Q. You had to fight your way back in in this round. Off to a little tough start. Tell me what was going on.
TRAVIS VICK: Yeah, I didn't have my "A" game today. Struggled with ball-striking, and so I had to use a lot of course management, had to get up-and-down, made some nice par putts from about 10 feet that kind of saved the round, and then birdied 3 and 4 to get back to even, and then I kind of cruised on in. 3 and 4 making those birdie putts were critical to save my round.
Q. Talk about the par putts you just mentioned. Where was that in the round and how did that keep you on solid ground?
TRAVIS VICK: Yeah, the one on 9, my finishing hole, was good. On hole No. 1 I was stuck behind a tree kind of stymied and made a nice five-footer for par, which was kind of critical. Those two were kind of the big ones.
Hit it in the bunker on 18 and ended up hitting it short of the green, which is no place to miss, and walked away with 5. Just some sloppy ball-striking mistakes, so I'm going to go clean those up after lunch.
Q. After there's nothing wrong with having a 69 here, but what did you have to -- you're one of the more veteran players in this field. What did you have to rely upon to keep you focused today?
TRAVIS VICK: Yeah, even par. So I know if I'm somewhat around even par, I'm going to be close to it, and that's just from playing a bunch of U.S. Amateurs. I know that even par, especially with how hard these two courses are, will be a great score after two days.
Once I get to even, I try to push it to get to red figures and that's kind of my mindset. If I got over par, like I did today, I'd say bogey doesn't hurt and let's try to get it back to even par. Just playing little mind games like that throughout the day is what I did.
Q. After winning a national title and being low am at U.S. Open, what's this been like for you, this roll you've been on?
TRAVIS VICK: It's been incredible. Being able to win a National Championship for the University of Texas and just with everything our team went through, we were preseason No. 1, we had a lot of hype around us, we faced a ton of adversity, and being able to get that monkey off the back and hoist a National Championship trophy, it's something we'll remember for the rest of our lives.
And then U.S. Open was just a bonus. Going over there and playing well and experiencing everything that entails with a U.S. Open and the way the USGA ran that event, it was pretty cool.
Q. What's that feel like when you're on the green for the ceremony?
TRAVIS VICK: You know, I thought I was playing in front of a lot of people, and then I showed up on 18 trying to get that low am medal, and that was like quadruple whatever number of people I was playing in front of. Yeah, it felt like a movie. It felt like you were there watching a movie. I was able to have a perfect line on Will Zalatoris's putt that he barely missed. Yeah, that whole experience was awesome, and to stand there next to the U.S. Open champion was pretty cool.
Q. You know about Ridgewood, a little bit anyhow. What do you have to do over there tomorrow to have a decent round?
TRAVIS VICK: Yeah, you've got to short game well. You're going to miss greens just because of the difficulty of the course, and it looks like there's going to be some wind tomorrow afternoon, which means everything will firm up and greens will get hard and firm. I'm going to go work on short game. You have to make those six-footers for par to keep your round going. Those are critical out there.
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