Q. Nice finish. You held it together and closed strong. That was important heading into the weekend.
TOM HOGE: Yeah, seems like Hideki is trying to birdie every hole out there, so it was nice to kind of keep up the pace with him a little bit. I didn't feel like I was real sharp tee to green today. I would like to have a few more opportunities there from inside of 10 feet for birdies. Really didn't have that many until the last few holes, so it was nice to get a few to go in from.
Q. 6 you hit a wayward tee shot, second day in a row, and it was a great shot after the drop and you made par. Then No. 9. You missed birdie, but that could have been worse with that drive.
TOM HOGE: Yeah, for sure. Couple unfortunate breaks there. 6, coming down the hill for the second shot, third shot or whatever after the penalty, I'm just trying to get a chance there. Get a nice kick off the side of the hill and it comes up there to a kick-in, so that was great way to keep the momentum going.
Then, yeah, 9 was a nice break. I had relief from a camera in my way. I was looking at chipping out sideways, ended up getting up there to have a wedge in to have a good look at birdie.
Weird day because you always want to have more out there, but felt like I kept it together pretty well. I got a lot out of that round.
Q. People don't realize last year you were third on the PGA TOUR in total birdies. You throw out names and I don't think a lot of people were saying you, but you record a lot of birdies. So this setup plays into your game because you can go low.
TOM HOGE: Yeah, a little bit of that is skewed. I feel like I play a lot more tournaments than other guys, so that gets me up in the count. I do have some a lot going on on most of my rounds. I make a lot of birdies, fire some bogeys in there, but I can make some birdies, yeah.
Q. It's an exciting round of golf. Why are so many birdies being recorded today, scoring average is low, what's the deal out there?
TOM HOGE: Yeah, I think the wind was down, obviously, first of all, so a lot easier to control the golf ball out there. The greens are perfect out here. You feel like if you get within 10, 15 feet you got a great chance to make 'em. On top of that I feel like the fairways are firming up, playing shorter, get a few shorter clubs into greens. I think you go through the golf course, as long as you can avoid some trouble out there, there's so many scorable holes you should make a lot of birdies out here.
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