I said, Hey, you made it four and a half years in the pros and you got Tommy John. He's got a lot to learn.
I think his group will tell you some things changed in what he used to do in the last year, and hopefully he's going to learn and be better from it.
Q. You skipped the Senior Open and did the draft, right?
BRANDT JOBE: Yeah, I figured I was only going happen one time and then I was going to get to play again. I forgot about that.
Q. Given your injuries, do you have some advice for him?
BRANDT JOBE: Yeah, I always say, Here's the deal. I told him this, If this is what you decide to do for a living, I'm going to tell you what, there's a ton of talent just like there is in golf, and it's how hard you want to work, what sacrifices you want to make for yourself that other people aren't willing to make because there's just so much talent, and I think golf is the same way.
You're married to the sport, so to speak, and I told him that. I said, You've got to outwork everybody. It was kind of cool because being with the Tigers he got to hear a lot about Scherzer and Verlander, and the one thing he heard is they outworked everybody.
I think if people go ask, he's always in that gym, and he's huge. He's 6'3" and 230. Where did that come from?
Q. That happened during COVID, because he was throwing 90 and he was going to go to Ole Miss, then all of a sudden he hit 97 --
BRANDT JOBE: That's the honest to God truth. The beginning of his high school season, I guess it would have been the fall swing, in February, they got one game against the biggest high school, kid who's actually throwing for the Cubs right now.
Q. Oh, Horton?
BRANDT JOBE: Horton. Got a couple base hits off him, and I was like -- and he threw, but he hit 90, and it was pretty constant 90. We were like, okay, great. I guess that would have been his sophomore -- junior year.
Then everything got shut down because of COVID. So he said, You know what I'm going to do, Dad? I'm going to go in the weight room. I'm going to go work out, I'm going to get big. I've got some people. So he got a guy that trained baseball players and all that, and he came out of there and he put on literally about 30 pounds of muscle and he went from about 165 to about 195.
So he played in that perfect game during COVID. I was still there, but we were starting up in a week, so I said, I can go if we go a week early. Come on, Dad, let's go.
So we go down there and he plays short, third, because that's what he's going to do with Ole Miss. I thought, okay, this went well, a couple base hits, BP looked good, he hit a few out. And I was like, all right, this looks good.
They said, Hey -- after the first day they took about 25, 30 kids underneath, and they came over and they said, Hey, can he pitch an inning? Watching these kids throw 94, 95 miles an hour. I said, that's up to him if he wants to. They said, We're out of starters so we need a guy for the eighth inning. I said, If he says fine, it's fine.
So he did. And he's warming up, and I'm thinking, I hope he squeezes a 90 out. The first pitch came out at 97.1 miles an hour. It was the fastest pitch he's ever thrown. And I'm like, oh, my God, and there was no one behind the screen watching. By the end of that inning, everyone was right there. He calls and goes, Dad, they want me to throw another one. I said, I kind of figured.
It was down in Alabama at Hoover Stadium where they play the SEC Championship, and I thought it was pretty cool to hit one out there, but that wasn't as cool as what he did pitching. Then they had TrackMan up there and it was popping off at 3,300, 3,200, and I hear some scouts going, yeah, it must be broken. I go, I do know he spins it hard.
That was it. Changed his life. He went from being maybe a shortstop, third baseman, something like that, they said maybe he'd go in the fifth, sixth, seventh round to we walked out of there like he's going to go in the top three rounds. I'm like, how? He was kind of a closer in high school. He'd come in if they got up, and he threw hard. 90. All of a sudden it was 97. Then in high school his senior year it was 100.
I'm watching these kids and thinking, that was me trying to hit -- there was no way. I stood in on it a few times. Oh, my God, it's crazy. I don't know where it came from. I guess he's living my dream because that was my original dream.
Q. Were you a pitcher?
BRANDT JOBE: I did the same thing, I pitched, played short and third. But obviously I didn't have the size. And I threw it hard, I had a good arm, but not like what he does. It's impressive.
Q. What's been more rewarding, you winning a PGA tournament or your son making his debut in the big leagues?
BRANDT JOBE: That was unbelievable. I was sitting up there and I was so nervous. They've got the dang camera on us, and I didn't know that but they did tell us they would. That's as nervous as I've ever been because here's the deal. It can go one of two ways. If it goes bad, you lose a lot of confidence and then that next outing is going to be that much harder, and if you go out there and you do what you're supposed to do, that's what everyone expects.
He threw nine pitches and seven strikes and it was pretty simple, so that was good.
But he's learning a lot. There is a lot to learn in baseball, and being a starter pitcher, your routine changes. You go six or seven days, now it's every fifth day, how do I get my body ready. Then all of a sudden they give him an off week, now all of a sudden his body gets all screwed up, and you've got some soreness, and there you go.
Q. What's tougher, being a parent watching your kid pitch in the big leagues or having a five- or ten-foot putt to win --
BRANDT JOBE: I can miss those. But watching him, that makes me -- it's still hard. Now it's kind of cool because you get -- but I don't miss a start. Even if I'm out playing, and I'll tell him, man, I'm not going to catch it but I'll catch it tonight. And then we call each other, and I get to hear how did the day go. I tell him, Here's the deal. You're going to learn so much more from when you pitch bad than when you pitch good, and just remember that because when you pitch good, you did everything right. It's like playing and going out and shooting 65. You don't learn a lot. But when you shoot 80, you sure do and you're out on that range working your tail off. So I said, remember that. Not all outings are supposed to go good because they don't for anybody.
He's getting some life lessons. He's growing up. He's going to learn a lot in this next year. He's up training in Detroit, so he'll be in the locker room with everybody and he'll be there trying to keep him with this team. It's a very young team.
I told him you're going to get what you put out of it. How hard do you want to work?
But I talked to the doctor when he was out, he said, Man, he's going to be back fast, but I'm going to tell him 14 months.
But I think he'll be -- they think he'll be throwing in December and he'll be with his guy working on motion, and I think come Spring Training, about that time you'll start seeing some decent velocity. And once you get into the first couple months, he'll be getting close is my guess.
Now, they have really taken it easy on him, so I don't know how hard they'll push or what they'll do. They could use him right now; they're playing so dang good, but guys are getting hurt.
Q. It was right after you qualified that the news came out that he was going -- you had spent all that time going back.
BRANDT JOBE: I kind of knew. This had gone on longer, and you know what's going on.
No, I think it's part of sports now. The demand to hit it so hard, to swing so fast, to throw it so hard, to run so fast, your bodies aren't capable, and they're going to break down. These young kids that are swinging -- I'm watching the ball speeds that I'm seeing right now. I don't know that they make it to the Champions Tour because your body, it's not meant to do that. It's just not meant to do it.
So the question is -- we're going to find out here in the next five or ten years how these young kids do because you're not meant to hit it 320, 330, 340 in the air like they are, and you've got to support it. They're all working out. I remember high school, there's the gym, you're not going there, you're going -- they thought that restricted you so we didn't ever do that. It'll be interesting to see where golf goes.
Q. Was there a point you weren't sure you were going to play again after the hip?
BRANDT JOBE: I've had a few of those. Yeah, this one -- I thought I was basically done.
The finger thing was a tough one, trying to figure out -- you'll see I tape my glove because I don't have any feeling in this finger or this finger so I tape it up and it creates --
Q. Creates the tension?
BRANDT JOBE: This one, I didn't think the hip -- I'll be honest, I've played horrible this year, and I haven't been able to figure out how this -- I'm kind of getting closer to playing a little bit of golf again, but this hip won't support, so when I turn, it wants to just -- I have so much movement in it, it wants to collapse, and then I'm hitting hard right and hard left, and I've been doing that all year.
Kind of the last few weeks it's kind of starting to narrow up and get a little better. I played solid last week. I made a lot of bonehead mistakes, so that's good. It wasn't physical, it was mental. Eliminate the mental mistakes, and that's what this is. This is a big mental contest out here. You're going to make a lot of bogeys. You're going to get punched and you've just got to take it. You're going to get a lot of bad breaks, too.
Q. You were on the '88 national team?
BRANDT JOBE: I was.
Q. Who else was on that team?
BRANDT JOBE: No one that's playing golf --
Q. Ken --
BRANDT JOBE: Ken wasn't there yet. Scott McCarron, he was on the team, but he didn't play.
Q. It was announced this morning he's coming back, the Senior Open in --
BRANDT JOBE: I heard, '31 and '37. I'm not going to make it to '31 I don't think, not unless someone wants to give me some love. But I think it's great. It's great for Colorado. Having these events is obviously very important to all our golf calendars, so to speak. I think getting to see Castle Pines have the BMW was huge. Cherry Hills having the U.S. Amateur, I think that kind of keeps us relative here. We have some great golf courses, and people kind of forget because it's got to be so long.
I think that keeps us relevant in the golf world, and you can play -- you can make a course competitive for the pros without it being 8,000 yards, which I think is important, too.
Q. Do you have a favorite memory of golf being in Colorado? You won a crazy amount growing up --
BRANDT JOBE: A favorite memory? You know, probably the thing I remember the most was when I played in the -- I guess it was the stroke play up in Applewood Golf club, which probably doesn't exist anymore. I think I shot 63 in one of the rounds. I don't know if it was the first or last or whatever. But I won by a bunch, and I thought, wow, this is pretty cool, and that memory has never left. It was pretty cool.
Q. How old were you then?
BRANDT JOBE: I don't know, I must have been 16 or 17.
Q. So you were in high school at that point?
BRANDT JOBE: Mm-hmm, yeah. So that was kind of the start of, maybe I can do this. That was something that everybody -- oh, my gosh. Kind of made me a little more special, so I guess that's kind of a big memory that I have.
Q. Did you sign with UCLA not long after that?
BRANDT JOBE: You know, I didn't go on a scholarship. Everyone told me I was crazy.
Q. You're kidding, just wanted to go to school there?
BRANDT JOBE: Well, I had an opportunity, they gave me a spot on the team. Then the next four years I had almost a full ride. So it worked out good.
Q. And won a national championship.
BRANDT JOBE: And won a national championship. I bet on myself, and it worked out.
Q. Are you living in Denver now?
BRANDT JOBE: No, I'm in Oklahoma City now, of all places.
Q. How long has it been since you lived in Colorado?
BRANDT JOBE: I left in 1999. But my mom and dad still live here, my brother lives here, my sister lives here. We're still back some. I see my parents more in Arizona. Can I come stay? They say, Sure, come on down.
But it's changed a lot. I can't believe just driving from the airport up here on I-25, it blows me away because I just haven't seen it -- I haven't been back here and made that drive for five or six, seven years when we had the tournament here last. This place is growing like crazy.
Q. What time do you play tomorrow?
BRANDT JOBE: We're going, I think, right around 8:30 for a practice round tomorrow. Hopefully our weather will get nice.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports