Q. Great day for golf and great golf for you. You end up at 7-under. How would you evaluate how well you played today?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I felt like I played really solid. I gave myself a lot of looks out there. Definitely was in position most of the day.
I think I maybe hit one errant tee ball and had to scramble but made a really good par there on 11. But outside of that, I felt like I kept the golf course in front of me for the most part.
Q. Second in proximity this week and it's all about making sure your irons are going where you want them to go. Was that the case today?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, I think it's the case every day you play Harbour Town. The ball has got to be going where you're looking or else you're going to be scrambling for some pars out there. Yeah, overall I felt like I was really good with my ball-striking today and it helped me to a good score.
Q. It felt easy, did it? Stress-free?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Did it feel easy? Easy would not be -- I think definitely like a less stressful round. I felt like if you compared my four rounds last week to today, today would be a much less stressful round of golf in terms of scrambling for a par. A lot of the stuff I had to do last week I felt like I didn't have to do today to shoot a good score. The golf course is obviously a bit different, but I was in position most of the day today. I hit a lot of really iron shots. I got off to a good start. Overall, yeah, fairly I would say stress-free day.
Q. That's what I meant.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: But I will never say that golf is easy, ever. Golf is hard.
Q. Is this the type of round -- you said you felt like the game was improving. Was this the type of ball-striking day you envisioned when you said things were going well?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Well, definitely a step up from last week. Like I said at the beginning of the week, I felt like I've been learning a good amount this year, and my swing has continued to improve. I haven't felt like I've had any real setbacks, just kind of improving, sharpening and getting a little bit better, and today was definitely a day where I hit it really nice.
Q. When you say "learning," what do you mean by that?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I mean learning about your swing, game. I feel like in golf you can always be learning. There's always a takeaway you can have from each round of golf, whether you can be a little sharper mentally or maybe a swing feel, something like that. There's always something you can take away from a day.
Today was a day in which my main takeaways will be how well my ball-striking was and mentally how I was approaching shots.
For instance, a shot that won't really get talked about from today was into 17. We're standing on the tee box, in between 8- and 9-iron, and the wind is off the left and it's down. It's a really hard shot because the greens are firm, and Teddy and I just did a really good job of talking through the shot, figuring out what club we wanted to hit, and I executed the shot the way we wanted to.
At times this year, maybe a little doubt would have crept into my mind about how I was feeling, and just standing there on 17 was able to get up there and just hit a really good iron shot and be committed to what I was doing, and the result was good following that.
Q. A couple years ago, would you have looked at this golf course as a place that you'd play the way you have so far? It certainly seems to fit you.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I mean, not really. I love this golf course. I think it's a tremendous golf course.
I feel like when I'm playing really good golf, I think with the amount of talent we have out here, most of the guys on TOUR, if they're playing really good, they can compete anywhere. I think it's more just having that self-belief. Is this a golf course I think I can have success on? For sure. You've got to be accurate. You've got to be able to work the ball both ways, and I feel like that's something that I'm able to do, and you've got to be pretty accurate, as well.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports