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VALERO TEXAS OPEN

April 21, 2016

Stuart Appleby

San Antonio, Texas

Q. Kind of a solid round of golf until you get to the 14th. Tell me about the finish, five birdies.
STUART APPLEBY: Yeah. I can't figure the last time I probably had two, three birdies in a row. Five was a great finish.

Very little wind. I was surprised, we had awful weather in the morning, wasn't predicted. Supposed to have awful weather in the afternoon. The course is in great shape. Little wet obviously after the inch we probably got this morning. Greens are rolling nice. Everything is in great shape.

You know, hit the ball solid. But around here that doesn't sort of mean a lot unless you make putts. Hit it close enough where I made a few. Just a way to finish with five. Not really all birdie holes, couple of tough ones but I rolled it well.

Over all, a solid round. I've had a lot of rounds where I might have one birdie and a bogey and a bunch of pars so it goes nowhere. I'm trying to have rounds where I can make four, five birdies a round and today was that.

Q. Any mechanical adjustments for you? Obviously you had a lot of confidence.
STUART APPLEBY: I was hitting it pretty good. Ball-striking has been lacking a lot. That really makes a big difference. You don't make cuts with that. Tough to build on that.

I hit -- I drove the ball well. You know, that was nice. You don't hit it straight and short, it's an awful game. Certainly was the shortest of the hitters in the group today and playing -- you have to be accurate around here.

The greens were receptive. Love to have a good week here where I feel like I'm evolving my game and also making some putts.

Q. Great finish, great round. Congratulations.
STUART APPLEBY: Thank you.

Q. Wonderful round of golf. You got off to a normal start and all of a sudden five birdies on the backside. Take us through that.
STUART APPLEBY: Yeah. We had to look at the radar this morning. Wasn't supposed to really rain much, maybe this afternoon. Really quite warm. We came out of the storm and it was cold, about 60 degrees and it was cool. Just heated up.

I was going nowhere, lots of pars, you know, few missed opportunities for birdies and something, I shouldn't say jelled, but I hit a great iron shot into my first birdie hole coming in and I had a birdie and made another one, another one, another one. Can't remember I had a round of birdies like that.

Certainly nice feeling because you have to make a couple of putts in there to post a good round and try and get my game to evolve through the week.

Q. You mentioned the delay. You would think that that would actually kind of be a tough situation to kind of deal with but for you seems like you kind of grab the momentum coming out of that.
STUART APPLEBY: I was the shorter of the hitters in my group so going first and with longer irons. You got to be accurate if you're going to give up yardage to the long hitters. Long hitters now hit it straight as well most of the time, too, and hit a lot of greens with short irons.

You got to make the putter work. It is nice to putt well. No doubt it hides a sloppy round. If you can put the two together it could evolve into something nice. Not a lot of wind. I'm sort of surprised someone hasn't shot lower. Maybe it will happen this afternoon or more scores at the 3, 4, maybe 5-under. Maybe we're in for goods things on a tough golf course.

Q. How much confidence do you gain out of a round like that today?
STUART APPLEBY: It's a good start. Obviously it's Round 1 so you're trying to build and make something evolve into your game and work in areas that need a bit of tidying up. I haven't done anything great.

I've been trying to scratch around, make pars with my putter. That's hard work. Hitting it short and crooked is not going to help a lot out here. And not hitting greens, it's really, really tough.

So, you know, I've got to hit it short and straight this week and got to get my irons going and see if I can -- if I can hit enough greens in regulation I can get some rhythm into making some opportunities to make birdies.

Q. Thank you so much for your time. Best of luck to you.
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