Andrew Novak talks about the strengths of his game and how he deals with Sunday pressure when he’s tying to win a PGA Tour event.
right here with Andrew Novak. And Andrew, I think about this this year where you’re at in this season. Like, how how are you feeling about everything at the moment? Yeah, I mean, I’m obviously playing good golf. Uh, very happy to be where I am and FedEx Cup or FedEx Cup. Happy to have a win and uh, you know, playing good golf coming into this week and hoping to turn that into another good finish here. What does the win do for your confidence level overall and and just how you look at things? Yeah, I I was rolling in with a lot of confidence into Zurich from from previous weeks and uh you know, a win definitely steps it up even more. I mean, I I feel really good about everything I’m doing. Uh this is an awesome property and I’m excited for this week. Yeah. Well, does it help, you know, having been so close the week before and then put put it to bed by getting the win that very next week? Like, is it nice to kind of just just take care of it quickly? Yeah, I mean getting your first one’s definitely a big thing. Um it can be very tough to get one. Not saying it’s going to be easier to get two, but um I think playing well the week before helped. Uh I was able to, you know, take a lot of positives with how I played, especially on Sunday. Um I I felt like I did a lot of good things on Sunday and um you know, took a good mindset from that into Zurich and just kind of kept it going. So obviously it’s pretty easy to have a good mindset coming off a win. So uh going to keep the good vibes going into this weekend and you know try and make a bunch of birdies. You were talking about mindset for Sunday. What is it like dealing with the pressure on the PJ tour of a Sunday trying to finish things up and and go down there. Yeah. I mean there there is a lot of pressure. Um you got to stay positive. You got to stay patient. Like these are you know things a lot of guys say but only one guy wins each week. it’s it’s going to be the guy who hits the best shots and and makes you know more putts than anybody. So, um the key is you know putting yourself in that position. I think you know to win you got to be up there and then it’s you know the back nine Sunday unless you’re Scotty and up eight is kind of going to be where it gets decided. So I think this week it’s going to take you know a decent bit of birdies. I think the course will be pretty scorable. Um and if you put yourself in the mix on Sunday kind of really anything can happen. Uh then you know I think I’ve gotten better at handling some of the nerves down the stretch u just being up there having having reps in those positions this year and uh I’m looking forward to keep putting myself in those positions. What do you want out of your caddy on those Sunday pressure situations just be him? Yeah. No nothing different than business as usual. Um yeah I know they’re big moments. I can feel them. But like at the end of the day we’re just doing our process. same thing as what we would do on a shot on Thursday. Like every shot, you know, means the same. It may feel a little different in the moment, but really, you know, I’m just doing the best I can to hit the best shot I can. Like that’s that’s what I was trying to do Thursday morning. That’s what I’m trying to do Sunday afternoon. It can be a little tougher with pressure and a lot going on, but if you can make it as simple as that, um, you know, that’s really all I can do. Yeah. Last thing I was going to say, you had a chance to uh be a polebearer in what back when you were what, 12, 13 years old, right? A long time ago. And what was that experience like as a standard bear? Yeah, that was uh back when it was web.com uh tour championship. Um I was probably 13, 14 years old. And you know, I got to carry the sign. I didn’t know where to stand. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but uh it was cool to get to see that level of golf when I was young and and kind of understand how good you got to be. Didn’t you end up playing with the one of the guys that was in your group later on? Yeah, Justin Hicks. He was uh playing in in that cornfair event and then later on I played probably a couple cornfair tour events with him as well. Uh later on he was still going. So yeah, that was that was pretty cool. Great stuff. Hey, enjoy the rest of these uh middle of the season here and uh enjoy the rest of the way. Yeah, appreciate it.
