Q. 69, including two birdies on your last three. Excellent way to finish the round. If we can get some comments.
DENNY McCARTHY: It's really hot outside. Really hot outside. The front nine was brutal. I was just trying to survive it felt like. Try and get dry, hit my shot and move on. A nice little reset at the turn; I changed my clothes, new shirt, new hat. I needed a new pair of pants. I didn't bring it.
But settled in nicely on the back nine. Some hard shots out there. Some really long par-4s. Proud of the way I hung tough in there, and like you mentioned, birdieing two of the last three to finish was a nice way to finish the round.
Q. More specifically, I saw you wiping off between shots and trying to -- looked like trying to keep the moisture out of your hands. Did it affect the way you played today? Did you have to be extra careful?
DENNY McCARTHY: Yeah, I mean, it's just something I have to deal with. I sweat maybe a little more than others. I'm used to it by now. It doesn't make it any easier, though. It's just hard for me to play in the severe heat, humidity. Like you mentioned, I have a hard time getting dry. I go through a rotation of gloves. My towels get so wet where they're not dry anymore, so my towels are even wet.
Yeah, it's a battle for sure. But the more I play in rounds like these, the more I learn and figure out kind of what works best for me in those situations.
Q. Are you pleased with where you are through 36?
DENNY McCARTHY: Yeah, I think I've played some nice golf. I didn't make -- I made two nice putts today. I had some really good looks that I didn't make. A lot of putts that -- the putting greens have no slope here, and they don't seem that fast, and then there's a lot of slope out on the course and they're really fast. So it was quite a dramatic difference, almost pointless to putt on the putting green to start your round. I don't know what's going on there.
But the greens on the course were really fast compared to the greens on the putting green.
I kind of had to adjust on the fly. Felt like I needed to start playing a lot more break just because of how fast they were rolling. I had a hard time on the greens today, seeing them, but still made some nice putts coming in to finish. Makes me feel a little better about my round.
Q. Folks were commenting on the size of your gallery, a bit of a hometown match. What's that like feeling your friends and family trailing you?
DENNY McCARTHY: Yeah, it feels great. I know I wouldn't really want to walk this golf course in this heat and watch someone play golf, so for the amount of people that came out and watched me today, that's really good support. I really appreciate it because it's not that easy to walk this place in that heat.
Even when I was kind of making some little par putts, I got a nice boost from the crowd, just enough to keep me going today.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports