DETROIT — For those who missed it, Bryson had a blowup with a cameraman just off the green on No. 7 during the third round of the Rocket Mortgage Classic. Our Eamon Lynch wrote a column about the whole sordid affair.
Here was Bryson’s full response, for those so inclined:
Q. Can you explain what happened on 7 green?
BRYSON: “So there was something that happened — I mean, nothing crazy, but I had a cameraman that was filming me after I hit a bad bunker shot and whiffed the sand a little bit, which I shouldn’t have done, that was dumb.
“But at the end of the day, he was literally watching me the whole entire way up after getting out of the bunker, walking up next to the green and I just was like, ‘Sir, what is the need to watch me that long?’ I mean, I understand that it’s his job to video me, but at the same point, I think we need to start protecting our players out here compared to showing a potential vulnerability and hurting someone’s image. I just don’t think that’s necessarily the right thing to do. Not that I was going to do anything bad, it’s just one of those things that I hope he respects my privacy.
“As much as we’re out here performing, I think it’s necessary that we have our times of privacy as well when things aren’t going our way. I mean, we’re in the spotlight. if somebody else is in the spotlight they wouldn’t want that either. It’s just something about respect I think that’s necessary on that end. You know, so for me, I feel like it’s one of those things that we had a conversation, it was all good after that.”
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Q. Can you explain what you mean by protecting the players?
“Well, you know, look, I feel like when you’re videoing someone and you catch Tiger at a bad time, you show him accidentally doing something, or someone else, they’re just frustrated because they really care about the game. It could really hurt them if they catch you at a potentially vulnerable time. We’re not necessarily — we don’t mean anything by it, we just care a lot about the game. for that to damage our brand like that, that’s not cool in the way we act because if you actually meet me in person, I’m not too bad of a dude, I don’t think.
“So that’s the thing, I hope we can get to the point where everybody understands that we just care a lot about the game, we want to do well, we’re passionate about what we do and we want everybody to enjoy the entertainment. We don’t want negative stuff coming down.”