High Voltage! Brandt Snedeker
This high-voltage player crashed at the Masters, but he's bouncing back
Just because he's the golfer who cried doesn't mean Brandt Snedeker can't apply the needle.
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In a game of "Wolf" at Frederica Golf Club in St. Simons Island, Ga., Snedeker smirks as his agent, Jimmy Johnston, stalks away from a slightly mis-hit drive.
"You just want to break that club, don't you?" Snedeker gently taunts, playing onJohnston's past as an unofficial member of the All-Volcano Team during his years on the PGA Tour. "Aren't you the only guy [Bob] Rotella ever fired?"
"No, he stuck with me," Johnston deadpans, referring to the noted sport psychologist, "but I almost retired him."
It's two weeks after Snedeker finished tied for third at the Masters, and he's recharging amid the beauty and comfort that has become a haven for tour players. It's the place where Jonathan Byrd and Lucas Glover practice, and where Zach Johnson got his wedge game ready for the 2007 Masters. This year, Snedeker nearly wore out the practice chipping area with marathon sessions and putted endlessly on greens the superintendent got running at 14 on the Stimpmeter. Toward the end of the morning, Davis Love III and his son, Dru, veer their cart by to say hello.
Snedeker is a Nashville guy, and he won't be moving after he and his fiancee, Mandy Toth, marry on Oct. 18. But St. Simons Island is where he's building his career with the team of Johnston, swing instructor Todd Anderson and trainer Randy Myers. He comes here to work, as utterly at ease as he appears, but his 27-year-old motor, which he ignites every morning with a can of Red Bull, hums even when idling. Snedeker claims that after an initial jolt, the ingredient taurine in the drink has a calming effect. "I looked it up," he says.
If so, it's a good thing, because Snedeker talks at a speed that challenges interview-room stenographers. His stride is never without a bounce, and his bearing is buoyant. The kinetic package is accented by the blond mop that looks as if it came from a '70s-era cover of Rolling Stone, or perhaps from one of the pictures in a PGA Tour media guide of that vintage.
"I know, it's too long," says Snedeker. "At least it's short compared to Charley Hoffman, who's got to give it up. Shaved it once in college. Looked like Dumbo."
The Frederica course is built for Snedeker to have fun, with wide fairways, dramatically sloped greens that require creative wedge play, and greens that reward touch and a great putter's eye for the "high line." The extra room lets Snedeker -- whose biggest long-term challenge is to transform himself from a mercurial driver into a consistent one -- swing the big stick with freedom. After a pulled tee shot nevertheless stays on the edge of the short grass, Snedeker pipes, "That's why I love this place: Another fairway hit."
Later, after he and Johnston lose a hole to Canadian tour player Brad Heaven and director of golf Steve Archer, Snedeker jabs Johnston again. "Jimmy, I thought you told me you weren't going to take me down with you today?" Johnston, who happens to hold the Frederica course record of 60, answers, "If I had been on tour playing like this, there would be eight clubs left. Now I just give up."
"And you wonder," says Snedeker, "why I ignore everything you tell me."
PAIN AT AUGUSTA
Away from the group, Snedeker reflects on the subject of temperament and tournament golf. "You know, I've always been blessed with a good attitude," he says. "I've never had a lot of bad thoughts enter my mind. Never have felt like I needed to see a sport psychologist. All that stuff is what I believe I do well naturally."
Of course, some might have considered his tears in the immediate aftermath of the Masters evidence of a head case. And in truth, it surprised those closest to him.
"I was shocked," says his father, Larry, a retired lawyer. "He's always kept that stuff covered up."
But even if there's no crying in baseball, there is in golf.
Bobby Jones cried after victories and defeats. OK, maybe guys like Hogan, Nelson or Snead never lost it at tournaments, but Arnold Palmer broke down at Oakmont after his final U.S. Open in 1994, Jack Nicklaus' eyes were glistening at St. Andrews in 2005 and Tiger Woods couldn't keep the torrent in after winning two years ago at Hoylake.
It's a long list. Patty Sheehan, Ben Crenshaw, John Daly, Sergio Garcia, Len Mattiace and Fred Couples were all overwhelmed by events, good and bad.
It's golf, the sport that requires so much be kept inside. The ones who care the most are almost by definition the most bottled up.
After his fourth-round 77 at Augusta, Snedeker, who says he had never cried because of golf before (the only two other times he can remember tears in his adult life came at his brother's wedding and when he and Toth became engaged), felt his emotions coming loose in the scoring trailer. "I could hear the people cheering and calling my name," he says. "It made me think I had let them down."
