Q. How was the wind?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: It was blowing.
Q. Did growing up in Texas give you an advantage?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I definitely have the experience in it. We play in a lot of wind a the home. One of the things, especially in Texas, is the day-to-day change. You don't ever really know what it's golf course to be like sometimes, especially this time of year. Yeah, like this morning when you walked out of the house and it was a lot colder than I anticipated it was going to be, and I had to go back inside and grab a few extra layers and then come back out.
Q. How many layers did you have today three?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I had on like a little base layer and then a sweater. I took off the base layer pretty early in the round.
Q. What was you decision on 6? Looked like you were thinking about it and then made a really nice layup, perfect. The par-5 around the lake.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, no decision. Si Woo had to come back and hit his shot.
Q. Got tired of waiting?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: That's why we were waiting. Then right when he got out of the way that's when I hit. I would love to think I could have gone for it from there, but...
Q. You were always going to lay up?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, I just rolled into the first cut. If I was in the fairway maybe it would have been more of a decision, but I had like 260 front or something like that and I was pretty confident in the layup.
Q. Was the wind the most challenging part of the day?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: You pick your poison out here. You can probably create a story with whatever it is. The greens are tough, the rough is high, and the wind is up.
Q. What did you find to be the biggest challenge, off the tee, putting, was one part more difficult than the other?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: It all seemed pretty tough, to be fair. I mean, heavy rough, I mean, maybe the fairways -- I would say one of the things that's interesting that you may not see on TV is, what is so challenging is if you're trying to run the ball up, a lot of fairways are really soft, but the greens are like concrete. So it can be really challenging to get the ball close to the hole, especially if you're not coming from out of the fairway.
I think the shot I hit on, I drove it in the rough on 5, and I landed it exactly where I wanted to and the ball just lands and doesn't release at all. If I land it another couple yards and it lands on the green, the ball is probably over the green. It's just one of those things that you got to stay patient with the golf course, it's really hard, and there's a lot of stuff that can frustrated you out there, but just try and stay in it.
Q. Fred Couples used to tell me that his secret to play the wind he says you absolutely have to hit the ball right in the center of the club, and he liked his chances when he had to do that because he thought he was a good ball-striker.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, hitting it solid doesn't ever hurt. Doesn't hurt.
Q. Is that the secret to good wind play though?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: It doesn't hurt. Yeah. It doesn't hurt.
Q. You played this golf course in some pretty demanding conditions, as far as comparison goes, where does today rank?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: That's a good question. I checked the scores from the last couple years and we were able to shoot some decent rounds, get it under par a little bit. But I remember my first couple years coming here it was we had a lot of conditions that were similar to today. Maybe not the cooler temperatures, but definitely the wind.
Q. Clubhouse lead is 3-under, would that have shocked you, just based on playing it out there, or is that what you would have expected out of the day?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I would have definitely expected that out of this morning. We'll see what happens with the wind this afternoon. But coming out early with it being cold and with the wind being stronger than it is right now, it was definitely pretty challenging. So we'll see how it develops throughout the day. But overall I'm proud of the score I put up today and I think we'll get some lighter winds the next few days and see what the course gives us.
Q. Can you run through the opening hole, that's kind of a tough time of day and you had a little bit of a battle there.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: The opening hole? I hit a good drive, missed it on the correct side of the fairway, really was a pretty good drive. I thought I had a chance to go in the fairway. Sitting down a little bit in the bunkers, I chunk it, but still in the fairway. Hit a nice pitch in there for what looked like an easy par, which probably wasn't that easy of a par.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports