Atlanta Drive GC 4, New York Golf Club 0
THE MODERATOR: Congratulations on your victory tonight. Just a few words about the overall experience.
JUSTIN THOMAS: Yeah, it was great. I think anything is more fun when you're winning, so we made it very easy on ourselves, and I think we complemented each other's games well. I mean, it's obviously a tough adjustment for any of us and all teams playing, but we somehow found a way to hit fairways and greens and made a couple putts. That was a bonus.
Q. Billy, I think all three of you got to come in yesterday and play a practice round. What was that like, and how do you think that helped you in today's victory?
BILLY HORSCHEL: I think it just helps because when you have 40 seconds to hit a shot, you don't have time to strategize where you're going to miss it, where you're trying to put it on the green. Being here last night, going through the holes, seeing, knowing the lines and everything, it makes it a lot easier on us that we can just go ahead and hit the shot without having to talk too much about -- we know what we need to do because 40 seconds goes by really fast.
Q. Why didn't the hammer move tonight?
PATRICK CANTLAY: We just got up early and didn't need to. It was that simple.
BILLY HORSCHEL: I think the hammer is a cool thing and we've seen it the last couple weeks, but if you don't use it wisely, it can backfire. With Pat, we're all very much strategic and trying to understand, but Patrick takes it to another level, and he's like, guys, we don't use it in these certain ranges and everything, and we let him make the decision of when we needed to throw it, and once we got up early, he said, hey, guys, we're going to hang on to this. It was as simple as that.
Q. Justin, this week you passed a pretty big milestone in career earnings when you were runner-up but yet you seemed pretty excited to win a $100 bet up there. How much was that a highlight of the night, winning that $100 bet?
JUSTIN THOMAS: It was great. He's lucky that Pat's putt somehow lipped out on 18, and I'm just hoping I don't get in trouble for that. It's always, always sweeter when your friend has to hand you over cash. I've done it to both of these guys many a times, and it's nice being on the receiving end.
Q. Having experienced that for the first time, is there anything that you would tweak going forward or any suggestions you'd have on anything you'd like to see evolve on it?
JUSTIN THOMAS: I'd probably go back in time and not watch Billy do the "Dirty Bird" dance if I could because I will never be able to get that out of my mind.
BILLY HORSCHEL: Etched in there for life. As I said, it wasn't going to be pretty. I was going to make a fool of myself. But it's not the first time and won't be the last time.
Q. From an equipment point of view playing out there today, are you using the same wedges you use out on the course? Are you using any different grinds, different bounce?
PATRICK CANTLAY: JT hand-delivered a K grind 60-degree and I put it right in the bag. It's perfect for the turf out there. The one I use usually, it digs a little too much, especially on the end of the grain turf.
Q. Anything with the driver, changed the way it's around, deloft it, play around with it a bit? Happy with it as is?
BILLY HORSCHEL: Everything is the same.
JUSTIN THOMAS: Happy as is.
Q. Justin, one of the things the younger fans have really taken a liking to in this league is the pace and the shot clock. Is that something you players have talked about, ever finding a way to effectively and fairly implement on a PGA TOUR level?
JUSTIN THOMAS: You know, it's tough. Look, this is my 10th year on TOUR. I've been on the PAC a lot of years. We've talked about pace of play all 10 years.
The thing is you have to make such drastic changes for it to be noticeable. Pretty much a lot of the conversations end the same way; it's like what are we trying to accomplish here. Are rounds going to be 12 minutes faster? Are they going to be 20 minutes faster? It's hard to realistically make a big enough difference where people are like, wow, this is great. Rounds are only three hours now or three and a half hours instead of five. You know what I mean? It's really hard to make that big of a change.
Look, there definitely could be some things here and there that are done, but it's also -- I think there's, like, a Fan Forward survey that the TOUR does with fans. They like harder golf courses, they like watching us play difficult places but they want us to play faster, so those two don't go together. You've kind of got to pick and choose your battles.
But yeah, I guess we'll see. I'm sure we're all hopeful, but at the end of the day it's like, what are we trying to accomplish. You know what I'm saying?
Q. This is obviously a lot about fun and entertainment as much as it is about competition. Where is that line? How do you balance that between will it get competitive if it's coming down to the last hole and the fun might go in the back pocket? How do you balance it?
PATRICK CANTLAY: I think it's both. If you get in an arena like that, it's definitely fun and different compared to regular golf, and you can feel that out there having the crowd in person nonstop. But at the end of the day, we really want to win, and winning is fun. That's kind of the main point.
BILLY HORSCHEL: Every player in TGL is a competitive mother-- and that's they've done their entire career. They've won; they don't want to lose. Even though this is a fun atmosphere, they want to win, and at the end of the day competition is going to come out and you saw it tonight. You can still be competitive and still be fun in this scenario, and I think we did a perfect job of that.
Q. You set the tone with the "Dirty Bird" early. Give me your best estimation on what the Horschel household thought of your performance not on the course, walking out of the tunnel.
BILLY HORSCHEL: They knew it was coming. Obviously my wife and kids knew, and my middle daughter -- they were doing the dance the other night on FaceTime. When they found out what the dance was, they looked it up on YouTube and saw it.
Listen, my kids love me so hopefully they gave me a good rating and they liked what I did, but I'm sure they're going to make fun of me at the same time, which is cool with me.
Q. Having watched it here for the first time I found it extremely quick, especially after the tee shot and second shot. Usually on TOUR it takes some time for you to make the second shot. How do you make the decision so quick here? And how did you prepare?
JUSTIN THOMAS: There's a lot less variables. There's a lot less going on. The lie is what it is. You don't have wind that's changing. There's just --
PATRICK CANTLAY: No walking.
JUSTIN THOMAS: No walking. You're not pulling out a yardage book; you don't have to find a sprinkler head; you're not trying to see what angle you're on, which is a part of what makes this unique and special. We don't need to be trying to figure out yardages or whatnot; it's right there. And the ball is going to react on the green relatively the same every time. For a situation like this, I think that's best.
Q. On the entertainment side, did you guys choose your personal music tonight?
BILLY HORSCHEL: Yes.
PATRICK CANTLAY: Yes.
Q. Patrick, you're a big Led Zeppelin fan?
PATRICK CANTLAY: I am.
JUSTIN THOMAS: What year is it you don't listen to music past a certain.
PATRICK CANTLAY: If it's after 1980, I probably don't listen to it.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports