Q. That was quite a closing kick you put on there. Can you talk about how you executed that.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, there's opportunity there on 14 and 15, and 13 if you're in the fairway. With the wind direction we had today those holes are downwind, so there's some good opportunities there for birdie, 15 being a reachable par-5. I just hit a lot of really good shots down the stretch, you know, in the fairway from 13 on, which is important, and gave myself a lot of good looks and was able to hole some there -- holed two really nice putts there on 17 and 18. A really good one on 14 as well.
It felt like where the pins were today there was so much break around the cup, and I felt like I was putting from 20 feet along the front nine, I'm playing like 3 feet of break sometimes, and it was challenging out there.
Q. The first 13 holes all pars. What was your mindset through those holes?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I thought I was doing pretty good. Around this golf course even par, I think, today would have been a pretty solid score. Like I said, I felt like I could have gotten a little bit more out of the round, but I felt like I was playing nice and just a couple lips here and there would have changed the score a little bit, but overall, I felt like I was doing good stuff. I didn't feel like I needed to change much.
Q. Ben was up five, 10-under. Were you aware of that at all? I'm assuming it doesn't affect your play at all.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, I did see that Ben got to 10-under, but like you said, it's not going to change my play in the middle of a Saturday. This golf course is really challenging and no lead's safe around this place. I knew if I kept going and played a decent round, I would be in somewhat of a position to chase him down tomorrow. If he's sitting there at 10-under and if he gets to 12 or 13, there's not much I can do about that, so I'm not really going to change my mindset trying to get to 12-under when I'm sitting at 4. That's not really going to do me a lot of justice. So I tried to keep plotting along and hit some good shots and was able to have a nice finish.
Q. Jordan Spieth said he thinks you have the best club face control ever. When you hear something like that from a peer, is that -- obviously, you take it in stride?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, that's a nice compliment. I work hard on trying to control my golf ball and hitting a lot of different types of shots and I have some interesting footwork in my swing and sometimes I feel like I have really good control of the face and other times it feels like I'm swinging a foreign object.
Q. How much time have you spent with Ben Griffin through the years?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, we played a lot of junior golf together. He played at UNC, I played at Texas, so we didn't see too much of each other in college. But I feel like we played a lot of junior golf together and saw each other at the amateur circuit throughout the summer, a lot of those tournaments. So I've known him for a long time. He always had a lot of talent. He had a very interesting swing growing up, and he's made some pretty significant changes to his swing over the years and has been one of those guys that always have a lot of talent, and he's done a really good job of continuing to improve, and the results are speaking for themselves at this point.
Q. Interesting swing in what way?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: He used to have a really strong grip and a very shut face at the top that was almost a little bit like across the line. It was just an interesting motion. He wasn't the best ball-striker in junior and amateur golf and he's turned into a really good ball-striker just by making swing changes and a lot of hard work. You always tip in your cap when you see a guy who puts in a ton of effort and gets a lot out of it, it's always really fun for us as players to watch and you love seeing those times of guys have success.
Q. Tiger is the only one to win back-to-back here. What would it mean if you would win this back-to-back?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, it would be nice, but at the end of the day last year's tournament is last year's tournament, it doesn't matter going into this year. Got an opportunity tomorrow to have a good round and hopefully win the tournament, and I'll be focused on the first tee and just trying to get that ball in play and going from there.
Q. How good was your 68 today on this course?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: It was pretty good. I don't know what the scoring average was today, but I was definitely proud of the way I finished and it was really challenging, like through 13 holes I felt like I was playing really good and I was only even par. Just a hard golf course.
Q. Conditions change throughout the day from start to the end of the round for you?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: The wind got a touch calmer the last few holes, maybe it just felt calmer because we were playing them down wind. Overall it was just pretty gusty and challenging the whole day.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports