THE MODERATOR: Scottie Scheffler, 1-over 71. Talk about the round and how difficult it was playing.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: How do I feel about my round? I feel like I battled really hard. It's challenging out there. I was not getting the ball in the correct spots and paying the price for it. Felt like me getting away with 1-over today wasn't all that bad. It could have been a lot worse.
Q. Did you see this coming from the range out on the course? Were you not striking it well off the tee, leading to the battle?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: No, I anticipated to hit it better.
Q. What kept you from sorting it out over the course of the round?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, any time you're not hitting it the way or playing up to my expectations I think it's frustrating. Mentally this was as tough as I've battled for the whole day. There was a lot of stuff going on out there that was not going in my favor necessarily, and I felt like Teddy and I did a great job of battling, especially coming down the stretch.
I felt like I got some momentum back with a birdie on 2, quickly lost it with a bogey on 3, but then bounced back, birdied 4, great up-and-down on 5, great up-and-down on 6, birdied 7, good par on 8. I made the mistake there on 9, but that's just what happens when you don't hit the fairway.
Overall definitely not out of the tournament. Today was I think with the way I was hitting it was easily a day I could have been going home and battled pretty hard to stay in there.
I'm 4-over. We'll see what the lead is after today, but around this golf course I don't think by any means I'm out of the tournament.
Q. You found yourself in the pews a lot and it was obviously very frustrating. How do you deal with that mentally and how do you deal with the unique challenge of the bunkers here at Oakmont?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Well, when you get the ball out of position here, you've just got to try to get the ball back in play. That's really all there is to it. You can get lucky sometimes and get a lie and maybe be able to get something to the green. But that wasn't really happening for me today. I decided to just keep hitting it in the rough for some reason.
But outside of that, I bounced back really well to a lot of the mistakes that I made, and kept myself, like I said -- I'm not in the position I'd want to be after two days, but by no means am I out of the tournament.
Q. Just wondering, on 9 there, it looked like you pulled a hybrid or something out of the rough there initially. How did the lie look --
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I grabbed my 7-wood to see what I could do. The 7-wood is a pretty amazing club out of the rough. There was just a little too much grass behind the ball. I felt like with the grass in front of the ball I could get it out but I didn't know for sure if I could cover that bunker. If that bunker wasn't there I for sure would have hit 5-wood. But really it's just one of those deals where when you get out of position I'm fighting hard at the end of the round, in my head I'm like, Oh, I can get this to the green, and the more we stood there I was like, We probably shouldn't to do this, something bad could happen. So I did a good job of kind of staying patient, hitting a wedge out, and giving myself a look for par.
Q. Is that the kind of test Oakmont gives you where you're trying to fight it until the last hole and maybe that could have been a decision that could go badly if you decide, Hey, I'm trying to get it in the house?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Well, I think that would maybe be an area where you could try to force something, and being 3-over par for the tournament and the lead is a few under par, that could be an area where you may try to force something. But I think forcing it around this place is probably not a good recipe to play too much good golf for me. You've got to be hitting fairways, you've got to be hitting greens, and hopefully I'll be able to do that on the weekend.
Q. What makes Sam Burns such a good putter?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Such a putter? He plays golf, I think, very freely, and he's got really good natural instincts when it comes to his putting, and a lot of it is just very reactionary. He's got good fundamentals, good instinct, and he putts very reactionary. That's really all there is to it, it's as simple as that.
Q. Can you give us a sense of how badly he'd like to win a major?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I mean, it's a complicated question. I think Sam is one of those guys, he's like me in a sense that he's a hyper-competitive person. I think you always dream of having a chance to win these tournaments, and he's put himself in position a few times at majors, and he's in position again. I'm sure going into the weekend he's right where I would want to be on the leaderboard, so you know, to have a good chance, it should be a fun experience for him.
Q. You've talked about battling when you don't have your best stuff. What exactly does that mean to you? Is it decision making? Is it not giving up on a shot? What does a battle mean to you?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I think it's just giving it your best on each shot. There was some times today where you feel like you could give up, just based on how difficult the golf course is, how my swing was feeling. And you're, like, I'd get in position there on 17 and make a mess of the hole, and feel like I was making birdie, walk off with bogey. Then I hit it in a bunker on the next hole, and it's like I'm going to be struggling for par. Start off the round I make a good putt on 10, barely pull it on 11, there's a lot of places that ball could end up. Thought it could end fairway and it ends up in a place where I don't have a swing. So it's like, am I going mad about it, get frustrated, or am I just going to chip it out and see what I can do from there. I felt like that's what a lot of today was about, and hopefully be able to put together some good rounds over the weekend and see where I stand. Going out early tomorrow, maybe get some easier conditions than the guys late in the afternoon. At the U.S. Open I don't think you're ever out of the tournament. Put together two decent days, I may be in 25th or 30th place or something like that after today, and like I said, by no means is that out of the tournament.
Q. I know it's hard out there, but why is it taking so long?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Why do you think?
Q. I don't know.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I mean, I don't know --
Q. Seems like it's long to me.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: It felt long to me. Both the par-5s we basically walked up on the group in front of us. When it's up on No. 8 -- you've got a drivable par-4 on 17. 8 is basically a drivable par-4, too. You guys are the ones watching. I'm just trying to play. I've got too many concerns other than the pace it takes to get around this place.
Q. Does that get under your skin at all?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: No. Going into a golf course like this with this many players and this tough of a golf course, you know it's going to take a while. If it was, like -- if we're playing threesomes at Travelers next week, the scores are obviously going to be a bit different. There's not nearly the distance in between holes. Look at the ground we've got to cover out there to walk 18 holes. That's a big piece of property. It just takes time. It just takes time to hit that many golf shots.
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