Q. What a round. If we can get some comments and you got to be proud of yourself for your title defense and it's not over yet.
BEN GRIFFIN: Yeah, went into the round very confident. I felt like I was going to make a nice run what I woke up this morning. My game was trending in the right direction. It's a course I have experience on and I kind of know what you have to do on Sunday here, after last year learning. Just felt like I had a good opportunity. I knew it was going to be tough for the leaders to try to post a low number I thought it would take lower than where I'm at, but the course always does this here, it plays way tougher on Sunday compared to Thursday. So it was awesome to make a charge there especially on the front nine, kind of cooled off on the back, but nonetheless, it's tough and I was proud of the way I finished.
Q. Thoughts on that putt on 18?
BEN GRIFFIN: Yeah, 60-footer, these aren't the ones that you're normally trying to make, but I had to in that situation. Gave it an awesome run and it just barely missed on that left edge. But pretty cool to at least see it rolling towards the cup, it almost made for a really dramatic finish. Who knows, see what happens.
Q. How are you going to spend your time now?
BEN GRIFFIN: I'll hang out with people. I'm not the type to type of person to go and hide in a corner and just like put pressure on myself or whatnot. I would rather just go hang out. I probably won't have a beer, but I'll do everything other than that, and just hang out with everyone and watch some golf, see how it finishes up, maybe hit a couple balls if it gets close at the end. But we'll just see what happens. You never know here at Colonial.
Q. In what ways are you a different player than you were a year ago?
BEN GRIFFIN: Yeah, just I've gotten over the hump a few times, got that confidence. Once you win out here you just feel like you're at a different level. I just feel like my game -- I know I can do it, that's the biggest thing. When you're a rookie you're not sure if you can really do it. You have that belief, but until you actually do it you can't rely on that confidence and experience to get you over the hump the next time. So, yeah, I feel like for me this year I just have a lot more confidence and a lot more belief in myself. Not that I didn't have the belief prior, but it's just more -- I guess I've just, because I've earned it and because I've been able to get over that hump it just makes you more and more comfortable and that's really the big difference.
Q. Is validation a word you would use?
BEN GRIFFIN: Probably validation, yeah, exactly.
Q. Last couple months your game has really sort of started trending. Do you see that and how excited are you for this next stretch of golf?
BEN GRIFFIN: Yeah, I love this time of the year. If you look at my entire seasons on TOUR or all my, I guess, my career on the PGA TOUR, it's kind of been like this. I haven't played as great to start the year on the west coast. I'll probably always have that a little bit. I'm sure I could win AmEx or Waste Management, Farmers, I'm not a big -- I never play well at Torrey Pines, I'll have to get over that hump a little bit. But golfers we kind of when we pick our schedules we kind of ask ourself, If I have my C game a week like here versus my C game a week like Torrey, what's my finish going to be. My C game here could still be a top-10 finish. Whereas, a C game at Torrey Pines is almost always going to be a missed cut for me. So there's courses like that when I build my schedule that, because I played on TOUR for a few years now, been able to kind of tell where I play well and where I don't and build my schedule around that. Tiger used to always do it, some of the best players in the game have always done it that way. And, yeah, this time of the year I just, I play well, so I try to play a bunch. That's why I played a bunch last year. After I won Zurich I just kept riding it and was playing well in the majors and I'm going to keep kind of doing the same thing.
Q. What grade do you give yourself this week?
BEN GRIFFIN: Today was definitely a pretty close to A with the exception of one hole. Just got out of my rhythm and game plan a little bit on 11. But other than that I hit some really high quality shots. The rest of the week was, I would say, B to C. But like we're hard on ourselves. As golfers, it's hard for me to actually grade myself. For all I know, I could win this golf tournament and like here I am saying I had my B or C game it's like, well, if I won, I mean, I guess we can go to A. But I don't know, golfers are so hard, we're almost perfectionists out there. And I feel like golf's one of those sports you just got to, you're going to have bad moments and you just got to let 'em go and move forward and got to stay positive. I felt like I did a really good job of staying positive today.
Q. So given your success since Zurich of last year, and good performances in some majors, what I'm wondering is does this reset your goals for major championships?
BEN GRIFFIN: No, I think, honestly, my goals last year after top-10ing at the PGA and winning here, my goal was to win the U.S. Open last year, and I felt really good about my game. So I feel like if I come into these majors with a good idea of where my game's at and feel pretty solid about it, I feel like I can win. Like, just because it's a major championship doesn't make it that much different than some of these big events on TOUR. Playing the Signature Events, playing an event like here, if I play really high-quality golf here and succeed and win or finish second, like I can do the same thing in the majors. I play against a lot of the same guys week-in and week-out, and so from that standpoint I'm more comfortable at the majors than ever. When I first started playing majors it was names that I hadn't been competing as much against, just because I wasn't acclimated on the PGA TOUR, hadn't had the success to be in the signature groups, to be in the featured pairings. Now that I'm with those guys, I'm right where I should be. So I just got to keep believing in myself and when I tee it up at majors, just go into it like any other week and try to win.
Q. Have you played Shinnecock, seen it?
BEN GRIFFIN: I haven't. Probably go the week of. I'm not a huge guy that goes and scopes out courses. I feel like, at the professional level, the courses always play different the week of versus any other time of the year. I lived in Sea Island forever, and that course always played different for the tournament. Even PGA National. It's just, there's a lot of courses on Tour that play different throughout the rest of the year, so I would rather get there may be a day or two earlier, take off the week prior is one thing I've been liking to do at these major championships. Just go in and have an easy flowing week where I'm not playing 18, but playing nine a day and just getting a good feel for the course. So I'll go up there Sunday morning or Saturday night and just have an extended week where I just play nine a day and that will be good for me.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports