Q. Maybe not the 17th hole that you would have liked, but just a solid round so far in the lead through two rounds, how are you feeling?
ADAM HADWIN: Yeah, I think so. Very solid golf, tee to green. I felt like I had a, let a couple go maybe on 13, 14, but I hit 3-wood on to the green on 11 for a third shot. So, solid, speed control on the greens has been great. Would like, you know, just clean up a couple of those wedge shots, and other than that it was a pretty good round.
Q. Walking out there, seemed windy, how would you kind of compare what we saw yesterday to conditions you saw today?
ADAM HADWIN: I think it was pretty close by the time we were finishing yesterday. It was gusty and it was kind of flipping just a little bit, just enough to make you think. It's a tricky place to play. There's so many shots where you have to be spot on and when you're playing, whether it's a 10-mile-an-hour gust or a 20-mile-an-hour gust you're not sure, you kind of have to pick and hope you pick at the right time. So far I've, through 36, I've hit one shot where it kind of didn't work out how we thought. So that's pretty darn good in 36 holes.
Q. You talked yesterday about the emotions of a Canadian Open week and getting past that. Is this kind of exactly what you would want as a rebound from what is an emotionally charged week for all of you?
ADAM HADWIN: I mean, I think we want to play well every week. Obviously like I said yesterday I felt like my game was trending in the right direction, even though the results hadn't shown it. I think today was a bit of a continuation of that. I just, I wasn't quite as sharp as I was yesterday and around this place it will kind of penalize you pretty quickly. But I still think I'm in a very solid place right now headed into the weekend and I'll have a chance to win a golf tournament.
Q. You talked about confidence yesterday. Especially with what happened last year at this course, how do you feel like you responded, especially with kind of the implosion last year and kind of coming out there and doing what you did yesterday kind of a continuation here, was that on your mind?
ADAM HADWIN: No, I knew at some point this week things were going to get difficult and challenging. I felt like I played that first round without a lot of stress, which is not easy to say around this place. It just shows how in control I was. I think today for a better part of the day I was, I felt the same way. Like I said, just a couple loose shots, but other than that a pretty solid round of golf in tricky conditions, especially in a position for me that I haven't been in in awhile and staring at leaderboards all day with my name on the top. You're going to hit some bad shots around this place and get the wrong winds, and it's a matter of just kind of staying in that process and continuing to just hit shots.
Q. How do you -- about the wind -- you guys are so precise, you have different shots for 165 versus 162, but when you don't know what the wind's actually going to be 150 yards away, how do you try to balance that or gauge that as you try to swing and not over think things?
ADAM HADWIN: It can be tough. It's, honestly, I'll be shocked if any other player said it was anything other than a guess. I mean, that's all we're doing, it's just educated guessing, really. You try and control the ball flight to limit the amount the wind will affect it, that's probably one of the biggest things that we can do out here. Thankfully the greens are still somewhat receptive, because if you get too low of a ball flight, once these things start to firm up, then you can't hold greens anymore. So, that's part of the difficulty of this place. So, yeah, you just, you're picking a target, you're picking a number, you're going on what you feel and then you, you know, you're tossing up a prayer hoping that you picked right in a lot of cases.
Q. As it gets firmer with the wind drying out it's going to be tougher to hold the greens, right?
ADAM HADWIN: Absolutely. No, the course will just get -- I imagine the course is just going to get more difficult, fairways will still soft, so they're playing a little bit wider than they can, so that ball striking premium is just going to increase as the weekend goes on.
Q. Around a top-3 finish or a top finish would at least move you ahead of Corey, possibly, in world ranking, Olympic implications. Is that something you embrace, something you try not to think about or how do you kind of go about when it comes down to it?
ADAM HADWIN: I am going to do my best to try and win a golf tournament. That's it. That's my sole focus. Obviously Corey's having a pretty decent week himself right now, so, yeah, trying to win a golf tournament, trying to stay in the same frame of mind, the same process, all those sort of things and, I mean it's been seven years since I've won, so I think it's about time.
Q. I'm from Canada. Maybe with the Canadian Open, maybe a lot more off-course obligations, family, friends and sponsors and stuff like that. Do you think playing a little bit more freedom and just golf this week is allowing you success on the course?
ADAM HADWIN: No, I don't think so. Obviously there's a few more commitments last week, but I think the way I've always viewed it is that's kind of the top players' week every week, and if I want to become a top player then I've got to get used to kind of doing stuff like that. Time management becomes very important. I just think that last week I just probably tried a little bit too hard, as silly as that sounds, and just kind of didn't get out of my own way. I was a little bit too focused on playing well instead of hitting good shots. This week I've, so far, I've done a really good job of just getting into every shot and trusting what's got me here.
Q. Any come down, you know, bit of a rock star last week, here maybe you're just the Canadian guy, is there a come down from that?
ADAM HADWIN: It's tough to be a rock star when you're missing a cut, so, no, I wouldn't say that. I was ready to come into this week, I knew it would be a challenge, but I was ready to see kind of the things we worked on Monday through Wednesday of how they would stack up under tournament play.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports