Q. You said you didn't trust yourself early on. Do you know any reason?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: No, I would say so like on No. 1, I didn't trust that the ball was going to break as much as it was going to on the second putt, and then I hit good putts on 2 and 3, and then No. 4 I just wasn't trusting my read.
I had missed the last one to the right and I was wondering if my eyes were a little bit off, and I ended up pulling that one.
Then No. 6, I kind of tried to force one in there by the pin where I shouldn't have. I should have just played it out to the right like I normally would, and for some reason I tried to force it in there.
So just little mental errors like that. After No. 6 I locked in pretty good and I just wasn't swinging it well. Like I said earlier, I had really good up-and-down on 7.
Great birdie on 8.
Up-and-down on 9.
Good two-putt on 10.
Up-and-down on 11, 12, 13.
And then hit some really good shots there towards the end.
Good ones on 14 and 15.
On 16, just barely pulled it off the tee. I thought I could get to that fairway bunker and ended up a little short. Great recovery shot to get in the bunker. Not my best bunker shot. Came out a little hotter than I thought it would and then I hot a good putt and it hoped off something a foot and a half the club.
I don't know angle y'all had on the cameras, but if it was down the line you would have seen it hop off a little bit.
17, I misread it.
And 18, I hit a good drive. I tried to ride the wind with a 4-iron coming into the green, and I just pushed it a little bit. I still thought it would come back, and it ended up in that bunker, and then hit the bunker shot exactly how I wanted to and there no sand in the bottom of that bunker.
Ball skips up into the Equator of the ball and goes over the green. It's one of those deals but it's a tough great. It's just golf. You get good ones and bad ones.
I put myself in position to win this tournament when I wasn't playing my best today, and so I'm proud of how I fought.
Q. You've talked so much this year about being present. The three hours or so between the end of the third round and the start of the fourth round, do you allow yourself to think about how momentous the title today would be to you?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Not really. I, Rory, and Jon sat there for it seemed like an hour and a half it seemed like, and then Patrick was in there for a while. We were kind of just chatting it up. We weren't really doing too much else, not too much thinking.
Q. Could you kind of contrast your Sunday experiences at Georgia this year and --
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, final round of the Masters I obviously played great. I got off to a bit of a slow start, but I was still 2-under through 7 maybe, something like that, and I was able to kind of cruise there.
I hit the ball really well today. I just for whatever reason, I couldn't get enough looks. Maybe if I could take a few shots back, I'd probably take back the drive on 16. I'd probably -- that would be the one I'd like to have back.
But outside of that, I really fought hard today. Rory just played a really good round of golf. He made some key putts there at the end, and he definitely deserved to win.
Q. Do you feel like after you finished up with so many birdies to finish the third round (indiscernible)?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, I definitely had good momentum. Then we had a long delay, so it was kind of a good restart. And then I just didn't get off to a good start early, but after that I grinded as hard as I could.
For whatever reason my swing wasn't where it had been the first few days this week.
Q. Difficult to lose, but for what Rory has done for the TOUR, are you happy for him?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah. Like I said, tip of the cap to Rory. He played a really good round of golf. A really solid four days here. I don't know exactly what he started the week off, but I'm sure he was pretty close to winning the tournament individually, as well.
Tip to the cap to him. He played a great round of golf today and played good enough to win.
Q. At any point during this week do you allow yourself to think about the money, because it is so much more here than any other event?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, the money is great, obviously. Playing professional golf for a living is such a gift. For me, I don't play golf for money. I play to win tournaments and I play to have fun and do my best and see where the game can take me.
Today the money definitely didn't creep into my mind. I wanted to win the season-long title. I've had a really great year and I wanted to finish it off with a win here, and unfortunately I wasn't able to do that.
But at the end of the day it's such a gift to be out here playing golf for money, and I can't -- I'm just so thankful to be out here.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports