THE MODERATOR: Let's welcome Cam Smith, the captain of Ripper GC. You are currently sitting at T2 at 7-under. Tell us a little bit about your round.
CAM SMITH: There's not much to say, really, to be honest. It was all pretty clean and tidy. A few more fairways today. A lot more approach shots kind of closer to the hole. Made a ton of birdies. It all seemed very easy today.
But as I know and everyone else knows in the field and in this room, golf is not an easy game, so looking forward to a challenging weekend.
Q. Looking at the scorecards for all of you guys today, it was like a birdie fest out there. Is this golf course just designed for you guys to make birdies?
CAM SMITH: Yeah, I think it's just a touch shorter, and given the format, I think you have to go out there and hit driver and kind of be aggressive. You have to make a lot of birdies because there's a few spots around here where you're going to make a bogey, and it's going to be tough.
It's very tricky, but if you get the ball in the right spot, generally you have a good look at birdie.
Q. It's a major championship leaderboard; we've got DeChambeau, Smith, Rahm, Watson, Niemann all up there. What do you got to do this weekend to get it done and get ahead of the pack?
CAM SMITH: Play good. Yeah, there's some quality players out here, and it's very difficult to win every week. I've put myself in a really good spot after round 1, and hopefully I can go out there over the weekend and give it my all and hopefully walk away with a trophy.
Q. Rippers are sitting on top again. You guys are currently sitting at 15-under, tied with Crushers at 15-under. What is the magic with this team? You guys just play so consistently well. You guys obviously won in Miami. You're always at the top of the leaderboard. Tell us what the secret sauce is.
CAM SMITH: I don't know. A good captain, I think, really helps.
No, I think we've all worked really hard in the off-season. We got off to a bit of a slow start, which was a bit of a bummer, really. We didn't really think that that was going to happen. We were all pretty confident at the start of the season.
I think getting off to a bit of a slow start was maybe a good thing, and just kept up the hard work and trusting the process. Winning at a place like Doral in those conditions is a pretty good sign of a good team.
Yeah, we kind of just got to keep doing what we're doing.
Q. How would you describe your round with your partners and how would you describe the altitude, the climate? How did it feel for you?
CAM SMITH: Yeah, it feels pretty good. I think doing a bit of work at the start of the week and really dialing in your distances was pretty key.
The full shots I think you can get a really good idea of how far they're going to go. It's the ones where you're trying to knock it down into the wind or take something off it that they kind of vary a bit just with spin.
So yeah, those have been by far the tougher shots out here. But like I said, I mean, we had a lot of really good numbers today and a lot of really full swings, and I was just able to commit to kind of what we were doing. Hopefully we can keep putting ourselves in those spots.
Q. What do you expect from yourself after completing the 14 season events?
CAM SMITH: What do I expect after?
Q. After the full season.
CAM SMITH: I mean, I've left myself a lot of work to do to try and win the championship. I think I've probably left myself a little bit too much work, to be honest, so I've had to readjust some goals. I think if I can just keep doing what I'm doing -- I've always been kind of a process type of person, really trying to tick the boxes, and although the results haven't really been there the last few months, I feel like I've put in some good work and the game is in a good spot and heading in a good spot. Hopefully we can just steadily climb that championship ladder there and get up as high as we can. That's the goal.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports