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Brandt sure this time he can hold on
By Simon Lewis
He may be the world No 29 and three-time PGA Tour winner but the last time the public outside of the golfing bubble got a good look at Brandt Snedeker they will have seen an American kid getting all choked up about losing the Masters.
Four years on and the 31-year-old from Nashville, Tennessee, was able to reintroduce himself to the wider world yesterday with a fresher face and a big smile as he took a grip on the British Open at Royal Lytham & St Annes by equalling the lowest 36-hole score in the 152-year history of the oldest Major.Snedeker will resume play today in the final group out at 10 under par, a shot ahead of Australian Adam Scott, after rounds of 66 and 64 matched Nick Faldo’s aggregate of 130 at Muirfield in 1992.
Despite having won a tournament in the United States this year, in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, his elevation to the British Open’s halfway leader prompted the inevitable question: “Who is Brandt Snedeker?”
“There will be lots of British people tonight saying who’s Brandt Snedeker?” came the enquiry yesterday and Snedeker took it in his stride.
“I’m sure there’s lots of Americans saying that, too,” he said.
“I’m a pretty happy-go-lucky guy. I’m very lucky to do what I do for a living. I’ve got a brother and family that keeps me well in line, I know where I am on the totem pole. I’m married with a 16-month-old little girl at home, who pretty much dominates me, and anything she wants to get, she’s going to get. That’s the kind of guy I am. I’m very simple, not a frilly guy by any means.”
Still, this has been pretty fancy stuff here at Lytham. Having missed the cut in his first three British Open appearances, his first-round 66 was his first sub-70 round in the championship.
Yesterday’s went even better for a guy who underwent hip surgery last November and cracked a rib whilst coughing just before the US Open last month. If he’s looking for omens, that was the same procedure Tom Watson underwent just before defying the years at Turnberry in 2009 and taking his quest for a sixth British Open title to a play-off.
As it happens, Snedeker is a huge Watson fan.
“I love the way he swung it,” he said. “He has such a classic golf swing. He had no holdback in it whatsoever, just got out there and ripped it every time. Growing up I just loved the way he swung the golf club.
“I would love to be like him. We both make pretty quick decisions. There’s no holdback in either one of our swings.
“He’s one of the best ball-strikers of all time. I am not by any stretch of the imagination. But I think we both hole a lot of putts. Tom in his prime holed a lot of 25- and 30-footers, and when I’m playing I tend to do that a lot, too.”
Watson has also been known to shed a tear or two in public and that is a trait in Snedeker we may see resurface come tomorrow evening if he should lift the Claret Jug. Less so if he fails to do so.
“I’ve lost a lot since then, gotten used to it,” he joked, yet the Tennessean has learned much more than that since his 2008 Masters setback, when a final-round 77 allowed Trevor Immelman to don the Green Jacket.
“I think I took out of it trying, no matter how much I talked down, how much it meant to me, how much a Major does mean to everybody out here.
“And to do that and watch Trevor win that year.
“To watch Trevor handle the emotions and play the way he did for the last 18 really taught me a lot about what you’re going to have to go through.
“It wasn’t an easy day that day at Augusta. It was tough. I remember watching him kind of handle himself around the golf course, the way he kind of plotted his way around the golf course. It’s something you’re going to have to do in the course of four rounds.
“This weekend I feel prepared. I’ve been in some pretty tight spots in the States and I’ve been playing in play-offs and playing against the best players in the world and stuff like that. So I kind of know what pressure feels like.
“Obviously it’s going to be a lot more over the weekend, but I’ve got something to fall back on.”