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PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

July 29, 2016

Patrick Reed

Springfield, New Jersey

JOHN DEVER: Good afternoon, everybody, welcome back to the 96th PGA Championship, Baltusrol Golf Club.

I am pleased to be joined by Patrick Reed, who just posted his second round, 65, that included seven birdies and a couple of bogeys.

Patrick, let's start with your final hole, No. 9. Tell us about that shot and did it really put a punctuation for you on what was a really strong day?

PATRICK REED: It did. It was one of those distances where I didn't quite think I could get the 7-iron there, so I just tried to sake some off of my 6. I've been fighting kind of pulling a couple of those shots, where I'm hitting them soft, and I knew there was no error left on that hole. I just had to step up and make a solid golf swing.

Hit a great one, and yeah, I couldn't really see where I ended up or where it landed. So I just thought it might have been on the green because not a single person clapped. So I walk up there and I realize it's a foot and I was just like, okay, I guess the rest of the field has been hitting it inside a foot all day. Didn't get a single clap and it's in there tight.

Any time you can hit them like that, especially with missing a short putt on 7, you felt like you gave one back there. I felt like I gave one back on 3 for a 3-putt. You know, going into 9, knowing that you need to close off your round right, you don't want to just limp in. Hitting a quality shot like that is definitely good momentum going into tomorrow.

JOHN DEVER: Now going back a couple weeks, you had a real strong showing at Troon. So you really must be digging this major, major thing. Are we seeing the same type of play we saw from you at Troon?

PATRICK REED: You know, I feel like at Troon, it was a little bit more manipulated golf for me. My draw of the golf ball on the whole front nine, seemed like I just holed everything and the whole back nine, I almost had to feel like I was flipping.

I feel like now, more my game is kind of tightening up as the week's going on. It was a little loose when I first got here, because I was manipulating so much over there. You know, now I'm just kind of getting the game back to where it needs to be.

It was nice to see, out of my seven birdies, I think five of them were pretty much kick-in birdies. So you know, it's nice to hit it close and not feeling like you had to make a lot of long putts, just a bunch of tap-ins.

Q. Did you get any breaks out there to even things out, or could this have been really low? You had the short birdie putt to start, and then the last bogey.
PATRICK REED: No -- when I'm sitting back and looking at it, not really any of my -- I made a decent putt on 15, from like 30 feet. So that was really the only putt I made of length or really -- didn't really have any good breaks, but I really didn't have any bad breaks. It was kind of just a normal round.

I thought for sure, there was probably three or four out there that I left out today that were either really short putts I missed, or pretty basic, not-much-break putts. But any time you shoot 5-under, you can't be disappointed.

Q. Can you please describe what the New York and New Jersey crowd is like, and do you like some of that extra volume that comes with playing in this area?
PATRICK REED: They are great. They really get into it. I was surprised with how many fans were actually out here early this morning with the weather. You know, early morning on a Friday, it's raining pretty hard, we're starting out on 10, pretty far out there. And there was a good crowd right when we started.

They are a bunch of troopers. They come out there and they are ready to go. They really get into it and are really enthusiastic about all the good golf shots we hit. Never heard so many people cheer about The Ryder Cup in my life, and we're a long ways away from it.

Q. Going back to December, you've had a lot of high finishes, but you haven't gotten one across the line. What's been holding you back from actually winning?
PATRICK REED: I think it's just kind of mixture of not putting all aspects of your game together. Just seems like every week and every day, there's always one kind of aspect that's missing. Yesterday, I was hitting my irons great, was putting pretty well, but I couldn't keep a driver on the planet.

So I switched my driver to my old driver, and went in today, hit the driver better. I missed a couple short putts I felt like I should have made.

The difference between a Top-10 and a win out on Tour is, you hit fairways, you hit greens, and those 50/50 putts, you're always on the right side of them. I think yesterday, I was definitely on the right side of the 50/50 putts and today I probably broke even on the 50/50's. So far, we're moving in the right direction. We just need to keep on grinding.

Q. A lot of guys your age have elevated their games in the last couple years. Is it frustrating for you to not keep pace?
PATRICK REED: Not really. I mean, I'm playing great. I have a lot of Top-10s. I've just had my best finish in a major so far, and I've only been on Tour for three years. Everyone acts like I've been on Tour for 15, 20 years. I'm only 25.

Q. Obviously you have to get through this major, but how do you feel looking forward to the Olympics?
PATRICK REED: Oh, you know, I can't wait. It's always an honor to play for your country, and to be able to go down to Rio and be part of the first year golf's been in it in forever means a lot.

I'm excited, as excited as I can be, but I need to focus on this week first and not think ahead, and more just focus on what I'm going to do this afternoon and tomorrow's round.

Q. I was wondering how the rain impacted your play and the wet grounds, if at all.
PATRICK REED: It obviously helped my game, shooting five lower. But you know, it was different. This golf course played a lot longer than yesterday. Yesterday, you'd hit a poor tee shot, and it would go 310,315, because it's so firm.

And today, you hit a great tee shot and it will go 290, 295, because it's just hitting and stopping. So the main difference I felt like was you had to get comfortable with knowing that, all right, I have 190, 195 yards, yet I have to fly this almost to the hole because you're not going to get any release; as in, if you did that yesterday, the ball is going to be 30 feet past. That's mainly the biggest adjustment I had to make. The wind was from the opposite direction. 3 played into the wind, and so did 17 and 18, which 18 yesterday was a 5-wood, 5-iron and today it was 5-wood, 5-wood, short.

It played longer in parts but also played pretty easy in some other parts of the holes.

Q. Yesterday, a 58 on the Web.com tour, had you heard of that and what are your thoughts?
PATRICK REED: I heard about it. Actually I looked at the scorecard and it looked great. It was interesting, because my mother-in-law's birthday was yesterday, and she turned 59, and she goes, all right, well, I want you to shoot my age tomorrow.

So I said, okay. Obviously I didn't even come close, I shot 70. But at least someone did it for me.

Q. What's the difference between the two drivers, the one that you used yesterday, and the one that you changed it out for and used today?
PATRICK REED: Really the only thing is the swing weight. It's a lot lighter. I'm a guy that likes my clubs around a D3, a certain swing weight, and I can feel if it's off. You know, the driver I've been using is really light. It's actually a C8, so actually five points difference.

I was noticing that I was hitting a lot of fairways at Scottish and British, but when I missed them, they seemed to go pretty far off line. So we worked at home. I found a driver that I thought was pretty good, same head, same loft, just a little heavier. And Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I seemed to hit a lot of fairways with it. I was like, all right, well, it's going to be great.

Stepped up on the first day and just seemed like with the adrenaline going, with swinging a little harder, my swing speed got up a little quicker. I couldn't time it, couldn't keep it on the planet. I was just like, you know what, I'm going back to my old one. Couldn't get worse; I was 0-for-11 with driver yesterday.

Q. You talked about how much you can't wait to get to Rio and you're looking forward to it. Was there any trepidation whatsoever, or once you were on the team, you were all in and were there any precautions health-wise, that you either researched and have done or precautions that you will take when you're there?
PATRICK REED: There's always -- I was always going to go back to my team and talk about it because of Zika, security, all of the factors everyone has been taking in. The main thing for me was when I found out mid-tournament at Scottish, I wasn't in the meeting at Bridgestone, so I didn't know what was all said.

So I needed to call and talk to Andy before anything. Once Andy told me everything was going to be okay, and told me, okay, you don't have anything to worry about. And Justine was like, all right, let's golf I already knew I wanted to go and Justine wanted to go, as well. I can't wait. It's one of those things that just talking about it kind of gives me goosebumps, because going over there, wearing stars and stripes, playing again, it's going to be great.

Q. Does it ever seem like a weird needle to thread that we ask our athletes to be confident but not too confident because that turns us off; humble but self-confident. As someone who has done well in life because of your self-belief, what do you expect?
PATRICK REED: I don't get what you're asking.

Q. Like in society, we often ask people who are athletes, well, we want you to be self-confident because if you're not confident enough, we don't believe in you, but as soon as you cross a line, we're like, he's too cocky, and people turn against you. There's been a weird backlash sometimes when you're like, I believe in myself, and I believe I'm a top-three player, why wouldn't I believe in that?
PATRICK REED: I appreciate you saying top three, because I said top five, and I appreciate you calling me cocky, as well. I don't really know how to take that one -- you have to believe in yourself. If there was not a mic around and you went out and asked every single guy, and if they knew you weren't media and they went out and you asked every single guy, where do you want to be, they are going to say No. 1 in the world. And if they don't, then those guys also aren't winning every week or even having a chance to win golf tournaments because they are not believing in themselves.

But really at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, yeah, I believe in myself. I play golf. I am who I am. And at the end of the day, it's not -- I'm not writing the articles. It comes down to how you all portray me, not how I portray myself, because I didn't write the article. There's been some I fixed and some that are true and I like the articles.

But at the end of the day, all I can do is play golf and be who I am, and hopefully I'll write the good ones.

JOHN DEVER: Thank you.

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