Q. What are the feelings after today?
RICKIE FOWLER: Obviously now, you know, bummed not to be in a position to at least maybe to be in a playoff or having a chance to win. But at the same time if you would have told me at seven back that I was going to be out front and have a chance to pose, yeah, a lot of really good stuff this week, especially with being a little under the weather and kind of starting a little behind and putting together a nice round of golf on Friday, not moving back yesterday, and then having a solid day today. A lot of good stuff and definitely happy with where the game's been, how it's been progressing, and obviously where we are right now of the.
Q. At what point did you start seriously thinking, rather than just a good finish, that you could maybe win this thing?
RICKIE FOWLER: I made a nice birdie on 7. I had seen at that point that Alex had gotten off to a little bit of a rough start. No one had really gone anywhere. And so I was only a few back at that point. Making birdie on 9 to turn at 5-under, that's kind of when it was like, all right, we got nine holes in front of us, let's go have some fun and there was a lot of good stuff. It wasn't perfect by any means, but hit a lot of quality golf shots. It would have been nice to have that one on 16.
Q. What did you hit in there?
RICKIE FOWLER: 6-iron into 16. 6-iron on 17. Probably should have hit 6-iron on 18. But thought we had a little bit of help there. So, no, it was good. I stepped up, hit a lot of quality golf shots. Maybe got the breeze a little bit wrong there on 18, but yeah, felt fun to be in the mix.
Q. Feel like 2012 a little bit?
RICKIE FOWLER: I was trying to pull from a handful of years ago. Yeah, I mean, it was more like you said, the first nine was let's go have a good day and back nine was, hey, we actually are in a spot where we can go win this. Just happy with how I felt, how comfortable I was, how confident, shots that I hit, made some good putts when I needed to. Unfortunate just not to finish it off the last few holes the way I would have liked to, but have to give a shout out to my buddy Kenny Roczen who wrapped up a Supercross championship last night. I was thinking about him a bunch there because coming from behind and just dealing with the grind of it, luckily for us if we miss a shot we don't have to worry about it too much. Those boys are dealing with injuries and all kinds of stuff. So thinking about all my buddies that ride and definitely makes it a lot calmer out there on the golf course for me.
Q. So you watched that last night, is that what did you?
RICKIE FOWLER: Yeah, yeah, I stay up and I watched all the stuff with Supercross and motocross, so they just finished up the super cross season. Yeah, I've always been a die hard moto fan, so, yeah, to see a buddy of mine accomplish something that he's been working at for quite awhile and been, he's dealt with some injuries that for some other people could have potentially been career ending. So to see that kind of all come together was pretty cool. So that definitely helped me on course today.
Q. You said you see a lot of good things in the last few weeks, finishes have been good. What are the things that you see that you're enthused by?
RICKIE FOWLER: One, belief in myself and to be able to execute, so, I mean, that comes from both, obviously you have to have the belief, but then getting the feed back from hitting the actual shots shot and executing what you're trying to do, so those feed off of each other. I feel like I've been able to do a good job of committing and so that's, that all works together. Then at the same time staying present I think that my management around the golf course, you know, when to maybe be on the aggressive side or towards the smarter side, but still continuing to execute and try and hit my spots the best that I can.
Q. 18 on the approach, do you feel like you guys misjudged the wind a little bit?
RICKIE FOWLER: Yeah. I thought I was, after the previous two holes, and after the tee ball, I felt like I was going to get a little bit of help there. And I didn't want to fly it much pass the top of the ridge on top. It was tough, the last three, you know, 16, 17 kind of off the right, didn't get much hurt on the second shot on 16, ended up having to play some hurt on 17, then I was thinking we were going to get maybe a little bit of help. Yeah, it's obviously pretty easy to go back, yeah, I would like to go hit 6-iron there, but it is what it is. I hit a lot of those right out of the middle of the face, just, yeah, not always, don't always guess right.
Q. Then your buddy who won, what's the relationship there, a childhood friend somebody you've known for a while?
RICKIE FOWLER: Ken Roczen, he's originally from Germany, he's a few years younger than me. You about I've known him for well over 10 years. He's been at it for quite awhile and I've always had the connection with moto and so I've had a lot of great friendships with the guys that used to ride, still ride. Partly it's just my love of the sport and there's a lot of the guys that have become golfers over the years, so there's a cool crossover. So it's great for me, it's fun, unfortunately knowing a lot of them I can't, I don't really pull for one specific, I can't pull against other guys. I have a lot of great relationships there. So, yeah, it's just fun. I know a lot of them follow what's going on out here, they love golf. But for me to be that close to the sport, to have known Ken for that long and know everything that he's gone through and dealt with to finally get a championship, something that he's worked for a long time at, yeah, just, it's pretty special.
Q. Do you ride at all for fun anymore or is that off limits?
RICKIE FOWLER: No, I mean, I'll hop on a bike and cruise the kids around when we're back at my parents' house in California. But, no, it's not really worth me getting on a track. To have fun I would need to, you have to push the limits a little bit. I tell people in golf terms I would say it's like telling a scratch handicap to go out and shoot like 88 or 90 and call that having fun. No, I wish, yeah, some of the best feelings and best times have been on a bike, but I'll leave it to my buddies that do it for a living and I'll stick to smashing a golf ball around.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports