Q. Kind of a lift to get back to Deere Run?
RYAN MOORE: Absolutely. It's a place I've had obvious success at. It felt like my game was rounding into shape a couple weeks ago. I felt pretty good at the Travelers, another place I've had quite a bit of success. I liked what I was doing there and how I was putting especially. Short game was feeling good.
Today I went out and hit the ball nicely and just gave myself a bunch of opportunities. Had a couple kick-ins but was able to hoop a nice long one at the 10th hole and felt like I finally got something out of my round. I just haven't been doing that lately.
Q. This is your 13th start this year. Just playing a short schedule based on the back injury?
RYAN MOORE: Yeah, I kind of just strained a muscle in my back in the fall, or actually it was in the Playoffs last year, the first event. I ended up missing the Playoffs and the whole fall. It kind of put me behind the 8-ball a little bit, and just trying to grind back into it. I wouldn't say it's 100 percent now, but it's feeling better, and I've felt better the last few weeks.
But it's been hard because I can't play too much in a row, kind of will -- it struggles a little bit with that. I've been having to go on and off quite a bit, which it's hard to find a rhythm sometimes. But like I said, felt pretty good a couple weeks ago, so it's nice to kind of carry that through into today and go out and start with a good solid round.
Q. Summer has always been a good season for you, hasn't it?
RYAN MOORE: The summertime? Yes, late summer and fall generally is kind of my best time of year for whatever reason. Never been able to quite figure out the why there. But yeah, most of my wins and/or good finishes and success has been July through October.
Q. Does the back feel better in warm, sultry weather?
RYAN MOORE: No, I wish. No, it doesn't want to loosen up much for anything these days. You know, it helps if it's a little warmer and humid and helps get moving a little bit, but it felt fine out there today. It's a little tight, but it felt all right.
Q. It looked like from mid-May until Travelers you didn't play at all, right? You went over a month. Was that because of the back?
RYAN MOORE: It was a little bit because of the back, a little bit because of schedule. I just wasn't in a couple invitationals in a row, majors, some of that stuff. It kind of just gave me a chance to give my back a little bit of a break at that point and take a few more weeks -- I took maybe a couple more than I needed to off, but it was just a timing thing more than anything at that point.
Q. Was there a period in there where you went a long time without practicing or doing anything?
RYAN MOORE: There's been some stretches, yeah, lately where I haven't been able to do a lot. It's frustrating because I feel like every time I gain a little momentum I kind of get derailed a little bit. So it was nice coming off a couple weeks ago, feeling pretty good and just being able to bounce right back, get some good practice in last week and then come back out here and kind of feel that momentum a little bit. I haven't been able to hold on to it lately. So it was nice last week being able to practice quite a bit because there's been a lot of weeks where I can't do a lot.
Q. Curious how you tweaked your back.
RYAN MOORE: Playing golf. It was in a round of golf in Greensboro, the Friday round, and I don't know, just hit a shot and just didn't feel right and kind of kept getting worse and worse and worse throughout the day. I tried to go ahead and play the next week and I just couldn't make it happen. Had to take some time off.
Q. Knowing that you have the feeling of having a bogey-free round, how much does that give you confidence going forward knowing you have something to build on?
RYAN MOORE: Yeah, it was great. Just to control the golf ball like I did today, just give myself a lot of really good opportunities. Didn't necessarily hit it super close all day long, but I had a lot of 10- to 20-footers, which on these greens I feel great on, so I'll take a bunch of those. I was able to make a few of them and get quite a bit out of the round.
Q. You've had success around here in the past. How much of a help is that on this course?
RYAN MOORE: I mean, it always gets you excited mentally going back to a place you know you can play well on and you know you've shot good scores on. It's tough showing up places where you're like, well, I've finished 28th here and that's about it.
So a place that you've won and I've had several other top 10s and been in the mix a few times, just makes you feel good. You know that that score is out there, you know you're capable. So it's almost that side of it that helps just kind of get you excited to go out and say, I know I can shoot 6-under on this golf course. I've done it before, so let's go out and do it again.
Q. How does this set you up moving forward now? Obviously a good position today; what do you think it's going to take the next three rounds?
RYAN MOORE: Based on the year I won, it takes about three more days very similar to this. I don't know what the weather is going to -- what it's going to do the next few days. Doesn't look great. Looks like we'll definitely be playing in some rain at some point, so that can always affect scores a little bit. You know around this place you've got to shoot 4- to 6-under and stay up there just about every day to have a chance.
Q. A clean card today; did you stay out of trouble? Was it an easy 6-under?
RYAN MOORE: Yeah, I didn't really think about it. I guess I did hit all 18 greens. So yeah, I wasn't really in trouble. I definitely had some longer putts a couple times that I had to lag down there, but I think I only missed one fairway and I hit 18 greens.
Tee to green was really solid and made some solid putts on top of it, so that just adds up to a good score.
Q. What were the course conditions? Should we expect these type of scores because of the course conditions?
RYAN MOORE: Yeah, the rough is really long, so if you're missing fairways, it'll sneak up on you pretty quick for sure. Greens are receptive enough. The fairways are actually rolling out a little bit. Again, that might change over the next couple days, but today they're actually rolling out a little.
We'll see some other good scores this afternoon for sure.
Q. Curious, replicating what happened in '16, you probably don't want to have to run up the 18th fairway to the scoreboard with your back --
RYAN MOORE: Yeah, maybe just a little bit.
Q. What do you remember about that? That was a bit crazy.
RYAN MOORE: About the 18 what?
Q. About the finish that you guys had --
RYAN MOORE: Oh, the Saturday one, yeah. You know, it was amazing because that thing was so bright it actually almost felt like daylight out there, so it really wasn't that bad. It was so nice to get sleep. I think that's what probably helped propel me to actually go win. I actually got to sleep past 4:00 a.m. for the first time in a couple days. So that was pretty fun.
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