Q. Talk about the shot on 18, second shot.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, I got a decent lie in the rough over there. It was still on the downslope, but I took kind of the line more towards the pin to where if the ball didn't come up out of the grass, it was going to -- I wasn't going to have to deal with that cross bunker. Fortunately I was able to hit it hard enough to where I got height I needed to and got a 4-iron up there on the green.
Q. I don't know how much you look, and I know it's Thursday, but was it at all weird on a Thursday not only just to start with a two-shot lead, but at one point to be up by six, and all of a sudden you're down to two and haven't done anything wrong and it's still Thursday. Was that weird?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah. I didn't know any of that. No, I really didn't pay much attention to the leaderboard. I know that I got off to a pretty good start today and Patrick kind of struggled, so I figured there was maybe a lead just because he was the closest one to me, I think.
But after that I didn't really pay much attention to what was going on. I just trying to go out and shoot a good number.
Q. What club did you hit on the par-5, that used to be 15 back in the day?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: 3-iron. Driver, 3-iron.
Q. You mentioned a little bit weird, the two-shot lead under the scoring system. You've now more than doubled it. What's the reality like, and how are you managing that?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Well, when I'm on the golf course I'm just trying to go out there and do my best. I'm not looking at leaderboards, I'm not looking at any of that other stuff. I am treating it like a four-day event, and just like any other one I'm going to go out there and try and put myself in position to win the tournament.
For me that means this week ignoring leaderboards because I started with the lead. If I started at 2-, 3-under, it would be a bit of a different story. It would kind of be the chasing mentality. But out here I'm just kind of going out and trying to do my best and keep my head down.
Q. You've already had an amazing year, a year to live so long in the memory, your first career major, the Masters title. How badly do you want to win this event, the FedExCup, to really cap off the icing on the cake on an amazing year?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, it would definitely be the icing on the cake for the year. I've played some tremendous golf this year at times, and overall I've had what I feel like is a great year, and just going to try and keep it rolling this week.
Q. What do you think allowed you to bounce back quickly from the missed cut in Memphis?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: You know, I really wasn't playing bad. I played good at the Open. I had kind of a weird little injury thing that prevented me from playing my best on Saturday and Sunday, and then I was -- if not for that, I would have felt like I had a really good chance to win the tournament.
Then going into Memphis I just had one really, really bad day. I don't know what happened. I have no idea. Kind of just put it out of my mind and got into Wilmington and got some good work in and then had a solid week last week and had a good start to the week this week.
Q. What was the weird little injury?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Probably TMI, but I had what's called a pilonidal infection. It's an infection at the top of your butt crack. You can look it up. It was really hard for me to bend down. It was really hard for me to make a swing on Sunday. Walking was actually extremely difficult.
I don't know if any of you have ever had something like that, but if you talk to someone that does it is excruciatingly painful. It was brutal. It's one of those things that just happens --
Q. Do you know how it happened?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, I'm not going to say it here. I'll tell you after because that would really be TMI. (Laughter.)
Yeah, I didn't ever really plan on telling anybody. It's kind of one of those things you put on the back burner, and it's stuff that happens. Guys deal with injuries over the course of the season, and that one popped up at a wrong time for me when I was playing really well. But overall I just --
Q. How long did it take to get over it?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: About a week. They had to do some -- they did a procedure on me Sunday after we got done that the European Tour doctors did a really good job kind of flushing everything out.
Q. Was there any value in the way you played last week coming into here?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I think so, yeah. At the beginning of the week last week I didn't feel like I was swinging my best, and as the week went on, I started to swing better and better, and that kind of followed me into this week, so it was definitely some good momentum.
Q. How does it feel to have a five-shot lead with 54 holes to go?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I mean, I really don't know. It's a bit strange, so that's why I talk a lot about not looking at the leaderboards and stuff like that, because if I try and go out and do my best and pretend like I'm trying to win a regular stroke-play event for four days, I think I'm going to be in a good position come Sunday afternoon, so that's going to be my plan going forward.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports