Q. Nice round today, talk about the birdies on the last two holes.
RYAN GERARD: Yeah, I felt like I was just kind of grinding it out pretty hard all day. Felt really confident with how I've been playing, I just didn't feel like I was hitting it as close as yesterday and wasn't leaving my ball in the greatest spots. I was doing pretty well to just kind of keep it in range from there.
Got a good number that I liked on 17 and executed a great golf shot, and it happened to get into tap-in range.
Then stepped up and hit two really good shots on 18. Was a little bit worried about how much that putt might break, and just felt, you know, step back, commit to it, make a good stroke, and it rolled nicely and went in the bottom of the hole. That's going to be big for tomorrow. So it's one of those, every shot really matters, any time you get a chance to capitalize on an opportunity you got to take advantage of it. And this course is going to play difficult, so you got to go out there with the right attitude and keep putting it in front of you and keep hitting it in the right spots.
Q. You lead the field in strokes gained putting. How important has your putting been for you today and just this weekend?
RYAN GERARD: Yeah, I feel like I've put in a lot of effort last week in putting and for it to show up immediately is very rare. So we're just going to roll with it while we have it. But it's not going to be perfect, it's not every putt's going to go in. You just got to understand that and try and hit good shots and hit good putts and live with whatever you get, and just stay committed and confident in the process of everything. If you do that, if I make a good stroke, if I hit it on line, no matter what happens once the ball leaves the putter head, I feel comfortable with what that result's going to be. So I think that's just kind of the mindset that we're going to take. I know I'm hitting good putts, so if they go in, great. If not, we're going to just keep hitting good ones.
Q. This is a question about your grit. After 1, nobody's really making bogeys on 1, and the many bounce back opportunities that you took. What does that say about your ability to put things past you and just move on?
RYAN GERARD: Yeah, we made a really, really bad bogey on 1. I hit it, I hit the wedge too far. I thought the green was going to be softer, it took a big bounce, sat straight down. I had absolutely nothing. Just kind of made a mess of the first hole. That's not acceptable.
But you don't knock yourself out of it early on in the day on Saturday by making one kind of bad decision. That's kind of something that we talked about was, you don't need to press it, you don't need to force it, you don't need to just push it to the edge right away, there's a lot of golf left to be played and a lot of opportunities. This course isn't just going to present them to you, you're going to have to go out and execute good golf shots and take advantage of 'em when they show up. But it's not one of those things where that was a day ruiner, that wasn't going to be a deal breaker, that wasn't going to be the end of the week. We just had to step up, refocus, and hit some good shots on the next few holes and just kind of right the momentum. It's not an easy golf course. Everyone that steps up here and plays here knows that and it's going to take some sort of grind to kind of get around here in a manageable score. So whenever it gets difficult, whenever it gets kind of hard, just got to step up and execute and just really put the head down and grind it out, because it's not pretty, it's not like just easy, it's not just a pitch and putt, you got to go out and really make it happen.
Q. Are you someone who takes inventory as you're lying in bed going to sleep, do you replay your round, is that something you typically do?
RYAN GERARD: Well, we'll go kind of look at a couple things here before we go hit some golf balls, and just kind of really assess if there's anything glaring that kind of sticks out from a technique or swing or some sort of trend in different shots. Then kind of go work on those, feel comfortable about 'em. Then just really go through and make sure that you felt committed, confident, stuck to the process, didn't make too many mental errors, and just kind of make sure we know all those. But by the time we go like back to the hotel it's kind of an, everything's reset, kind of going from there. Might watch a couple highlights of the round just to see if there's anything that I pick up in the golf swing or something like that. But I think it's important to kind of, once you get away from the office, to stay away from the office. I get caught up -- like I want to go play golf and think about golf 24/7. And at a certain point, it's a long week, it's hot out here, you need the rest or you're going to overexert yourself just thinking about why I missed a 5-footer on 13 or 14 laying in bed. So we'll kind of leave all that stuff here at the golf course, just figure out what the plan is, what we can clean up for tomorrow. And when we go home, eat, and then call it a night.
Q. To be clear, I was wondering if you would remember the bounce-back holes that you had, and the birdie, birdie finish and what that means. How does an elite player look back at that? An average player would be like, I'm ready to play tomorrow?
RYAN GERARD: No, I think I'm happy I did that, but I think that's not something I'm going to dwell on. I'm excited about the finish, but it's an expectation to finish rounds strong and kind of run through that finish line, you don't ever want to be just limping across. So I'll pat myself on the back here and then go back to work and get ready for tomorrow.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports