THE MODERATOR: Scottie Scheffler is with us at the 107th PGA Championship. We've got time for a few questions.
Q. Satisfied with that? Could you otherwise say something about your round that we could use?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: It's going to be a challenge. I'm satisfied with my finish. It's always nice coming off the course finishing with a birdie.
Today I feel like I did some good things out there and did some things I could improve on. I had a couple sloppy bogeys, I felt, early in the round. You know, I had the early bogey there on 11, which was a little sloppy, and then I had one on like maybe the third short hole that was sloppy as well.
Overall I did a good job battling and keeping a level head out there during a day which there was definitely some challenging aspects to the course and did a good job posting a number on a day where I didn't have my best stuff.
Q. What club on 9 and what happened on the shot on 16? Was there mud on your ball?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: On 9 that was a 6-iron downwind. Ball started to go far as it started to heat up today. Then on 16, I hit in the middle of the fairway, you've got mud on your ball, and it's tough to control where it goes after that.
Q. Following up on 16, you and Xander were next to each other in the fairway and Rory has the sidehill lie. But how unusual is that to see all three of you kind of have a big number on that hole?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, Marty just asked me about that, actually and I kept the honor with making a double on a hole, and I think that will probably be the first and last time I do that in my career unless we get some crazy weather conditions.
It's one of those deals where it's frustrating to hit the ball in the middle of the fairway and get mud on it and have no idea where it's going to go. I understand it's part of the game, but there's nothing more frustrating for a player. You spend your whole life trying to learn how to control a golf ball, and due to a rules decision all of a sudden you have absolutely no control over where that golf ball goes.
But I don't make the rules. I just have to deal with the consequences of those rules. I did a good job of battling back today and not letting a bad break like that, which cost me a couple shots, get to me. Did a good job battling after that and posting a decent score.
Q. How surprised were you when you saw that ruling Wednesday that there wouldn't be any preferred lies?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Not really surprised at all.
Q. It's become normal for you, but a huge grouping 1, 2 and 3 in the world, a ton of people out there. Is that something you have to get used to, that every time you play in the majors that you're in one of these super groups?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I'm not sure if traditionally they have always done that with the pairings. I felt like when I was growing up, like when Tiger and Phil were 1 and 2 in the world and Vijay was up there as well, I felt like I didn't see it as much. Maybe I just didn't watch enough golf. That may be more of a newer thing.
It's really fun for me. I said on Tuesday during my presser, I feel like I can learn a lot from watching guys play. Obviously during a major championship round, that's not really the time to watch. I'm pretty focused on myself out there. But there's always little things that you can pick up on from players. It's fun.
Xander is a really good buddy of mine and Rory is a friend as well, and it's always fun to be out there with those guys. I love being able to play against the best, and there's nothing better than being paired with them, as well. It's fun.
Q. Given how much rain there was early in the week, are you surprised at how the fairways were and how bouncy the greens were when you were hitting your approaches?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: No, that's something we knew to prepare for coming into the week. When you get newer bermuda greens -- the greens for this tournament last year were almost brand new. After settling in for a year, they are still going to be fairly firm when they're new bermuda, and the golf course got a pretty good amount of rain this week.
I think this golf course does a pretty good job compared to other places in terms of those run-up areas. Those run-up areas continue to firm up, and as the greens start to settle, I think you'll see a bit more playability of shots going into the greens. Sometimes as players it can get frustrating when you have very soft run-ups and extremely firm greens. I think this golf course from a design perspective does a good job of mowing that zoysia towards the green especially if you're to have a different type of grass on the greens.
Q. Playability going to change your strategy for the rest of the tournament?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: No. It's going to be tough for those fairways to firm up too much just with the amount of rain we got. You can always firm up the greens with the SubAir system, but not having that under the fairways will make it pretty challenging.
Q. Traditionally the majors do not play preferred lies, even the PGA. But they did go out of their way to tell us last night that they weren't going to. So had there been discussion that they might, like when you guys were practicing and stuff, did you get the sense that they were thinking about it or considering it?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: By the way, this is going to be the last answer that I give on playing it up or down. I mean, I don't make the rules.
I think when you're looking at the purest forms of golf, like if you're going to go play links golf, there's absolutely no reason on a links golf course you should play the ball up. It doesn't matter how much rain they get. The course could be flooded under water and the ball is still going bounce somehow because of the way the turf is and the ground underneath the turf.
In American golf it's significantly different. When you have overseeded fairways that are not sand capped, there's going to be a lot of mud on the ball, and that's just part of it. When you think about the purest test of golf, I don't personally think that hitting the ball in the middle of the fairway you should get punished for.
On a golf course as good of conditioned as this one is, this is probably a situation in which it would be the least likely difference in playing it up because most of the lies you get out here are all really good. So I understand how a golf purist would be, oh, play it as it lies. But I don't think they understand what it's like literally working your entire life to learn how to hit a golf ball and control it and hit shots and control distance, and all of a sudden due to a rules decision that is completely taken away from us by chance.
In golf, there's enough luck throughout a 72-hole tournament that I don't think the story should be whether or not the ball is played up or down. When I look at golf tournaments, I want the purest, fairest test of golf, and in my opinion maybe the ball today should have been played up.
But like I said, I don't make the rules. I deal with what the rules decisions are. I could have let that bother me today when you got a mud ball and it cost me a couple shots. It cost me possibly two shots on one hole, and if I let that bother me, it could cost me five shots the rest of the round. But today I was proud of how I stayed in there, didn't let it get to me and was able to play some solid golf on a day in which I was a bit all over the place and still post a score.
Q. You were part of a blockbuster group out there on course today. Amazing atmosphere. What was it like for you to be a part of that, feeding off the energy of the crowd, what was that like?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: It's always a ton of fun to get paired with those two guys. You know, I think what excites us the most as players is getting to play against the best competition, and having the top three guys in the world all playing together is a tremendous amount of fun.
You have a guy that just won the Career Grand Slam, another guy that won two majors last year, and then I won a major last year, as well. It was a fun group. The crowd had great energy.
Hopefully tomorrow it will play a little bit better. This morning was a bit of a struggle. Like you said, all three of us had a double on the same hole in the middle of the round. So that can kind of kill the momentum. Overall it was a fun day and I was glad to post a decent score.
Thanks, y'all.
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