Q. I know you were just asked about this. But what was the break through last week?
ADAM LONG: I adjusted my irons a little bit, made the -- my lies were probably a little too upright for me and flattened those out a little bit and it really made me get through the turf a little bit better and working with my coach Josh Gregory and caddie Julian Trudeau, they both have been pretty instrumental in getting me back to playing good golf again.
Q. How much of a relief is it to go through a stretch where you miss that many cuts and you're clearly struggling and then to have a good result and then kind of build on that result? Is it a relief or is it kind of back where you feel like you belong?
ADAM LONG: A little bit of both. I think when you're in the trenches like I kind of was there awhile back was it's hard, but I kept digging it out of the dirt as they say and kept kind of grinding away, knowing that I wasn't playing for status necessarily for next year, so that was nice. I had a really nice fall last year where if I could just have a few more good tournaments the rest of the season I'm in a really good spot going into the playoffs. So I wasn't totally feet against the fire, but it was a tough time, but definitely feels good -- confidence is huge in this sport as we know, so having kind of that back and seeing some shots come back to be more normal is nice.
Q. It's still early and there's not a ton of good scores but like, statistically, it seems like it's playing easier than maybe it has in the past. Is that a byproduct of it just being soft or do you think it's a byproduct of the changes?
ADAM LONG: Maybe a little bit of both. I think by adding more pin locations and flattening the greens a bit in some of the more dramatic areas has made it probably a little easier to make some putts and things, but the course is still plenty hard, you really need to hit fairways, the rough is as bad as I've ever seen it, it's gnarly. So certainly being soft always helps scoring out here, but I think softening some of the edges has helped a lot too.
Q. Guessing you saw the Coach K news. Do you have any thoughts?
ADAM LONG: I mean, pretty awesome for Jon Scheyer. As it's sad to see Coach K kind of end it, Jon Scheyer was the same class as me at Duke and had a class with him and knew him a little bit and so watching him pass the torch is, it's pretty awesome for him, huge opportunity.
Q. Did you ever cross paths with Coach K when you were there?
ADAM LONG: Yeah, a few times. Not a golfer, so not a whole lot in common there. I met him four or five time briefly, but there was another player on the team, Gerald Henderson, also my class, who was a big golfer and stuff, so we talked a little bit about that. But not being a big golfer it was kind of a bummer for me.
Q. You kicked off the week with a pretty exciting time I understand. Can you just elaborate on that a little bit what happened on Monday?
ADAM LONG: Yeah, it was incredible. My caddie and I were playing a quick nine before dark, kind of 5 o'clock maybe Monday evening, and the back nine. And we get to 14 green and we look up and I had to kind of look twice, it was Mr. Nicklaus sitting in a golf cart right there just waiting for me. So we finished 14 and walked over and introduced ourselves. And he just said, All right, I came over to see somebody play 15. Hadn't seen it played yet. So let's go. I thought, all right.
So I was pretty nervous, obviously, but played 15 and he rode in the cart the whole way with us and chatted us up the whole way about the renovations. And hit some chips and putts around the green on 15 and we went to 16 and hit some shots into 16 as well. So pretty surreal for me, obviously a hero of mine and being here at his place is pretty special.
Q. That must have given you a little inspiration for this week.
ADAM LONG: Yeah, definitely, it was exciting.
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