Q. Solid round. Title defense. How did it go today?
VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, it was a good round. I'm pretty happy with 3-under par. A little breezy out there. Even though the greens are a little bit softer, it's still really hard out there. Hit a lot of really nice shots, but hit some bad ones too. But I was able to recover and do some good damage control.
Q. You mentioned the form you had at PGA felt like it came back to you when you were practicing leading up to this tournament, but is it still nice to see it once your back in competition?
VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, for sure. I feel like the game has been pretty nice in practice. It's still not quite exactly how I want it to be yet, but it's still -- no, it's good enough to compete, and I feel like I'm playing some good golf, so just got to keep at it and hopefully it just keeps getting better and better.
Q. Can you quantify the difficulty compared so maybe some other times you played here? It seems like the potential for big numbers and you stayed away from 'em.
VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, No. 12 didn't look so good early on. I mean, I'm like 12 feet away from the hole and that easily could have been a double bogey. So that's just how this golf course is. You can just miss it in some bad spots and you're going to really get punished, but today I was able to, for the most part, miss it on the right sides. There was a couple spots that were less than ideal, but managed to get out of there pretty well.
Yeah, it's just really hard with that thick rough, really fast greens. I mean, you can be just off the green and make doubles and triples around here if you're not careful. Yeah, you don't really relax too much out there. It's a stressful place to play.
Q. Next week at Pinehurst is going to look a lot different, of course, setup-wise to what have you here, but similar talk of par's a good score, it's going to be difficult. Even though two different styles of setup, is it a nice tune-up at least for the mindset and how you approach a golf course this week and next?
VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, I think so. It's a hard golf course, you know, already getting in the mindset of everyone's going to make bogeys. It's just trying to get out of the high numbers and be patient, don't get too aggressive trying to go for every single pin because you're going to get punished real quick.
So I think that's -- even though this is probably a completely different-looking golf course than next week, it's still -- a lot of the same principles still apply.
Q. Do you get any more excited when you start looking at the leaderboard and seeing who is on the board, people that maybe you're not as familiar with versus Scottie and Xander and stuff like that?
VIKTOR HOVLAND: If I get more excited? No, I don't. I mean, I'm just focused on what I'm doing. Obviously, it's just the first round, but if you're looking at the leaderboard now, there's obviously a lot of big names that are playing well, which is not surprising around this place. It's hard. But, no, I'm just trying to focus on myself.
Q. Do you think this is what they were intending to do when they did these type of events, is to try to get not only the best players in the field, but also to get 'em up top of the leaderboard?
VIKTOR HOVLAND: Sure. I think whenever you have a good golf course that's set up well, I think usually the best players will rise up to the top. But that doesn't mean that, okay, just because you're a big name, whatever, that doesn't mean that you're going to play well. This course doesn't care who you are. You still got to hit the shots and play well.
Q. How much stock do you put in being at the top of the leaderboard or near it on a Thursday?
VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, I think it's big. I think just shooting under par around this place you're never that far out. Just looking back at kind of what I did last year, I think at some point during the third round, maybe, I was seven shots back. So a lot of things can happen. You know, with the back nine there, the leaders can easily fall back a little bit and if you're playing really well, you can shoot up from behind and make up a lot of ground. But obviously you want to be up on top of the leaderboard from the start.
Q. Is it different when it's a condensed field? Do you approach it in any different way or not?
VIKTOR HOVLAND: Not really. No. There are obviously less players, but no, you still got to go out there and just play your best.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports