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U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 17, 2016

Brad Dalke

Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

Q. Did you pull something with that fist pump there?
BRAD DALKE: No. It probably looked a little dumb on TV, but that was a grind. Neither one of us played great all day. I played really bad the back nine, and to be able to kind of hit two really good shots coming down probably the toughest hole on the course and then make a putt like that, a big side hiller, it felt pretty good.

Q. What do you say to yourself when you get to match play and the first-round opponent is somebody who's won a Pacific Coast, won the Trans Miss?
BRAD DALKE: When you come here, anybody who makes match play is someone you have to look out for. Anybody, any of these 64 guys, if they have a good day it's going to be tough to beat them. Obviously I've played with Will a lot. We used to play tournaments when we were 11, 12 years old, so I know him pretty well. It sucks to play a friend the first round.

But I came out here knowing what I had to do, and even if I didn't play as well as I thought I would need to, I'm still happy with the result.

Q. 3-up through 8, what was working early and what kind of slipped there on the back nine?
BRAD DALKE: Yeah, I was just playing solid. I think I was 1-under through 8 on my own ball, and Will was struggling a little bit. He gave me a couple holes, which got me 3-up through 8, and then the whole back nine I could feel myself -- especially once we got back from the rain delay, I could really feel that I was kind of being defensive, trying to protect the lead almost, which you can't ever do in match play because you never know what could happen, so I started making some guided swings and just knowing I wasn't hitting it as well as I was before. So when I came back out I told myself, all right, it's the last four holes, I'm going to swing free, swing well at it, and whatever happens happens. It was just enough.

Q. What's the furthest you've gone in match play at a USGA event? Was it Martis Camp?
BRAD DALKE: Martis Camp, yeah, round of 32. I've always had matches where I really didn't play that bad and someone just beat me. I think today, like I said, we both just didn't play well. It was kind of the bad holes were bogeys almost. Won a lot of holes with pars. I'm excited to -- I'm feeling great. Today wasn't -- the back nine wasn't great for me, but I've been hitting it well all week. I've been putting good. I'm not worried about it. I feel like I can go the rest of the week and play well and see what happens.

Q. Talk about the mental improvement you've made and how much college has had an impact on that, and I guess the second part of that would be if you played like this last year, do you think that you would have been able to grind it out and get a win?
BRAD DALKE: Yeah, college has been great to me. I had two great coaches, Ryan Hybl and Jim Garren there, and they've helped me a ton on just the mental game and never quitting, never thinking you're out of it. That's something that's big in match play. You can hit a few bad shots on a hole and still somehow win it, and you've just got to keep fighting regardless. I feel like that's what I kept doing today. Honestly, yeah, last year or the year before I might have -- I wouldn't have say given up, but it might have been tougher for me to keep fighting the way I was hitting it there for a while, but now I'm proud of myself for grinding through it and getting a win.

Q. Speaking of the mental game, what's harder to grind at, match play or stroke play?
BRAD DALKE: That's tough. I mean, stroke play, I don't know, it's just completely different. Match play is just a whole different ballgame because when you're in stroke play and you're playing with guys, you're not really thinking about other scores, you're thinking about yourself and you're thinking about what you need to do. In match play you need to try to do that, but it's tougher just because you see one opponent playing the entire time, and that's one thing I've had a problem with in the past with match play is I get too caught up in what my opponent is doing. I've really just tried to focus on my own shots, focus on my own thing. I can't control what he does, I can only control what I do. That's one thing that's helped me a lot is just control the controllables and don't worry about the uncontrollables.

Q. Did Will say anything about your hat when you stepped on the first tee, talk any trash?
BRAD DALKE: No, he didn't. Yeah, he played pretty well. It was impressive. No, he didn't. That was one thing that was pretty cool, though. It was an awesome place.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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