The American Express

Saturday, January 22, 2022

La Quinta, California, USA

PGA WEST Pete Dye Stadium Course

Tom Hoge

Quick Quotes


Q. Just general comments about the round today and your position now at 17-under par?

TOM HOGE: Yeah, it was a little bit tougher day with the wind coming up and obviously it's a little bit unique being away from the host site with PGA West, two golf courses over there, didn't really know what conditions would be like over there.

So I got off to a bad start, unfortunately, bogey on 1 and then holed a bunker shot green side on 4 to kind of get me going and settled back in the round. Made some nice birdies from there. But not that it was easy but I tried to make it as easy as possible, hit a lot of greens and just give myself a lot of chances out there today.

Q. A lot of times they will say it depends on how you are on the right side or the wrong side of the draw. Do you kind of feel fortunate that if the wind was going to come up you were playing this course today?

TOM HOGE: Yeah, I'll be curious to see how the scores, scoring average shake out for the three courses today. Generally I would say it's better to be here, a little more protected from the trees and a little bit shorter golf course so you could play a little more conservatively off the tee, get the ball in play and go from there.

Q. Now that you're done are you looking forward to what tomorrow might bring?

TOM HOGE: Yeah, I really haven't looked at any score boards this week at all just because I know it's going to take mid 20s under par and you just got to keep going forward. So obviously drive it in play, but then you got to be pretty aggressive with all your approach shots because you got to make a lot of birdies out here, so tomorrow is more of the same.

Q. Overall satisfied with your game?

TOM HOGE: Yeah, very satisfied. I got a few things putting to clean up yet but I've given myself a lot of looks and that's the biggest thing. I felt like I kept hitting it to 20, 25 feet today and had a lot of chances and didn't make those today but hopefully they will start going in tomorrow.

Q. You made it to this Stadium Course I think a couple of times in this event and you've played pretty well over there, shot under par a couple times. Does that give you some confidence going in there knowing that you've done that before?

TOM HOGE: Yeah, we came here in college even, I played Q-School here, so I got a lot of rounds there and I feel more comfortable there. It beat me up a lot early on in my career but starting to feel very comfortable over there and like I said there's so much going on visually out there, but for me the key is just get it in the fairway and it plays to my strength with the iron game and I feel comfortable.

Q. You mentioned the bogey at the first hole today, after going 36 without a bogey. Does that kind of fire you up or settle you down now that it's out of the way?

TOM HOGE: Yeah, it's tough. Just kind of at the start the wind was blowing pretty good, I drove behind some trees and it was a pretty shaky bogey, to be honest with you. But made a few nice swings there on 2 and 3 to kind of settle me down and get right back in the rhythm of it.

Q. Yeah, and you had that stretch of four in a row, but when you got to the back nine it looked like you made that birdie on 11, does it feel like you kind of stalled with all those pars coming in or was that just kind of a little bit of a different mindset when you got to that point of 17-under?

TOM HOGE: Yeah, I would have liked a few more for sure, but there were quite a few tough holes out there, a couple tough par-3 that's we had to deal with, a few tough tee shots and there's just enough wind and it's moving around just enough that it was kind of tough to get the right yardage on all the approach shots coming in.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
116537-1-1044 2022-01-22 22:14:00 GMT

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