Q. Can you guys walk me through how it went today? You guys were amongst the first players out there. How were conditions and how do you think you played today?
CHESSON HADLEY: It was really easy out there today. There's going to be a lot of low scores. Course is soft. It's lift, clean and place. Greens are absolutely perfect. You're going to see a lot of low scores.
But we just ham-and-egged it really well. We've got good chemistry. We came up with a team name for the week, and we're Team Eye Candy. We're the eye candy. Everyone is here to see Rory play golf and that's great, but we're the team to look at if you wanted some eye candy. It's easy with J-Byrd, and we've got good vibes and we're staying together, so it's a lot of fun.
Q. Did you bring your seersucker pants?
CHESSON HADLEY: No, he is much better looking than I am, so I don't have any seersuckers. But it was nice watching him swing it in those today.
JONATHAN BYRD: We had fun today. Like he said, we ham-and-egged it pretty well. We got off to a pretty good start, making a couple birdies early. These days are kind of weird. If you don't get off to a good start, it can kind of get in your head, like can we get it going. But making a couple birdies early and then he made four birdies in a row, turned at 6-under, and felt really good about it. We missed a few on the back nine that we'd like to have back on 10 and 11, but making a couple good birdies, 16 and 18 coming in after not hitting great drives on 18, we're pretty pleased with it. It's a good start.
Q. How much of a sense of urgency do you have from the get-go given the format, that you're going into foursomes tomorrow and not going to expect anything like today, but I would imagine it feels like right from the first tee you've got to go?
CHESSON HADLEY: Yeah, you've got to get it today. The foursomes format is really challenging. I think you've just got to be patient, and tomorrow just give your partner and yourself a lot of grace and try and make it as easy as possible. Today it's just pedal down, whereas tomorrow I might hit 3-wood in some scenarios just to make sure I'm in the fairway. Even that's the difference between a 52 and a 9-iron. It's more about keeping momentum tomorrow and not making big numbers.
Q. Is it more fun or more gratifying -- I would imagine a 64, neither of you guys scoff at that in a 72-hole stroke-play event --
CHESSON HADLEY: We shot 63, sorry. I'm pretty fragile.
Q. It's one of those things, obviously a 72-hole stroke-play event you come off shooting 63, it would be a whole different tenor. Is this almost what you would expect from yourselves? Is that sort of accurate given the conditions and the way you guys played?
JONATHAN BYRD: Yeah, that was -- I felt like we could have done a couple better, but that's about what I expect us to go do. But we hit a lot of good shots. You can't always control whether you make the putts when you need to. We made some good putts today.
Tomorrow the mindset is -- even more than a regular tournament, tomorrow is a new day because you have a different mindset tomorrow. You wake up tomorrow and you go do your job tomorrow, and then we get to free it up again on Saturday and go wheel it around here to try to make as many birdies. Then Sunday you kind of change your mindset again.
You just have to keep adjusting throughout the week.
Q. I've had guys come here in previous years saying the tournament starts on Saturday. There's really no way to sort of know how you stand or where you stand in relation to other players until you've got one round of each format. Would you guys agree that it's difficult to sort of really tell or gauge where you stand at this event until you've got one round of each?
CHESSON HADLEY: Gosh, I haven't really thought about that. I feel like the tournament starts today; I don't know. I haven't thought through that very quickly. But you've got to get it today. You have to make it to Saturday in order for it to start the tournament.
If the wind lays down and it's not super windy tomorrow and doesn't get firm, then there will be some more low scores. But again, with it being that really challenging alternate shot format, you've just got to -- he's got to make it easy on me and I've got to make it easy on him just so that we're not -- you're just not grinding and having these 10-footers for par and bogey. You've just got to try and just make it as easy as possible.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports