Q. Really solid round, just given the conditions. How would you assess how it went for you today?
CHRISTIAAN BEZUIDENHOUT: Yeah, it was pretty good. We knew it was going to be tough teeing off in the morning. The wind actually died down the last couple of holes now, which was nice. We knew it was going to be tough, so I just tried to give myself putts. I hit a lot of greens today, which made it a lot easier, but it was still difficult to putt in this wind. So, I had a lot of 25, 30-footers that I just lagged up close, just tried to make some stress-free pars. And like my caddie said, We need aggressive shots to conservative targets, and we did that well today.
Q. Was the wind noticeably down in the afternoon? The scores have got a lot more lower scores in the afternoon.
CHRISTIAAN BEZUIDENHOUT: Yeah, it only, like I got here at 10 o'clock this morning and it was blowing pretty hard. It only died down like my last two and a half, three holes. We also played most of the round in tough conditions. I'm not sure how the wind was this morning, but it actually looked pretty hard out there, if you look at the scoring and stuff. But this golf course is always going to play hard, with wind, without wind. If you're not going to keep it in play it's going to be a lot of bogeys on this course. I did that well today and, yeah, I just hit a lot of greens and I just tried to make a lot of pars today.
Q. You obviously are getting yourself more and more in contention, even though it's only the first round, because of your experience of getting yourself in contention do you approach these situations a little differently than you may have when you were first coming out here?
CHRISTIAAN BEZUIDENHOUT: Yeah, you obviously learn a lot from past experiences. You learn a lot from golf courses that you haven't played in the past. I think this is my fifth time here or fourth time here, so I know the golf course pretty well. I know it's always playing tough. It's just going to get dryer and firmer over the next few days, so I'm just going to try and do the same thing, just try and hit to the bigger part of the greens, give myself a lot of putts, and, yeah, like I said, it's going to dry out over the next few days.
I think I learned a lot from past experiences here and past experiences of being in contention to just stay calm. Conditions like today, you just need to be patient. You're going to make bogeys, you're going to hit a good shot that ends up bad, or you're going to hit a bad shot that ends up good. I just stayed patient and I just played to the strong parts of my game.
Q. In theory this would seem, for your game, this would seem it would be a golf course that would be very good for your game.
CHRISTIAAN BEZUIDENHOUT: Yes, I've never been one of the longest hitters on tour, but I've always been pretty straight. A golf course like this, if you can keep it in the fairway you can attack the greens and the flag. I hit a lot of drivers today where other guys might have hit a 5-wood or 3-wood. I've hit a lot of drivers because a lot of guys can run through the fairways and stuff where I couldn't. This golf course has got a lot of doglegs and stuff, so I can just hit a driver straight and it can't run through the dogleg. A lot of guys have to lay back because they can run through the dogleg. Yeah, you've also seen Rory has done really well here, and he hits it really long. I like golf courses that play tough. I'm not a fan of wide, open golf courses, long courses, because I just like golf courses where you have to plot your way around and like par is your friend, just try to make a par and go to the next hole.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports