THE MODERATOR: Let's welcome the team of Crushers GC. You come into the final event of the regular season sitting third in the standings. With Dean's win last week tightening the race for the podium, how are you approaching this week, and are you keeping an eye on any players who could challenge you for a top-3 spot?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, absolutely. First off, it's great to be here. Second off, I put myself in a solid position for the podium. I've done it for the past few years and want to finally get on that podium. That would be awesome to do.
I had a chance last week to win and have a chance to win the overall, but it didn't happen. It is what it is.
But this week, I'm focused on my own game, hitting the best shots I can for the team, and hopefully getting on the team podium as well.
Q. Just on the team, Crushers are currently second in the team standings. All four of your guys are currently safe in the lock zone heading into this week. What does that say about the strength and depth of this team?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, that we're pretty good. That's why we built this team, and that's why we were able to play so well this year. Proud of the boys for how they competed all year. Would we have liked to have won more? Yeah. I think each one of these guys would have wanted to win an individual title, and maybe that's this week, albeit we'll give each other a tough bout for it.
I think ultimately that's what makes our team so great is we're trying to win -- each person is trying to win every single week, and they have the ability to win each and every week. That's why it's so special. That's why we are who we are.
I couldn't be more proud of the way that they have worked their butt off and grinded to be the best they possibly can be.
Q. Paul, you've had a solid season; you're 12th in the standings, your best finish being the T2 in Dallas. How would you sum up your year and what would it mean to break into the top 10 this week?
PAUL CASEY: It's been an interesting season because I came into the beginning of the year off a surgery in September on my right toe, big toe, and so a lot of unknowns coming into this year, getting through the beginning half of the season. I was actually just happy hitting a golf ball the way I was and able to compete. It's interesting how quickly that changes and your goals shift.
I think you've seen -- if you look at my results, how things have escalated in the last few weeks because I'm truly now fit. It's kind of frustrating with it coming to a close. I'd like to keep going.
But still haven't won out here, which is a goal of mine, but I'm really happy with my game. It's mixed. Deep down, I don't think I'm ever satisfied. That's kind of part of my makeup. So we've got one more opportunity this week to kind of try to fix that if I can and win, and then obviously my attention is going to shift very rapidly into next week with the team.
You talk about -- you asked Bryson the question about the team and our success this year, but I think right now most of us, or certainly from my angle, I would give up even another team win this week in order to be successful next week as a team because having tasted victory as a team and then we got dispatched last year by the Iron Heads pretty swiftly, I think we've got unfinished business.
Q. Anirban and Charles, sort of a similar question for you both. You're 23rd and 24th in the individual standings just within that lock zone. How much is securing that top-24 spot this week on your mind, and what would it mean to achieve that this week?
CHARLES HOWELL III: I think what's on at least my mind - I can't speak for Baan - is just to play good golf. It's weird to think actually there's only one more event left after this. The season seems to wrap up really quick with three in a row.
You obviously want to play great as an individual and as a team this week, but obviously our focus is probably on the Team Championship next week. Having won one of those, man, that's a really cool feeling.
I'd love to do that. Two new venues this week and next. The golf course here is awesome. It's actually in very good shape. Played it a couple times.
Yeah, it's going to be a great finish to the individual season, obviously, this year when Bryson gets a win this year and tries to make things interesting on that.
But I think our team has all played awesome golf this year and we want to keep on doing it.
Q. Baan, same question for you.
ANIRBAN LAHIRI: If I look back at my season, it's been up and down quite a bit. I started playing a little bit better in the middle of the season and then I've felt like I've taken my foot off the gas the last few weeks, so I take my performances very seriously, very personally. My goal this week is to just get into contention on Sunday.
I kind of know where I sit inside the lock zone, but my thoughts and my focus is just on playing my best this week, sticking to my processes, my goals, and all the things that I've done well over the last few years that have allowed me to be competitive and get into situations or positions where I could win, and that's literally the only thing on my mind for the next four or five days.
I don't have to talk about my teammates. They're phenomenal golfers, and our record shows that we know what we're doing.
My focus remains firmly on what I need to do and how I need to contribute to the team, and that's by playing my best golf. That's literally the only thing that I'm thinking about, and then, like Paul said, it's going to be an overnight shift. You go to sleep on Sunday, and on Monday you don't play for yourself anymore. That's going to be interesting.
We haven't had the best record the last few years, so that's something we want to change. But yeah, whatever comes comes. Just staying in the present right now.
Q. Do you remember the top speed you got to at the speedway when you made the visit a few weeks ago?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Oh, my goodness, no. It was close to 200 something miles an hour, something like that. It was close to 200 miles an hour from what I remember. I can't specifically remember what it was, but it was around there.
Q. What's the fastest you have been in your own car?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I can't say.
No, I'm safe. I'm definitely safe.
Q. The reason I ask is I was curious if it gave you a feel for what your golf ball might --
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Oh, yes, that's the truth. When it's upwards of close to 200 miles an hour -- what's crazy about those cars, too, is when you're turning corners, you feel like you're just going straight into the wall, and then all of a sudden you hit into the ground, like the aerodynamics, and they push the car into the ground and you feel the ground even more.
It's like -- it's something I've never experienced before and I didn't know how to describe it fully, but you almost get more stable the faster it goes, which is really cool because when we went into the chute, we're tail whipping the thing and then all of a sudden it just locks down, and that's part of the aerodynamics of it, which is really cool.
It just gets my physics brain going, which is really cool. But just to experience that, that's honestly for me a once in a lifetime experience. I don't know when I would do that again. I could try to do it again, but I'd also like to go up in a jet, that would be fun, with the Thunderbirds or something like that. I'd probably throw up, but it would be fun.
Q. Can you take anything like that when you do something like that to drive and use it somehow, figure out a way to benefit your golf game?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I'd just say from a mental state, the focus level -- I'm not driving the car, so if I was driving the car, it would be even more heightened, but obviously going into fight-or-flight mode, I could sense that adrenaline get from the guy in front of me being a driver of knowing I've got to turn now. Every single second matters. It's the same thing on the golf course when you're checking the wind and hitting a golf shot, every second matters and you've got to be very attentive to your environment and what you're doing.
I think I can relate to it like that. Outside of that, I don't know how they keep focused or four hours in their own way driving a car. It's just crazy what they do.
Q. I'm just curious what you think the most Bryson thing Bryson has done this year.
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: What a great question, by the way. Paul, what do you got? Here we go.
PAUL CASEY: I'll take a rain check on that. I'll give you an answer, follow up at some other point.
ANIRBAN LAHIRI: All I'm going to say is flashback to Mexico where he played really well, and we are playing at altitude and the ball is going a thousand miles, and he's just got the biggest smile on his face because he's driving it great. He's hitting his shots and it's not moving much. He's like, this is what I want; I want my golf ball to always fly at 9,000 feet. I'm like, Bryson, you realize how stupid you sound when you say that. He's like, no, I know I can do it.
Then he goes to Korea where it's super humid, sea level and he wins. I said, now you realize how stupid you sounded. But now he's got a golf ball that does something that he wants, just to give you an example that he does Bryson things where he is able to perform at 9,000 feet, at sea level, but his brain never stops. And it's almost like -- there's nothing you can do.
But that's how these new products come out. So hat's off to him for developing constantly. Whether he needs it or not is another question, because I just gave you an example.
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I need a lot of help, Baan.
ANIRBAN LAHIRI: No, but that's a different -- an example.
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I am testing or just messing around with a Tour Professional 100 today, as a 30-year-old golf ball.
ANIRBAN LAHIRI: Of course. That's exactly what he needs. He needs a 30-year-old golf ball. You know what I mean?
CHARLES HOWELL III: That's a college ball. That was college.
ANIRBAN LAHIRI: Yeah, yeah, 30 years old. There you go, 1995.
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: What was the first golf ball you played with?
CHARES HOWELL III: I think Tour Balata?
PAUL CASEY: If you get a hold of Tour Balatas. Tour Balatas were like gold dust. I'm old enough to remember 162s, Penfolds wrapped up in paper, persimmon drivers.
CHARLES HOWELL III: When was the Tour Prestige? Was that after the Tour Balata?
PAUL CASEY: Sorry, we've gone off the rails here.
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: That's just shown me how old you are.
PAUL CASEY: You guys saw me playing with a persimmon driver at JCB, the practice rounds.
ANIRBAN LAHIRI: I'll give you another perspective. I grew up in India where you couldn't get golf balls, so the nicest golf ball I could play with was a Top Flite XL.
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Oh, wow.
ANIRBAN LAHIRI: Nothing wrong with it, but you couldn't get anything else new. We had to actually wait for pro tournaments to come in. The old pros would leave their golf balls, and then we'd go and buy it used. That was the only way I could get a decent golf ball, just to give you a completely different perspective of, oh, this is not good enough for me. That's how I grew up.
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: No, that gives great perspective. Thanks for kicking me.
Q. I wanted to ask about the Team Championship format because you guys have had a bye each of the first three years. Obviously we've changed the format. Just wanted to get your reaction to that.
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, I think it's a Team Championship. The best team is going to be the team that plays -- it's no secret, the best that week, and even that day. It's a day-to-day sort of thing.
It's not the culmination of a year's long work, which to us is a little -- I think it could be different. But it's one week, and we have to go into it with a mindset of, okay, this is just another tournament we've got to win. It's a little bit different rules. Let's just go win. Match play is a different animal, different beast. We've got to focus our mindset into -- I go a little more aggressive. I'm not sure how necessarily the others play, and I let them do their thing. That's how I lead, how I try to lead.
But for us, it's just a bit of a different mentality.
This year not having a bye I think is fine. Hopefully we can over a percentage basis, we can win because we are better than most out here. Hopefully we don't get kicked to the curb like last year.
But for me, I'm totally fine with it. It is what it is, and everybody has got to play under the same rules. We just have to play better than others.
PAUL CASEY: I will add this: Throwing my memory back to Doral when we won, that Sunday round where everybody's shots counted, the stroke play element was one of the most nerve-racking rounds of golf I've ever played, and it's over 25 years of doing this, and I go back to that, it was quite exceptional how the pressure was there.
Comparing that to all the events I've ever played, where that pressure just isn't the same, plain and simple. It doesn't mean I want to win less this week compared to a team thing, but there was something about that week that just piled on the pressure because if I screwed up, it affected everybody and the outcome was very important to us.
The match play is different. You've got to be aggressive but also eliminate mistakes. Match play is match play, but the stroke play on that Sunday is pressure packed and it's fascinating.
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I think also that golf course, too. You knew you could make a quadruple bogey very easily on that golf course, and it was a flip of a switch, you're now dead last, in that area. So I think that's what added to it as well. But we all wanted to win. We all wanted to show that we are the best team, and we did.
Q. Paul, you've had kind of an incredible track record on Pete Dye courses throughout your career. Does this course remind you of any of the other ones you've played in the past?
PAUL CASEY: It's interesting because I haven't found a railroad tie yet. It's like they ran out. He's used them all up around the world or something. I'm a big fan of Pete Dye. It's sad he's no longer with us, but for me, he's been my favorite modern architect.
I think my first exposure to him was back at Arizona State when he had designed the Karsten golf course there in Tempe, Arizona, which unfortunately no longer exists, and that's a part of the game I like to study. I read. I love the books, going back to -- I was a big Harry Colt fan, and I think Harry Colt would have loved Pete Dye design.
I love the tricks he plays. He's big on his optical illusions. You'll see a lot of them this week. Bunkers that look like they're close together but not, they're staggered. There's a lot of room out there.
He loves to kind of create a tension on a tee shot. He scares you on a tee show and then you get down there and actually things open up. He hides stuff. There's a couple of water features out there you don't see off the tee. It's really clever stuff.
All the way through his career, he's designed incredible golf courses, and this one is fascinating. Yes, it's around the houses, a bit more maybe country club, but it's no less of a golf course. You're going to see a great test this week, and maybe it's not the longest golf course you're going to see on paper, but I love it.
I think my record speaks for itself, and so I'm looking to play well at this place.
Q. Does this course remind you of any you've played in the place like River Highlands or Sawgrass?
PAUL CASEY: You can throw in the River Highlands and places like that. I don't know who designed Nashville; where did we go last year? But just that feeling around the houses. I don't compare it -- I tend not to compare it to other golf courses other than you can see the traits, other than this is a lot more rustic.
This is more organic in style. The water out there is, as I say, not flanked by the railroad, or the railway sleepers as I would call them with the sharp edges on the fairways that we typically see in places like Florida where he's been prominent.
This will catch guys out. It's kind of unassuming, and the rough this week is gnarly. If you know his architecture and you can figure it out, I think you can be rewarded.
Q. For Charles and Anirban, you guys are both on the borderline of the lock zone. Not just for maintaining your standing, but is there a personal pride element that you want to finish in that lock zone?
CHARLES HOWELL III: Oh, I think for sure. You want to play your best every week. I think one element of LIV may be underrated or understated is how competitive it is.
You look at a leaderboard every week on LIV, and my gosh, look at not only the scores that guys are shooting but who they are and the names and et cetera.
Compared to other tours out there, our leaderboards have recognizable names from the top to the bottom, and really, really, really good players playing good on tough golf courses.
Yeah, you always want to do the best you can. No matter where you are, you want to move up. Obviously this is the last week to do it, and it's a big week to do it.
ANIRBAN LAHIRI: Not much to add there, but yeah, this is probably the worst I've found myself going into the last week, and like I said, I take pride in how I play and how I hold myself up to my own standards, and I haven't really lived up to those. So I have one more week to kind of just do what I need to do for myself first, and that's going to translate into everything else, how the team does, where I finish in the top 24, et cetera, et cetera. I'm just trying to stay focused on what I need to do and let the results take care of itself.
Q. This market is very underserved for pro golf. I don't think they've had an annual men's event here for decades. Curious on your perspective; how much do you enjoy coming to a new market, and do you feel like this is LIV's best domestic strategy going forward, to come to these areas that don't see a lot of pro golf?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, I agree with that. I think that the markets that are starved golf, we need to be more involved in, that want us as well. I think there's a community engagement level that needs to be had. The economic driver that we have this week is massive for this area, and we hope to continue to show that to new unique markets.
There's plenty of markets out there that would like to have LIV Golf because of the economic impact as well as numerous other things, but Indianapolis having an event here showcasing these great stars, this great talent, at an awesome venue, is what's needed for the game of golf and for LIV personally in my opinion.
Yeah, we'd go back to pretty much the same places every single time, when I was at the Tour we went back to the same places every single time, and now it's kind of cool that we're going into different markets and infiltrating and feeling out different places because they're all starved of it, and it's time for the game to move to places that are starved.
I personally think it's great. I can't wait to see the crowds out here this week, see what they're all about, and honestly hope to give them everything they wanted and more. I think LIV is definitely one of their best strategies to continue to go to these markets that are a little smaller and give them an opportunity to see what us top players in the world look like.
CHARLES HOWELL III: Yeah, I had dinner with Steve Henke last night, who owns and developed the property, and to hear the history of it and then to hear the excitement that Indianapolis has and the people and the crowds we're going to get, I think it's incredible. I was told corporate hospitality sold out in two hours. That's really awesome. It means we can build more.
But hearing those things from the ownership, how excited they are, how excited the city is and the community, that's really awesome. I think we're going to have a fantastic week of a lot of fans, a lot of that, and hopefully we keep coming back here because right now we haven't even played yet and the excitement is really high.
Q. You guys have talked a little bit about the course and what you guys are looking forward to in the community. Have you gotten to see Indianapolis at all and explore what's around and hope to come back at all?
PAUL CASEY: Well, I've been to the Indy 500, so I've been to Carmel before. Big fan of St. Elmo's downtown and the shrimp cocktail.
Yeah, this is a cool spot. I'm into my bicycles as well, some great engineering around here, and we've visited some of the bicycle companies and the OEMs in town.
My takeaway from it, though, was the great people. I think it was like 400,000 people at Indy 500, and it was one of the most awesome experiences I've ever had. I'm a big fan of sporting events, and for me that was kind of a bucket list. But it was that ability to put that many people in one place and have a harmonious kind of experience.
I don't think 200,000 of them watched a single minute of motorsport. I think --what do they call it, is it a Snake Pit or something in the middle? There was a Skrillex concert going on down there. It was mad, but it was awesome.
My golf knowledge around here is limited at best, but big fan of the town, big fan of the community.
Q. Bryson, I'd like to get your take on Joaco versus Rahm. You've been chasing them all year.
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, they've been playing some unbelievable golf at LIV. I think honestly, Jon's feat, I think he finished 11th was his highest finish. I kicked him out in Dallas, I remember doing that, so I was like, yes, not a top 10.
But his feat of not finishing outside 11th place his entire career is quite honestly one of the best feats I've seen in a long time. Joaco winning as many times as he has, another amazing feat. There's for them to be where they're at. I've played some solid golf, not my best but some really solid golf, and I've got no chance to win.
It's really impressive. The level of competition they bring to LIV is out of control. It makes it almost impossible for some guys.
So that's what we need. We need continued push by those guys at the top to showcase what the best in the world look like, and couldn't be more proud of those individuals for leading the way in that regard, and hopefully I can be at the top next year and give myself a chance.
But what they're doing is great for LIV, it's great for golf, and honestly, I think whoever wins, I think it -- I'm not going to say, but it's going to be an awesome feat and historical year for either one of those individuals.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports