Snedeker's soul-searching helps him turn his game around

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Brandt Snedeker is in position for his second career win after shooting a 66 Saturday at TPC Scottsdale.

Feb. 27, 2010
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents

SCOTTSDALE -- There's a lot to be said for a little soul-searching. Just ask Brandt Snedeker.

After all, the 29-year-old has done his share. But he's a better player for that introspection, and he'll start Sunday's final round of the Waste Management Phoenix Open with a chance to win for the second time since the 2007 campaign.

Snedeker was named the PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year that season. He was regularly mentioned among the game's up-and-coming players, and the affable strawberry blonde with the Huck Finn grin acknowledges that he began to believe the reviews.

That was his first mistake.

"You hear people talking about how good you are and how much you could be the next big thing, you should be winning each week," Snedeker said. "And the minute you think that ... you're thinking completely out of bounds. You need to be thinking, yes, I'd like to think I have a chance to win this week, but I've got to do a lot of stuff between now and then to have a chance.

"Then all of a sudden if you're not winning, you start getting negative thoughts, start getting down on yourself, your confidence starts going. Before you know it, it snowballs and all of a sudden you're struggling to make cuts and you're thinking, what happened?"

Snedeker is living proof. After top-10 finishes in the first two majors of the 2008 season, he didn't finish higher than 24th in his next nine starts on TOUR. Last year brought more of the same -- Snedeker missed nine of his first 13 cuts and only once finished out of the 40s.

The "flip" switched last July when Snedeker went from struggling to earn a weekend tee time to tying for fifth at the AT&T National. That was one of four finishes of fifth or better in the latter half of the season, and his strong play has continued this year.

"I said, I'm sick and tired of this,'" Snedeker recalled. "I don't care if I have to quit playing golf. I'm not going to keep playing the way I've been playing. And ever since then I've been playing good."

Snedeker did work particularly hard on his short game -- "the secret is in the dirt," he says -- because his putter had deserted him. The extra effort paid off, too. He's now ranked first in putting average and third in putts per round.

But the turnaround may have been as much mind over matter as mechanics. His confidence came back, and Snedeker made the prescient decision to rely on what he does best.

"I was kind of reevaluating who I was as a golfer and realizing that I was not going to overpower any golf courses," Snedeker said. "I needed to be a Steve Stricker or a David Toms kind of player where I hit a lot of fairways and a lot of greens and have a good short game, and when I realized that and got over my ego, left my ego at the door, I've started playing a lot better."

Snedeker tied for second at the Farmers Insurance Open and he's finished 21st or higher in his other three starts this year. Whether or not Sunday brings his second PGA TOUR victory remains to be seen. He just knows as long as he keeps giving himself opportunities, good things will happen.

"It took me year and a half to get back to player than I was," Snedeker said. "Now I think I'm ready to handle a lot of stuff, like I'm ready to be up there and play and compete every week, compete in majors, and now it's just a matter of time of doing it. Quit talking and go out there and do it."

And Snedeker, who takes a one-stroke lead into Sunday's final round, knows better than most how quickly things can change.

"It's called being a golfer," he said. "I don't care what anybody says, it comes and goes just like anything else, and it makes it such a difficult sport. The minute you feel like you've got it licked, like I feel like I'm playing great right now, I guarantee you next week it could go south and I could have no clue what's going on.

"You've really got to relish and appreciate what you're doing and have fun doing it because you don't know how long it's going to last."