Q. What was clicking for you today?
SHANE LOWRY: Everything went pretty well, especially early on. I hit the ball in the fairway a lot yesterday, and I missed a few fairways early today, but I holed a few nice putts at the start.
Then I started hitting the ball really well and giving myself lots of chances and converted a few and I felt like it was just a really nice solid round of golf. Birdieing the last two was kind of the icing on the cake.
Q. Birdieing the last two puts you in the solo lead right now, depending on what the guys behind you do. From a mindset perspective, when you are in the final group, what does that do for you Sunday?
SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, my goal going out today was to get myself in the last two groups going out tomorrow. You want to be near the leaders, keep an eye on them and see what they're doing. If the conditions are like this tomorrow, there is low scores out there, so someone could come from the pack. It's not necessarily easy to lead around this golf course. There's a lot of very difficult shots.
But yeah, I'm up there where I want to be. I've had a few chances to win this tournament, and hopefully I can convert it tomorrow.
Q. You got the rain deluge four years ago that kinda screwed you on 18. Do you think about that when you're trying to win this one for the first time?
SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, like you get good breaks and bad breaks, and that was a bad break. Yeah, we'll see. Hopefully none of that tomorrow.
Q. You've talked about how much you love this golf course, but what's the minute difference when you're able to shoot the best round you've ever shot on this course compared to every other time you've played it?
SHANE LOWRY: Well, I think it played pretty easy today, like as easy as -- this golf course never plays too easy, but if you take like 15, 16, 17 were playing downwind today, so you know it's an 8-iron on 15 straight downwind; it's 3-iron, 9-iron on 16; and it's a pitching wedge on 17. You know if the wind turns around and all of a sudden you're hitting 6-iron, 6-iron and 6-iron on those three holes, it becomes automatically two or three shots harder.
There's certain -- there wasn't much wind out there, so there's certain things that aligned today to make it play easy enough, wind direction being one of them.
But you still need to go out there and hit the shots. The greens are firm. It can get away from you if you're not hitting the ball well. I felt like I did everything pretty good today.
Q. To see Jack Nicklaus and to be able to see him as often as you are, fortunately living where you live, on his course, what does that mean even beyond golf for you?
SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, it's a bit surreal, to be honest. I go into the locker room at the Bear's Club most days for my lunch, and Jack is in there a lot. He plays cards with the other members in the afternoons. I'm not good enough to be in that card game.
I've sat down and talked to him, had lunch with him a few times, and just to be around people like that is incredible. He's done so much for this game and this whole area and community. I'm so fortunate to be able to be around people like that.
Q. You're the most under par in Florida golf in the last five years on TOUR by like 32 shots. How do you explain your success in particular in Florida?
SHANE LOWRY: Scottie doesn't play that much around Florida maybe? (Laughing.)
Yeah, I just like Florida golf. When I moved here at first, I hated Florida golf, the grain, Bermuda. Everything about it was tricky for me. Just from living down here and spending time down here, I've become better at it.
Q. Your LinkedIn page has been getting a lot of traction. What inspired you to create a LinkedIn page?
SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, we meet a lot of great people traveling the world playing this game, pro-ams and stuff like that, and it's nice to connect with businesspeople, and it's a great way to connect with them, so yeah.
Q. Can you walk me through your bunker shot on 16? Was it as difficult as it looked from our side of the green or was it straightforward?
SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, it was really difficult (chuckling). It was a semi-difficult shot. It was one of those where I really needed to strike it. But it was back into the grain and it was a little bit of an upslope, a nice lie. I would have been disappointed if I didn't get it up-and-down, but I hit a really nice shot there.
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