Q. I want to get this part over with if you don't mind, but was there blood?
SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, he was bleeding. The medics got to him pretty quickly. He said he was doing all right. Hopefully he's feeling a little better now than he was back then.
Q. There's been spectators hit as long as the game has been played, but the sight of blood sometimes can be jarring.
SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, for sure. You never really want to catch a driver on the fly, especially to the head. That was tough.
But yeah, hopefully I'll be able to reach out to him this afternoon and see how he's doing.
Q. Rest of the round when you finally got settled again?
SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, played great. Played really well. Hit my driver great, which is key out here. Iron shots were pretty good, too, today, and the putter was really hot today.
Q. How much do you hit your driver or are you just talking about your overall driving game?
SEPP STRAKA: A lot. Out here a lot. I'd say it's probably somewhere around the 10, 11 drivers -- probably around 10 that I hit every day out here.
Q. 65 today, 66 yesterday. What's been working well for you over the first two rounds?
SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, like I said, the driver has been great, and it's key out here. It's really tight. You really have to be in control of your driver. Yeah, the putter was hot the last few days, which I haven't had the last couple months, so it's nice to finally roll in a few birdie putts.
Q. Tied for the lead, what are your thoughts on potentially being in the last pairing on Saturday as you head into the weekend?
SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, we'll see. There's a lot of golf left to play. But yeah, you always want to be in one of those last groups on the weekend. That makes it a lot more fun, a lot more spectators out there, and should be a fun weekend.
Q. Looking at the conditions which are nice and the course which is good and the players, it just looks like it's going to be a hard tournament to win.
SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, there's a lot of good golfers. The wind has been down, which has been key. When the wind gets up here, it's hard to tell where it's coming from. It swirls a lot down those narrow fairways. We've been fortunate, we haven't had a whole lot of wind to deal with, so we've been able to take advantage of it.
Q. I don't want to short-change you, but I think you had two TOUR wins before the Ryder Cup; is that right?
SEPP STRAKA: Mm-hmm.
Q. You build confidence and validation and whatever the word is when you win on TOUR. What's the difference between what you took from those two wins and what you took from the week in Rome?
SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, anytime you can play under pressure, it's huge because you learn something. It's hard to simulate that when you're practicing, hard to simulate that even if you're playing a tournament and not playing well. Anytime you can put yourself in the hunt, and the Ryder Cup it was max pressure every hole, every shot, whether you were playing well or not. That's huge for -- just for knowing how to deal with that when that situation comes.
Yeah, it's going to be something that I draw on a lot in my career.
Q. Was the Ryder Cup, did the pressure feel like you anticipated? Was it greater? Was there a specific thing you think back on like hey, that was a key moment there for me?
SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, it was definitely higher pressure than I thought it was going to be. Obviously you try to build it up, but if you've never felt that kind of pressure, it's hard to kind of know what it's going to feel like.
Yeah, there was a lot of pressure. The first tee shot was definitely the max and then it weaned down a little bit after that. But yeah, it was fun to play under those conditions.
Q. When you look forward to the rest of the year and to the majors and all that good stuff, where do you put the Olympics on things you look forward to?
SEPP STRAKA: It's up there for sure. It's a great tournament. I'm really looking forward to playing with the fans because in Tokyo we didn't have fans during COVID, unfortunately. That'll be a lot of fun. I think the Olympic spirit will be a little bit higher than it was in Tokyo, so yeah, it'll be a fun week.
Q. Not the outcome, but just the week, do you consider it equal to a major?
SEPP STRAKA: Not quite a major. I think majors stand alone, but shortly behind for sure.
Q. But you kind of stand out more?
SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, you definitely stand out more, smaller field. But yeah, majors is -- we didn't grow up watching golf in the Olympics, so it's a little tough to say that it's up there with the majors. Everybody grew up making that winning putt on the putting green when you were 10, 12 years old for the Masters or the Open.
Q. Who's going with you this year?
SEPP STRAKA: I'm not sure yet. We'll see. I've got a little one at home --
Q. What other Austrian?
SEPP STRAKA: We'll see. There's a couple guys that have a chance to play their way in, and hopefully we can get a good strong team.
Q. Do you have a little one on the way?
SEPP STRAKA: He's already here, four months. He might be making the trip. We'll see.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports