Q. Hot start for a final round. 5-under. Tell me about the start for the day.
TROY MERRITT: Yeah, we knew we had to get off to a good start around Pebble, especially being five back. The birdie holes are kind of those first seven holes and you might find one or two coming in and that back nine is kind of hit good shots and hold on and maybe make a birdie.
We got off to the start we wanted and just kind of misjudged the wind twice on 15 and 17 and just really didn't do much the last four holes and it cost us.
Q. Any particular birdies of the day stand out to you?
TROY MERRITT: I mean, I really enjoyed all seven of them or eight of them.
But the one on 9 was nice. Not many guys are going to birdie that front left pin there.
The one on 14 was nice kind of excised some of my own demons on that pin. So I enjoyed that one quite a bit.
And it would have been nice to throw one or two more in, but it just didn't work out that way.
Q. Are you communicating with your caddie at all, leaderboard watching or seeing the standings where you are?
TROY MERRITT: No, I pay attention to the leaderboard. I grew up all playing all the other sports, you got to know where you are at all times in the game, it can change the game plan shot by shot. So knew where we were, felt comfortable out there, just got a couple wrong and just cost us.
Q. A lot of previous starts here at Pebble, what make us so comfortable with your game? Your four top-25 consecutively here?
TROY MERRITT: Yeah, the last four years have been real nice, the first seven missed cuts were not so nice. So just starting to get a little more comfortable out here. It has a lot to do with just focusing in on really, really small targets out here, the greens aren't very big at Pebble.
And just knowing that pars are so good out here, especially on a Sunday. And at times in the past I get frustrated when you don't start making birdie, especially early, and that costs you later and just been a lot more patient the last four years and as a result four good finishes.
Q. Five birdies in the first six holes, incredible start today, does that give you confidence moving forward if you're a little bit out of that first range that you can come back on Sunday and put yourself in contention?
TROY MERRITT: Yeah, I really hadn't done that I don't think throughout my, what, 11 years now on the TOUR, I haven't had that real hot start on Sunday so it was nice to finally do that. Just, if we get in that situation again hopefully we can do it again and then finish it off.
Q. Did you think coming into the day that they were within reach?
TROY MERRITT: With how well the guys are playing and we honestly thought the breeze was going to be a lot less than it was, so figured the guys might get even 19-, 20-under and obviously that's, 9-, 10-under for us at the start of the day, but that wasn't the case. When we got off to that hot start and made the turn at 5-under and birdied 10, figured we had a good crack at it. But still had to probably get to 19 to have a chance and looks like that probably will be a pretty magic number coming in.
Q. You said the wind, you misjudged the wind at 15 and 17, what did you think it was and what did you do because of that?
TROY MERRITT: Just velocity. We're trying to chip a little pitching wedge in there on 15 and got hung up a little bit more in the breeze. Had we known it was blowing slightly harder either a firmer pitching wedge or chipping the 9-iron there.
And taking 7-iron or taking a little off the 7-iron on 17 thinking it was a little more right-to-left than help and it just came off like a rocket and got a lot of help in the air and it flew a lot further than we were expecting, so it just got them wrong and it is what it is.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports