Q. Very clean card today. How would you characterize the round?
BILLY HORSCHEL: Stress-free. Really good playing out there. Last two weeks haven't been really good. Haven't hit it good enough. Haven't putted good enough. And then Fulch and I just haven't really done a lot of great work that sort of allowed us to have a chance to hit good golf shots.
This week we've done a lot of good stuff out there. Today was a lot better than yesterday. Felt better with some of the things that Todd and I are working on. So we just got back to some old habits. So just working back at them again with the same feel as we had a couple months ago.
Played really well. Would have loved a few more putts. Speed of the greens is foot, foot and a half slower than I'm used to. And then when I didn't want to leave one short, I would go ahead and ram it by the hole four or five feet.
But it was a really good round of golf. Any round of bogey-free golf is really good. I don't think I missed a green today. It's a solid round of golf.
Q. When you say you and Fulch have been doing good work, what are you talking about, just not on --
BILLY HORSCHEL: Just our process. Having a number, understanding the shot that needs to be required to be hit. Not that we were thinking about the miss, but if we need -- if there's a spot we need to miss it, make sure we're hitting a shot that leaves us in a spot to get up-and-down. And just certain things. Just sort of just not doing what we've done all year.
It happens. It's a long season sometimes. You're just a little off with your game, a little off with your process and we've done a really good job of honing that in this week and just really happy with what we've done so far.
Q. What's been better with your swing? You got in some bad habits. What's been better this week?
BILLY HORSCHEL: We've just -- some stuff that we've worked on this year trying to get, I say the club deeper, just trying to stand a little taller, get a flatter turn, which allows me to get deeper. The arms feel -- like the arms feel a little higher than what the shoulder plane is, allows me to keep the club in front of me.
I think those three weeks off that I had at home, I didn't do a lot, which was expected, but I felt I practiced well. Then I went to PGA and just didn't have the same swing. I sort of lost it on the flight to Tulsa. We were trying to get the shoulder a little deeper, the right shoulder, when it turns, trying to get the right shoulder to turn back a little more. When that does happen, the arms sort of sneak in a little bit. That feeling doesn't work with what we're trying to do.
Feeling like the arms work out away from me at the start, which allows me to turn flatter in the second half of the backswing, allows the club to stay in front of me, and I can feel like the club's always in front of me, feel the rotator opening up, and start the ball left every time and cut it.
I just haven't had that the last two weeks. I didn't play bad last week, we just made some bad course management decisions, which Fulch and I just don't do every often. And it sucked to miss that cut.
Q. The course, obviously, is going to get harder this weekend. What's like your main focus as you go into Saturday and Sunday?
BILLY HORSCHEL: Hopefully the greens firm up a little bit, get a little bit quicker. Tuesday were probably the firmest I've ever seen them. But I think the fairways are pretty generous around here. Some of the widest fairways we played all year.
Putting the ball in the fairway is crucial, to start with. But having control of your second shot, it's a very second-shot golf course in my opinion.
Having control of the iron play like I did today is crucial for me to play well again this week and to give myself a lot of opportunities to make birdies and hopefully come Sunday on the back nine have a chance to win the tournament.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports