THE MODERATOR: Matt Gogel, welcome to the 2025 Senior PGA Championship, 2-under on the first round. What are your thoughts overall today.
MATT GOGEL: Well, I thought, A, we kind of got lucky with the weather, as it's starting to rain. I can see that right now. I think they set up the golf course amazingly fair because it was -- Monday, I thought, how are we going to break 75 out here.
I played really, really well. Obviously I hate to finish the way I did, but it was a good day.
Q. It's a major championship for the seniors, and it's important to everyone. But are these tournaments especially -- do you have a lot more prize for you if you can play well in these things with your status and stuff like that? Do they mean more to you?
MATT GOGEL: Well, I think that all of the majors we have are important, elevated, obviously. It's different playing in a 156-person field versus 78 that we have every week, and I think we're forever from Sunday from now. I got off to a good start; that's all it really is. I think the golf course is set up very fair, but if we get some better conditions and firmer greens than they were today, then it's going to be tough to score.
Q. It was Monday you played and then Tuesday was kind of a wash --
MATT GOGEL: Tuesday I walked nine holes. I walked the back nine. Then yesterday I played six holes. Ironically I didn't even play the back nine, and I played it really well. I started off a couple birdies right out of the gate.
The bones of the golf course are the same. The alleyways, everything that I remember, minus 3,000 or 4,000 trees. But Andrew did an amazing job on this golf course. It really is fair, and it really does play kind of linksey, which is so unfamiliar for Americans, but if you really look at where you can bounce the ball into different parts of the green, it's just a different style golf for us. It really is. It's not like the old Congressional. You really have to push the ball into different spots on the greens. It's really all about second shots.
Q. Did you play in '11?
MATT GOGEL: 2011 Open, and I played the '97 Open here, and we were here for PGA TOUR events, I think, twice.
Q. You were there for all of them?
MATT GOGEL: I was here for the Booz Allen tournament that was here in 2003 or 2004. By the way, I had the course record but I can't find it anywhere in the clubhouse. I think it's been nullified. But I shot 63 in the TOUR event when we were here. I was told it was the course record at the time, but the course has been renovated, obviously, since then, twice.
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