Fond memories at Sedgefield drive Trent Phillips’ PGA Tour debut

Talk of career highs, it can’t get better for Trent Phillips. After a decorated college career, Trent will be making his PGA Tour debut at this week’s Wyndham Championship. There will be nerves alright, but there are memories of some powerful performances at the Sedgefield Country Club. Excerpts from an interview:

We would like to welcome Trent Phillips into the interview room at the 2022 Wyndham Championship. Trent’s playing on a sponsor exemption, recent graduate from the University of Georgia where he was a four-time All-American. Trent, how does it feel to be playing here, your first start as a professional on the PGA Tour?

Trent: Yeah, it’s great. I’m excited. Been waiting to play pro golf my entire life. Getting to leave from Georgia, a great school, obviously was kind of sad in itself. My senior year going out not having the best showing at the Natty. But yeah, I’m really excited to be a professional and be playing on this tour this week is great.

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Winner of the 2017 AJGA Wyndham Invitational here at Sedgefield, must be pretty familiar with this place, a place you had some success.

Trent: Yeah, that tournament was always fun to come up and play. It was one of the harder invitationals if I remember correctly. Course was probably a little shorter. I was
playing yesterday remembering I hit a lot of shorter clubs off the tee than I had to this week. It’s a little more drivers if you want to get it out there where you have a scorable club in. Yeah, I’ll definitely try to draw back on some of those memories of playing well and hopefully that will do me good this week.

Three top-5s this summer on PGA Tour Canada. You got there via PGA Tour University. What’s your experience been like up there?

Trent: It’s tough. I’ve actually never been out of the country to any country, so
going to Canada, you know, it’s not much different than the United States, but it’s definitely a little different getting out of the country and being on your own. Gladly, I had my brother traveling with me and on the bag making time a little easier up there. Yeah, Canada’s been great and been playing pretty well.

Can you describe how you found out about the sponsor exemption and how that all came about?

Trent: Yeah. So I’ve known of Mark Brazil quite some time, since I won the AJGA here, and my agent Mike here helped me out a lot getting the spot, being in touch with Mark. Yeah, Mark reached out to me and let me know I was in the tournament, which is great, and I was excited.

When you were playing that practice round, did memories come back from the AJGA event or did you say how did I — well, you know, just what was it like? What’s your comfort level here?

Trent: Yeah, I haven’t been here — I don’t know what year that was, I think probably at least five or six years ago. I haven’t been here since then, but this place is awesome. I’ve seen it on TV. It’s great, I love being here. It’s one of my favorite courses. Obviously anytime you win on a golf course you’re going to say that. Yeah, it’s fun and I’m ready for the week.

For those unfamiliar with your game, how would you describe it?

Trent: Creative, I would say. I can hit a lot of shots depending on how I’m swinging it that day. One day I may see this shape or that shape and the next day it may be the exact opposite, but one thing I can always lean on is my creativity and my short game, which on tour is really big.

What are your expectations for the week? I know you don’t want to put a lot of pressure on yourself, but what would constitute a great week for you?

Trent: Just getting out there and hitting the shots and playing as if I was playing any other golf tournament would be a good week for me. This is my first week. I’m not trying to jump the gun and feel like I should finish top-10, that’s just a little overwhelming expecting too much of yourself. I’m young, I’m 22. A good week for me is coming out here and not being afraid to hit the shots I know I can hit. If I hit a bad shot, I can live with it as long as I’m committed to hitting that shot. Just kind of watching how that plays out will tell me a lot about how my week went, to be honest with you.