Q. Jacob, what's the experience been like so far these couple days after coming off the win?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: It's been amazing. The team reception for me when I came in Sunday night after winning was super cool. Everyone in there cheering, clapping when I walked in the room. I saw someone posted online about that. That was pretty special.
The team as a whole this week has just been a lot of fun. We're a really tight-knit group, and the few days we've spent together so far has been a blast.
Q. What's been the most fun part of the first couple days?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Last night, the rookies, we had to sing a song for everybody. It was quite a few -- there was maybe 40, 50 people in the room, no phones, no videoing nothing. That was nerve-racking but hilarious.
Q. What was your song?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: I sang "God Bless the USA" by Lee Greenwood.
Q. Did you do the whole thing?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: I probably made it a minute and a half and Sneds came up and said, that's good enough.
Q. What did the other rookies sing?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Christopher sang a Creed song. What was it called? I'm blanking on the name of it. Then Jackson sang "Heartless" by Kanye. They were hilarious.
Q. You talked a little bit on Sunday about what it meant to win again and sort of check off all these boxes. How do you prepare for a week that's going to be pretty special?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: It was a little bit of a whirlwind winning Sunday and then getting on a flight about an hour later and coming here and setting sights on the next things.
I got to relax a little bit yesterday afternoon and kind of take it all in and say we're here, shifting focus to this week versus last week. I think mainly, I just used last week as a warmup for this week. The whole week I wanted to prepare myself for this. This was the most important thing to me. I happened to play really well and come away with a win. That was amazing in itself to have everyone there supporting me. It was mainly for this week. Everything we've done in the last month or so has been preparing for this, and we're all ready.
Q. You just happened to win last week; would you say you were in form, too?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Yeah, definitely.
Q. It wasn't going to be a shock, was it?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Yeah, I think I wanted to test -- the main reason I wanted to play, I wanted to test myself a little bit and I wanted to get in competitive mode. I practiced harder than I've ever practiced for about a week and a half before after East Lake coming into that tournament, and it was good to see that all that effort and hard work that I put my body through and my mind through paid off a little bit and got me ready.
Q. What does it mean to represent your country?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Yeah, it's the greatest honor that you can have in all of sports is to play for the United States. It's not something we get to do very often. For me, it's the first time as a pro. I got to do it in amateur golf and junior golf, and it was the coolest thing. All the best memories I have from each level is in a team event playing for the United States.
It's the most special thing we can do, and I think it drives us even further than anything an individual could ever do.
Q. How do you feel like your game stacks up in team competition?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: It's great. I kind of lean on the captains to tell us where to go and what our pairings are going to be, but yeah, I think however I can be helpful I'm going to apply my best effort and hopefully lean on my strengths a little bit. Their job is to try to put us in the correct positions, and our job is to go out and compete.
Q. How do you like the golf course? How does it set up to your strengths particularly?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Yeah, it's a really fun golf course. A little bit different than we played a couple weeks ago. We came up here and the weather was pretty good. It was warm, ball was going far, and now as you know they've gotten a lot of rain here in the last few weeks. So the golf course is soft and long, greens are soft but they're rolling nice and fast, and the greens rolling good. We don't have much play out here so they're very smooth. I think that plays into my strengths, just fast greens with a lot of slope. It's pretty difficult putting, and I think I can kind of take advantage of that.
Off the tee it's pretty generous width-wise so you're going to see a lot of drivers, a lot of guys hitting it in similar spots and then from there it'll kind of be an iron play contest. But it's a lot of long irons, and anywhere from 180- to 230-yard shots which are very challenging.
I think we've got a pretty good plan going forward, and hopefully I can play off some of those putts.
Q. Have you picked the brains of the veterans what's expected when you step on the first tee, whenever your first match is?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Yeah, for sure. All the guys have been super helpful. Even without me having to ask, I think they see things that we don't expect and we don't really know what's coming and they give us a heads up. Russell has been great to that to me, and then J.T. today, just walking through it with him is awesome. He has all the experience in the world so he tells you what to expect, what you're going to see, just so you know this is coming, and not to really take it more than what it is.
Q. How would you describe the team atmosphere in one word?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Family. I feel like I knew everybody before this week, and I had some really good friends on the team already. But then just by us having kind of a practice session, the team flew up and we all got to hang out for a few days, and then leading up to the event, seeing each talking, communicating, it just feels like we have such a tight group now. The only thing I can compare it to is like a college team where you have 12 guys here, all competing for one goal, and it's something that question never -- we're always competing against each other and we're always trying to beat each other. This week we're all helping each other. It's the 12 best brains in the world or in the country trying to come together and play golf the best we can, and it's just amazing to see everyone helping each other.
Q. Who's your favorite swing on the team?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Favorite swing on the team? I'm trying to think through it. I'll give it to Sam. I like Sam's swing.
Q. As a newbie to the team this year, how has it been for the rookies? We've heard you've assimilated pretty well, but how have you been welcomed?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Oh, it's been great. There's some really good people on this team that has accepted us just right from the start, even before we were on the team. I think everyone was so encouraging, the older guys, the veterans. There's hard love, but it's all love. We like to joke with each other a lot, and they give us a hard time and we give it right back. They've just been great to us.
Q. In particular, there's a lot of eyes on Jackson being the youngest, newest. What is your take on him and his game? I know you were out there with him today.
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Yeah, we played together during the practice session and then I flew down to Florida and stayed with Chris for a couple days and we played together down there both days and then up here as well. I'm very impressed with Jackson. We played together both days in Asheville the first couple days. So I'm very impressed with him. He's an incredible golfer, but I think his mental game is there at 21. He's already playing like everyone else on Tour and all the guys that are very successful.
I'm not at all shocked by his success at an early age and the ability he's had to come out and compete on Tour. Like you said, in this team competition, he's ready for it. He's earned it. He's just as good as anybody of us, so he's very impressive.
Q. Am I able to read anything into so much playing together recently?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: I don't know. I mean, yeah, we've played some practice rounds, but I think the captains will announce that in the next -- I guess tomorrow.
Q. When it's been a bad day on the course or something, how do you put that into practice?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Yeah, we get so caught up in trying to compete, trying to do our best and trying to have all these expectations for ourselves, more than other people have for us trying to shoot a number. I think over the last few years, I've grown a lot in my understanding that I'm not measured by the number that I shoot. Even though I shoot a 65, I'm not any better of a person than the day when I shoot a 75. Hearing that from some of the older guys, they coached me on that, and it helped me when I was younger getting on Tour and putting a lot of pressure on myself my rookie year and just realizing, hey, I'm the same guy if I shoot a 65 and I'm the same guy if I shoot a 75, and regardless if I win or lose, win or finish last, I've still got the same guy and I still have the same life at home, still have all the important things in my life that are going to keep me going, and golf is not the biggest thing.
Q. How cool is it to represent the USA? You've got the hat, the jacket -- it's kind of awesome, right?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Yeah, this is the highest honor that you can get in all of golf. I've done it on a junior golf level, done it at the amateur golf level, and this is just a dream come true. Playing for the United States is the best thing that any of us can ever ask for, and it's an honor.
Q. President Trump is expected to attend this week. What would that mean for you and for the team?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Yeah, I'm assuming hopefully we'll have a bunch of presidents out. That would just be amazing to meet them and have them rooting us on, pulling for our country, and it makes it feel even more patriotic.
Q. I'm curious about your level of confidence in making this team throughout the months of this year. I imagine in February, you're like, I can do this, and then at some point in the summer, don't let me speak for you, maybe you get a little more anxious about it. What was it like throughout the year of your form kind of matching up with thinking about being on the team?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Yeah, beginning of the year I was playing amazing. I don't think compared to then versus the middle of the year it was really much different. I just wasn't really shooting the numbers that I expected, and I felt I was shooting. That kind of contributed from going to finishing maybe 10th to 15th every week to 40th, and a couple shots can do that here or there. I wouldn't say I was discouraged at all. I definitely was excited at the beginning of the year when I jumped so high in the rankings but we had seven months left to try and finish this thing off.
It was mainly just a goal of mine. It was something I wanted to be on this team so bad, so that was kind of my motivation for the entire year. Like you said, at the end of the year it got a little bit closer than I wanted to, but it was -- like I said, it was just the main thing that was driving me and it was what I was thinking about when I was practicing, it was what I was thinking about when I was playing. I've never been one to shy away from a leaderboard or something that's going on in my life.
Yeah, I was thinking about it about every shot during the playoffs, and I think it was just fuel.
Q. I was told by one of your teammates that there was a photo shared in the group chat by you maybe of Chris Gotterup on vacation and maybe Chris didn't love that it was shared but all in good fun. Would you be willing to describe your interactions in the group chat and what it's like with all these guys?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Yeah, I think it was probably a lot different than what most people would expect. Most people would maybe think of it as just a business group chat. I think it's more of a laughs group chat, and the captains come in there every now and then and send off some things we need to do for the next day. Yeah, it's just a lot of joking, a lot of giving each other a hard time. Me and Chris are in a bunch of group chats together, so I sent that one out to several of them, and it was a lot of good fun.
Q. Do you like match play?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Love it.
Q. Why?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Because for most of our careers, we're playing against the course, playing against ourselves, playing against 120 to 130, 140 people, and in this kind of format you're pretty much playing against one or two people and it's head-to-head. It's the purest form of competition that we can get. It scratches that itch that I loved doing, like playing basketball, playing at home one-on-one. You get to play against a person. You get to play defense. I think it's the closest thing to that.
Q. You haven't had experience in this event, but anything you've learned playing alternate shot in the past about how you get comfortable in that format?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: I think it's just trusting your teammate. As a pro I played the Zurich a couple times, and then in amateur golf I played it quite a few times. I think it's just trusting your teammate. If you're standing over the shot worried about how they're going to think about you if you hit a bad shot, it's pretty much over, and you know that they trust you and you trust them. Then it's pretty easy.
Q. Is that harder said than done or do you find it okay?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: I think it could be, but with the team that we have it's not hard. Everyone is great. No one is going to be holding a grudge if you hit a bad 9-iron on the 14th hole, whatever it may be. Yeah, it's not hard.
Q. Have you learned about how to stay in rhythm? You might not hit an iron shot for a couple holes how things break. How do you go about keeping yourself ready?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Yeah, that's maybe one of the hardest things is not hitting a shot for a while. But also the round moves so quickly in alternate shot because the guys -- your partner is ahead of you and it goes -- we'll probably play in three hours or so when you're playing it. It's a little quicker, a little different pace. I don't think momentum or sequencing or whatever it is can be thrown off. Unless you're over there standing in the woods not watching your teammate, but if you're engaged thinking about it, trying to help your guy out, then it shouldn't be a problem.
Q. Does your confidence level change at all heading into this week after you've just earned a win at the Biltmore? How does it change?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Yeah, I think it definitely grew a little bit. I was confident prior to the week in Asheville, and I think I just learned to use it as a test, to test my game, get into competition mode. I played well enough to win, obviously.
I think it was what I expected. It maybe give me a little bit more confidence knowing I could deliver under the gun the way I was talking to some of the guys earlier this week, they asked me, how did you feel second win versus first, and I said I just felt 10 times more comfortable. I felt like I wasn't going to mess up, and it was kind of just -- I felt like I was just making birdies and not really worried about going the other way, which is a cool feeling to have, and I think that is just riding the confidence wave.
Q. We were talking to Chris about you guys' relationship. How have you guys gotten so close throughout the season?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Yeah, I think me and him got out of school at the same time and played on the Korn Ferry for both a year at the same time, roomed pretty much all the time together out there, and rookie year, did that together. Got past the keeping our card the first year thing. We leveled up all the same as we've gone throughout our careers. It's been a lot of fun to do with him. My wife and his girlfriend with really close. We spend a lot of time together and that in itself has made a pretty good relationship. We like to pick at each other pretty good. We both take it well.
Q. Did you guys eat dinner with Jackson last night or two night ago?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Last night? Yeah, we've had team dinners every night so far, but yeah.
Q. What did you guys eat?
JACOB BRIDGEMAN: Last night? I have no idea. I was so nervous about singing a song. I was just eating, staring at the wall.
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