Q. Ten birdies, wow. You had five in a row on that back nine. You ended up 7-under for today. Just thoughts on the round and that great stretch you had there.
AKSHAY BHATIA: Yeah, it felt like I didn't have many long putts today. For that stretch especially, I felt like I was kind of just hitting my numbers and hitting it pretty close. It was a fun day. It's a golf course where you look at the leaderboard and everyone's 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-under or whatever it may be.
Definitely a solid day to start. Made a couple of mistakes. Just got to clean up some of the longer putts and get more comfortable with my driver. That's kind of been the issue for me these last four or five weeks. Just trying to slowly but surely get a little bit better with the long driver.
Q. What did you learn about this golf course today that's going to help you the rest of the week?
AKSHAY BHATIA: It's all kind of right in front of you. You've got to figure out where you want to leave yourself when it comes to putts. There's so much slope in these greens. With some of the pins that they can have, you've really got to have uphill putts.
Yeah, the more and more you play this golf course, the more and more you get comfortable with certain sight lines and stuff. You've got plenty of birdie opportunities, and then you've got a couple where you've got to make really good pars.
Q. Anything that surprise you about the course, or did it just kind of give you what you expected?
AKSHAY BHATIA: Oh, man, I feel like I've heard so much great stuff about Philly Cricket Club. I think just seeing all the fans really coming out is pretty cool for a Thursday. I feel like typically on a Thursday there's not too many people out.
I think just the overall layout is pretty cool. You've got just old school greens and just kind of the square look. Then it's just really pure, like just all the false fronts are just in front of the green, they're just as fast as the green.
It's a great golf course. Look forward to the rest of the week with how the weather is.
Q. It's supposed to rain tonight, tomorrow. You guys are going to start earlier than you expected. How do you battle the elements and stay focused?
AKSHAY BHATIA: Obviously staying dry is going to be tough. I think mainly just hitting -- just trying to get it in the fairway. If you're in the fairway out here, whether you have 7-iron in or longer, it's just you've got to hit fairways and greens.
I think once this -- the moisture gets into this rough, it's going to be pretty thick. It's pretty juicy. So just got to avoid that and take advantage of the holes you can.
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