Q. What were your impressions of the course?
KEITH MITCHELL: It's a great golf course. Love playing it. Definitely old school. We don't play a ton of these. It's nice to have that as a little refresher out here.
Q. Kevin, what makes it old school, in your opinion?
KEITH MITCHELL: A lot of greens that have one real uniform slope outside of little, small nuances. In the practice rounds, my caddie and I were just throwing an arrow pretty much to determine what direction the entire green sloped, and he always kind of played it outside so you can stay below the hole.
If you get above the hole really pin high on the wrong side, you can have a really fast putt and have a ton of breaks. So trying to stay below the hole out here is huge.
Q. Considering how the game has changed so much and the technology and everything and this course is built for a completely different era of players, is it kind of cool to come to a place like this and kind of have those two worlds meet?
KEITH MITCHELL: For sure. Again, this golf course is as classic as it gets, traditional. The weather was just absolutely perfect today. So it didn't really have much going to make it play harder.
Being able to take advantage of it today with the weather was exactly what we were trying to do.
Q. How do you think it played to your strengths?
KEITH MITCHELL: There's a couple bunkers that you need to be able to carry on a few holes, and just not having much wind, I hit a lot of drivers. I can see some holes that are downwind lay back a little bit, and some holes that are in the wind, the bunkers could really come into play.
Today I was able to either avoid them or hit over them, and that's not going to be the case with rain or wind.
Q. (No microphone). How do you prepare as the leader when the conditions change so dramatically?
KEITH MITCHELL: You just do the same things and just change your game plan relative to the holes, where the pins are going to be, what the wind's going to do, and how the rain is going to affect where you're going to play it. But all in all, it's all the same stuff.
Q. When did you find out you were going to be in this tournament?
KEITH MITCHELL: Good question. Give or take a week-ish ago.
Q. What did you know about the course coming in?
KEITH MITCHELL: I have a buddy that's a member that kind of gave me a little bit of info, but honestly nothing. I knew it was a great golf course. Everybody that I talked to said it was amazing, and they were right.
We're lucky to be here. I just plotted my way around Monday and Wednesday to figure out what to hit and where to kind of try to put the ball on the green.
Q. What's your favorite hole out here?
KEITH MITCHELL: Great question. Probably what we play as the 14th, the little par-3.
Q. Why do you like it?
KEITH MITCHELL: I think good short par-3s are -- I wouldn't say lost in modern golf architecture, but they're rare, and much more rare. That one is just the perfect example.
The pin today was only three off the left, so guys were hitting it really close. But if you missed it three paces left, there was no way you were getting up-and-down.
Q. Keith, you've been leading after the first round in multiple tournaments this year, and then it's kind of gotten away from you. What's it going to take to kind of switch it up and maybe get it over that hump and get a win this year?
KEITH MITCHELL: Three more rounds like today will probably do it, and trying not to win on Friday and Saturday and Sunday, just trying to play my best.
You know, it's harder -- I've made it pretty hard lately. Hopefully I can just stay in front of it.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports