SNOQUALMIE, WA — Seattle native Fred Couples is ready to atone for his 2019 collapse at the Boeing Classic, when he lost a five-shot lead in the final round. His stellar 63 in the second round was eclipsed by a four-over par 76 on Sunday, and he tied for third behind eventual winner Brandt Jobe. Couples discussed that loss and his love for TPC Snoqualmie Ridge in a casual setting on Thursday.

Q How are you feeling coming into this week?

COUPLES: I feel pretty good. I didn’t play Calgary obviously and there’s been a few weeks off, but I’ve worked pretty hard on my game and I love the course, everything about it. I plan on playing well and I think that I’m capable of–I’m in good shape swing-wise and we’ll just see what happens

Q. What does this tournament mean to you? Obviously everyone’s coming out, it’s your hometown.

COUPLES: Well, I think when you grow up as a kid, the easiest way to answer this and maybe I’m wrong, I don’t think we had any tournaments up here. Then I don’t know the years, but I got to play in a PGA at Sahalee that I think DJ won. Then I did not play the world event. One of my first big tournaments on the Champions Tour was the U.S. Open at Sahalee, so that’s when it was really huge.Then the Boeing is a bonus to be able to come every year. I just told someone, how long are you going to play in–I said, well, body-wise I’d love to play until I’m 70 and we’ll see about that.

Most of the family’s in Arizona, so I’ll have a few friends up here, but it’s like last year or two years ago I had a big lead going into the last day and I didn’t play very well and it was kind of–I took it better because they were all here in stead of hopping in the car mad and angry. They kind of chilled me out a little bit, but it was still a really bad day, bad round and highly disappointing. It honestly was. After about the fifth hole, it was such poor golf, and I know Brandt Jobe played an unreal round and deserved to win, but that’s what I’m looking forward to tomorrow after that finish

Q. Has that been eating at you a little bit?

COUPLES: Well, I think about it all the time. I don’t think about it every day, but I think about it five times a week so it’s almost every day. Just because–you saw Doug Barron react last week. I would not react like that because I’ve won a few times, not as much as I’d like, but I think my next win, I don’t ever want to say this, will be maybe my last. And that’s a goal, I want to win one more time. It’s just hard to prepare. Like I say, I haven’t played–I think it’s been four weeks now and I’ve actually played almost every day. I took yesterday off to do some stuff up here, but I want to be ready for the tournament and I feel like I’ll be fine.

Q. Obviously there’s senior major tournaments, too, but if you’re going to win one more…

COUPLES: Oh, I would rather win this than any senior major, yeah, for sure. Again, I don’t know how many players still live in the same town where they were 18. People always say, well, you don’t live there. I mean, I know half of the people when they were 18, all of them probably don’t live where they grew up. So for me to be able to come back and a course that I really, really like helps. Even coming back, there are some courses you don’t play well. I think this is one I can handle. You’ve got to play well to do that, but yeah, I’m always excited to play here

Q. Were you just off or was it nerves?

COUPLES: No, I think it was nerves and winning. It wasn’t like I couldn’t function, I just was–and a lot of times–I was going over the round last two years ago, I don’t even know what I hit, but a lot of them were short and long and that’s highly unusual. Most of the time if I have a 6-iron and I want to hit it 180, I’ll hit it this way. I was short in bunkers, I was over greens, just off. And a lot of that has to do with feel and feeling the pressure, there’s no doubt, in your hands and all that, but I wasn’t like oh, my God, I can’t handle this. It just was comical.

Q. And this golf course in terms of where it ranks on the Champions Tour in difficulty, is it near the top?

COUPLES:No. Length-wise it’s pretty long, so that’s a tough thing for us, but if it’s dry and firm and fast, then it shrinks up; any golf course does. So it probably won’t play to the length because it seems like we’ve had great weather here, but it’s just weird. It’s the kind of course where you’ll see 63s and 64s periodically, but at the end of the week if you’re not winning and you shoot 69-68-69, you’re going to be in that great top-10 thing. I found my way in there with good last rounds before. I have to get off to a good start tomorrow. I have a lot of 70s and 71s, you’re done.

But that’s a great question. I think this fits in probably on the upper echelon of toughness, although like 63s and 64s happen.

Q. Do you feel like a window’s closing a little bit for you?

COUPLES: This pandemic is a sad, sad thing, but as a golfer, it really helped me. I played–time flies. March of 2019, is that when all this–so when the Tour stopped, we stopped, I played almost every day in the desert. I went down to the desert to get away. Very few people at my club, I never left the grounds, I played every day, which helped my golf game. So normally I try and play once or twice a week when I’m home. I played every day, I had to do something, so it helped. So my game is pretty good. I’m not a guy that says that, but you asked, but my game should be pretty good tomorrow. Does that mean I’m going to make every putt and shoot 68? No,but I don’t think I’m going to go and embarrass myself. I’m going to do pretty well and hit the ball sharp because I’ve been playing a lot.