THE MODERATOR: Second round 70 highlighted by an eagle on 8. How would you assess your round?
NICK TAYLOR: I scrambled well. I didn't hit it probably as well tee to green today as yesterday. But scrambled really well. Made a few key putts to keep the round going.
Then a great save on 18, obviously hitting the drive in the water there, and walking away with a 5 was a good save. So overall I just scored well today. If I can clean up a little bit off the tee, misses weren't big, just missing a few fairways just a little bit left, and from there it's tricky to hit it close out of the rough there.
Q. You mentioned 18, the pull. What's the key to navigating to get through the finish line on that one?
NICK TAYLOR: It's just a really hard tee shot for most guys. But for someone of my length, the fairway's 15 yards wide, it feels like. Right is no bargain with all the palm trees there. So yeah, it's one I feel like I can't really bail out right because you're probably going to make 5 regardless. So like I said, I obviously didn't try to hit it in the water but just hit it a little left there and was able to scramble for a good 5.
Q. Along those lines, forgive me if this sounds weird, but when you make a good 5 at the end like that, do you believe in momentum at all? Like, does that give you a good feeling going into whatever you're doing this afternoon, whatever your mood's going to be when you come back tomorrow?
NICK TAYLOR: I definitely feel better than if I made 6 or worse. So yeah, I feel like -- I birdied it yesterday, I bogeyed it today. If you look at it that way I would take two pars, no doubt. Tee shot wasn't what I wanted. I was kind of fighting that miss all day. And I hit a few good ones leading up to it, but it kind of snuck back up. But again, to salvage a 5 -- I had 240 yards in for my third shot, so to take a 5 there felt like it was a win.
Q. What was the wind yesterday?
NICK TAYLOR: The wind?
Q. The wind. Was it different when you played 18 yesterday?
NICK TAYLOR: Pretty similar. Yesterday it was a little more southwest, today it was a little southeast, but hurting off the right, yeah.
Q. Overall, was the wind pretty consistent today or did it shift at some point?
NICK TAYLOR: It was actually kind of variable in the morning which is, honestly, there was no wind, but, you know, it was just kind of all over the place. Where yesterday it was very consistent for the whole round for us. So there was a little wind, but it changed. You had to pay attention to that.
It was out there. The front nine I felt like a lot of the pins were gettable. I wasn't hitting enough fairways to really attack. But I feel like I saw some guys 3-, 4-, 5-under par through nine holes. So it's scorable, you just got to be in the fairways to be able to attack. If you're not you're just kind of scrambling from there.
Q. What's the hardest part here?
NICK TAYLOR: Here? Par-3s are difficult. It's a long golf course. I think because of the heat and around the fairways it's not playing exceptionally long, but yeah just, there's really no part you can probably fake it out here is probably what is the biggest difficulty. You got to do everything well to shoot a good score.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports