Q. Tournament debut, strong start. Just opening comments about your round today.
DAVIS RILEY: Yeah, it was pretty stress-free. Early on I made a couple really good par saves to keep the momentum going. From there, on the back nine, I knew I was playing well. I tried to stay patient and knew the opportunities would come. When they came, I capitalized.
I was very happy about that.
Q. Walk me through your round as highlighted by an eagle. Walk through that one?
DAVIS RILEY: Yeah. That was good. Hit a drive down the right side and thankfully caught the fairway. Thought it might have had a chance to go on the bunker. And when it was in off the right, had 262 hole, hit it perfect, a little cut 3-wood landed on the green and caught the slope and funneled down to about 15 feet and made the putt center cup. That was a nice one to grab.
Q. Third week playing in a row but kind of have a good stretch here, I think over five top 20s right now. What's the takeaway. What's momentum and confidence especially after last week?
DAVIS RILEY: I felt at Valspar and Tampa a couple months ago, I really turned the page there. Got in contention, then lost in that playoff to Sam. I knew I could do it, but to finally get in there, grab that experience, and handle it the way I did, I felt like I really turned a page. And ever since then I felt like I've had momentum. When I've gotten in those spots, I've just gotten more and more comfortable. I think that's the biggest thing. Just kind of getting out of my own way a little bit. And that's kind of been a game-changer for me.
Q. You're an Alabama guy; is that right?
DAVIS RILEY: I am.
Q. How much do you and Justin Thomas talk about golf and what it takes to win out here and so forth?
DAVIS RILEY: Justin's been good to me. And anytime we play the same week, I try to snag a practice round with him or whatever. But we text back and forth a little bit. I try not to bug him too much. I know he's busy. So am I. But every now and then I have a question, he's cool helping me out being as helpful as possible, and he's certainly been a good guy to be able to bounce ideas off of.
Q. Was there anything that he said after Valspar, you came so close and probably was watching; he watches this stuff in addition to playing. Was there anything he said to you after that?
DAVIS RILEY: It was pretty cool. He came up and stuck around. I think he was a group ahead of me. When I finished regulation play, he came up to me and said, hey, reset, this is a different ball game. And that was kind of nice. And it's easy to kind of think -- because I had that putt on 18. It's easy to harp on that and be like I wish I had made that putt. But it was a nice refreshing moment, a good moment to reset. And it's been really cool.
Q. How much did you play -- were you same year or no?
DAVIS RILEY: I missed him by a little bit. I think he's four years older than I am. Then he turned pro a couple years earlier, so we missed each other a little bit.
Q. So you just played out here?
DAVIS RILEY: Yeah. Just out here. He came back to school when I was there, hang out and play golf with us and all that kind of stuff.
Q. Are your games comparable; they look comparable to the naked eye?
DAVIS RILEY: I think our games are similar, but he's certainly got a lot of wins that I'm trying to catch up to. I like to think our games are pretty similar. I think they are in a sense. He's definitely somebody I look up to a lot and would like to mirror my game after. So I think they're pretty similar.
Q. How do you bounce back after things finished last week? You were in contention, played great, no question about it, but I know you didn't finish the way you wanted to.
DAVIS RILEY: That was a tough one to swallow. I really felt like I had that tournament right there and it was right where I wanted to. And I feel like I've had a good chance, had a chance to win three or four golf tournaments in the past few months. That's been really nice. All I can do is keep putting myself in that position. And unfortunately I've had one bad break or one swing that's not gone my way. All I can do is keep trying and gain experience and learn every time I get there and don't succeed, hopefully I can put myself in that position this week.
Q. It really was just one bad swing?
DAVIS RILEY: It was. Hit one out of bounds on 14.
Q. So when you look at the big picture, it's a big positive compared to one little negative, right?
DAVIS RILEY: Sure. It's like I was one golf swing away from being in a playoff or winning a golf tournament.
And I've had that a couple times, like in Mexico, I lost by two to Rahm, hit a shot at 16 and came up short and plugged in the bunker.
It's like if that lands five yards further and goes on the green, actually I've got a good-looking birdie and that can change everything.
Just little things like that. But the odds are, if you keep doing it enough, the chips will fall your way eventually.
Q. I was going to say, they always say you learn from mistakes or from a loss or whatever. What did you learn?
DAVIS RILEY: I mean, something like last week, there's not much you can learn. It's just one bad golf swing. It's like you tell yourself don't do that. But it's easy to do that.
But I think the biggest thing in those situations is just you learn your tendencies when the pressure is really, really on. And I've kind of learned that about myself.
I'm learning what shots I tend to hit more of when I'm under pressure or things I can do better under pressure. I think that's the biggest thing, when you get in those moments.
Q. You seem to shake it off.
DAVIS RILEY: It was like I'm playing good golf. And I've had a handful of top 10s in the past month, month and a half. It's like I'm doing the right stuff. I've just got to keep on doing it. It's like eventually it will happen.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports