Zurich Classic of New Orleans

Saturday, April 23, 2022

Avondale, Louisiana, USA

TPC Louisiana

Billy Horschel

Sam Burns

Quick Quotes


Q. Billy, right now you're three strokes off the lead. I think you started the final round the year you won three strokes off the lead. Is there anything from that year you can take into tomorrow?

BILLY HORSCHEL: Just got to play a really good round of golf. We haven't played a clean round yet this week, and I think if we do that tomorrow, we give ourselves a chance. When you're coming from three back you've got to make sure you're not giving any shots back, so if we do a good job of that, we'll see what happens. Patrick and Xander are playing some good golf, and then Garrick and Gracey.

When you're three back you've got to play a really clean round of golf, and hopefully if you do that, you make enough birdies to give yourself a chance.

Q. Sam, you talked on Thursday about struggling a little bit. How has your game improved since then?

SAM BURNS: Yeah, I feel like we've played pretty good. I made a couple mistakes here and there, but that's kind of what you get in these formats. It's a different style of golf. But yeah, I think we played really well, and I think we're going to play really well tomorrow.

Q. Does the format help at all because it's so much of a demanding format with alternate-shot?

BILLY HORSCHEL: Oh, yeah. Three-shot lead, three strokes being behind, you get a format like that and one guy is off, the leaders of one of the guys isn't on top of their game, it's a struggle. It's a format that you can make up a lot of shots on. We've just got to go out and hopefully play the best 18 holes round of golf that we have all week, and hopefully from there that gives us a chance, and the guys up top sort of struggle a little bit.

Q. The wind is supposed to pick up even more tomorrow; was it a factor at all today for either one of y'all?

BILLY HORSCHEL: I think it's a factor for everyone, but if the wind is supposed to blow even harder tomorrow, that's even more conducive to having a chance to make up those three shots a little bit easier.

It's blowing from the same direction, so I think that makes it a little bit easier. You get a little bit more comfortable with some of the shots and how much the ball is moving based off the last few days.

Like I said, we did a really good job today. We messed up on No. 9, and that was it, and other than that we played a really clean round of golf.

I don't think neither of us have putted exceptionally well. We've putted what we would expect on a day-to-day basis, but we haven't really got hot with the putter. Hopefully everything sort of works in our favor.

Q. I've got to ask you guys, how did you come up with the music?

BILLY HORSCHEL: I thought it was a great song, so I picked it out, obviously.

Q. Did you acquiesce? How did that happen?

SAM BURNS: Going to school in Baton Rouge and being from the state of Louisiana, I knew all the locals would love it, so we were just trying to make sure they had a good time.

Q. Were you thinking home state advantage, playing to the crowd?

BILLY HORSCHEL: I picked the song last year. I texted him last week, I said, hey, listen, you're higher ranked than me this year, you can go ahead and pick the song. I didn't want to have to deal with it again. So he picked a great song. I hadn't heard it before. Obviously I'm a Garth Brooks fan, but I haven't heard that one. I played it, and I'm like, oh, this will be perfect.

Q. The walk from 9 to 10 after the bogey, as far of a walk as that is, how nice was that just to be able to regroup on that walk over?

SAM BURNS: Yeah, I think it was obviously frustrating to bogey 9, but it's one of those things where our focus and our attention has to be on the next shot, not what just happened. Billy made a great birdie on 10, so that kind of got us back going again, which was really, really great on his part.

BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah, I kicked myself in the butt. It was a perfect walk for me to let off a little steam because I was ticked that I didn't play the eighth hole correct off the tee. I probably should have laid up in the fairway, given myself a better wedge opportunity. Sam is longer than me so his play off the tee was correct. Sam didn't hit that bad of a shot at No. 9, and for me not to step up and pick him up and make a bogey there, I was sort of ticked off at myself because he's been doing a great job picking me up when I've been out of holes, and I didn't do a really good job of that today for him on that hole.

Yeah, perfect walk, 200 yards for me to let off steam and get myself back into ready to play a great last nine holes.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
119784-1-1002 2022-04-23 21:35:00 GMT

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