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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

May 15, 2016

Matt Kuchar

Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida

Q. Your best finish here obviously since 2012. Just sum up the week for you.
MATT KUCHAR: This is a good week. I knew my game was on good form, I've been playing some nice golf for the past month. I look back and I put in a lot of WORK going into Augusta and I felt like I hit the ball as about as well as I could ever remember hitting it around Augusta during Masters week.

Carried some good hitting through the next couple weeks and putting wasn't great. Kind of went back to an older, more crouched over putting style this week and felt awfully good about putting as well.

So it was nice to get almost all facets really working well.

It seemed like last year I would get clicking with ball striking and putting would be off. Putting would be on and ball striking wouldn't be quite on.

And that's the nature of this game, but I felt like now things are all starting to click and it was a definitely a fun week and a good week for me.

Q. That's a style that you've used before?
MATT KUCHAR: Yeah, very similar to how I used to putt.

Q. Did you have to took awhile to recall it or did you pick it upright away? Obviously you must have picked it up pretty fast.
MATT KUCHAR: I had an off week last week and I went out several days just to work on putting and I would come back frustrated, come back frustrated, and finally I got to try something different. So I'll go through Rolodex of things I used to do. And as I said, I just changed my setup a little bit, crouched down a little bit more. And it started feeling really good.

Q. So you must be looking forward to the future of the season if you're feeling that good with your game?
MATT KUCHAR: I am. My ball striking's held for awhile, which is a huge positive. Just having the ability to hit quality shots, find fairways, the ability to attack pins when you have the chance, it's a huge positive. And to have that stay for an extended time makes me very excited about the future stretch of golf for me.

Q. What were you battling earlier this week when you had the thing on Wednesday with Blake that you couldn't do?
MATT KUCHAR: I don't know if it was flu or a sickness, I don't know. But I certainly wasn't feeling good and I ended up staying home on Saint Simmons until Thursday, just made the drive Thursday morning. I had a late afternoon tee time which was a bonus to be able to stay in my own bed and get as much rest as possible.

Q. How pleasing was this week considering that, that you had that little hiccup earlier?
MATT KUCHAR: No fun to not be able to prepare as best you can, but I felt like I had done a good job of preparing, I feel like I came down a couple weeks early before the course closed and had a round. I came down Monday, had a round.

And then it was Monday afternoon I started not feeling quite as well and, but I felt like I certainly know the course well enough, I know that the intricacies about it, I didn't need extra time to make any extra notes, it was just get a feel for chipping out of the rough, if you get fliers out of the fairway rough. All that sort of feel I would have liked to have had a little extra time.

But that being said, when I teed it up Thursday, I felt like I knew enough about how to play this golf course that I wasn't behind the 8-ball at all.

Q. No bogeys after the 5th. Were you pleased with how you were able to avoid trouble out there today?
MATT KUCHAR: My ball striking has been good and that's how you avoid the bogeys, you keep it in play. I found a lot of fairways. It was a good, good solid steady day of golf.

Q. On 16 you had the eagle putt, disappointing that that didn't go in?
MATT KUCHAR: Yeah, sure. What an awesome shot it was. I was so pleased to pull it off, to know that I needed to make a real move to have a chance to win and hit a shot like that was great.

It was a putt I didn't I could leave short and I left it short, unfortunately. As a professional, that's one of the things that you really hate doing is coming up short on opportunities. And I came up short there. I kicked myself on that one.

But there were plenty, 72 holes of golf to be played, there were lots of chances and all in all it was still a good week.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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