Q. How would you assess your round today?
COLLIN MORIKAWA: Well, pretty solid. I kept it in the fairway, was hitting some good iron shots, made a few putts, which was nice to see. But I think it was just a continuation of last week. I started to see some things just normal shots, left-to-right shots, and it's nice to kind of know where the golf ball is going sometimes.
Q. Conventional putting grip feel pretty good going full time with it now?
COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, it does right now, and for me it's just whatever you feel most comfortable with. The week before Memphis I was kind of toying around with some putters and gripped it conventionally and saw some putts go in and just felt like the stroke and the movement was nice. It's always a little nerve-racking when you pull it out at a tournament, but it's not like I haven't putted like that before, it's just been a while.
Q. Why the change back to the conventional putting grip? You worked with the claw all summer. What made you feel better about the other grip?
COLLIN MORIKAWA: Sometimes you just go down one path and you don't get that feel that you necessarily want. Just randomly out of the blue tried conventional just for a day out when I was practicing and it felt good. Didn't really make much but felt good at least. That's the biggest thing is confidence; do you feel confident over your putts. It's felt good, and hopefully we continue that over the next few weeks.
Q. The reason you switched back to the left-to-right shot and going away from the draw, just weren't seeing --
COLLIN MORIKAWA: I wanted to get back to the left-to-right shot. Having three weeks off, you get a full reset, and you really start from the ground up and looking at everything on how the body is moving and what the swing is looking like. It wasn't until about a week and a half before Memphis I had J.J. out and we kind of found some things, so I got my trainers out to Vegas and just kind of got the body in a lot better positions. That's so hard to tell sometimes, but it was nice to just feel the positions that I was used to and see the shot.
Q. What's it like when your eye sees left to right but the ball is coming out right to left?
COLLIN MORIKAWA: Sucks. Sucks. Look, that was pretty much what the past two and a half, three months, especially since the U.S. Open. At the U.S. Open I had to play the draw, but it was tough because you don't see that all the time. You see a left to right shot. Certain numbers you see that left to right kind of hold-off, cut-off 8-iron, for example. When you don't see that and you have to play a different shot and a different height, it's tough. Thankfully we've been hitting our shot so far.
Q. Was there a cut you hit today that you thought that was the perfect number, perfect shot, just the one that you saw?
COLLIN MORIKAWA: I'm very bad at going through my round, so no. I really -- the par-3, what is it, 15? That's a tough hole. Exactly perfect little hold-off cut 4-iron and made birdie.
Q. Do you feel like this might be the most control you've felt over your golf ball in a little while?
COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, probably all year, sad to say. But it's a good time to start feeling like that and to start feeling a little more confident in your golf game. Yeah, this year I think ever since the start has kind of been a search. Had COVID December before Sentry, so kind of just showed up, and you've got 100-yard wide fairways, and then I made the trip overseas, played a couple events on DP World, and just couldn't find my swing, and ever since that it's kind of been a search.
It's been nice to see the work I've been putting in the past couple weeks to see some shots go my way and see kind of old Collin golf, I guess.
Q. Has this year been frustrating seeing how the previous couple years have gone for you?
COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, it absolutely has. I've said it since day one. Obviously I want to win and I want to keep winning, but I want to be consistent. There just hasn't been any of that this year. It's frustrating because I know that even in prep it felt good, I just couldn't find what it was. That's what sucks because you have this team that you're trying to figure everything out, and sometimes the answer is just a little deeper, and you've just got to sit down and spend a little more time trying to figure it out.
Thankfully I think I've figured it out, but we'll see.
Q. Assuming this is your first time here, what's your overall impressions of the course so far and going forward through the week?
COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, course is beautiful. The conditions of the golf course are great. To be honest, I wasn't really sure what to expect scoring-wise. Seems like Keegan played really well and there's some scores that are over par.
It's weird. You've got to drive it really well, and you've got a lot of wedges, but if you get a little wind switch out here, I think the course can play a lot longer -- probably today we had fairly favorable wind, so we'll see what the rest of the week has to offer.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports