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BMW CHAMPIONSHIP

September 6, 2016

Billy Hurley III

Carmel, Indiana

DOUG MILNE: We'll get started. Thanks for joining us, Billy, you are making your first start here in the BMW Championship. It is your second appearance in the playoffs. And obviously your steady play is what got you here. You started 72nd, outside the Top-70 last week, and your top-10 finish at TPC Boston got you here. So things are trending in the right direction. So with that said, just a few thoughts. You said you had a chance to see the back nine today.

BILLY HURLEY III: Yeah, I played the back nine this afternoon. Obviously, it's a really good golf course. It's in great shape. I don't know if they have let anybody play on it for like the last two or three weeks, it's really in pure, pure shape.

Yeah, I feel good. My game's good. I did a lot of solid stuff last week. Hit a lot of real nice shots and a lot of real good putts and had a good week, wish we would have not made so many bogeys kind of on Sunday, but it was blowing 25, so that happens.

DOUG MILNE: We'll take a few questions.

Q. Is this the first time you've been here?
BILLY HURLEY III: Yeah, first time here at Crooked Stick, yeah.

Q. Is it the first time you were at Bridgestone?
BILLY HURLEY III: It was.

Q. Okay. So, all these first things that are happening to you, how hard is it, if it is hard, to get used to a course that you haven't seen before?
BILLY HURLEY III: It's funny, after I won, we always used to talk about my rookie year kind of like doing the things for the first time and how hard it is on TOUR, going to new courses, going to new cities and everything.

And then I've kind of been out on TOUR my fourth year here and kind of got used to all that and then I won and now we're in all these other tournaments and it's like being a rookie again. You kind haven't been to the cities or the golf courses. So, certainly this is a golf course where you would like to have been around a couple of times. That said, not many guys in the field have, right? They just haven't held that many tournaments here. So, there's not that much of a disadvantage in that sense of having it be my first time here.

Q. What is the most difficult thing of going to a new city? Finding restaurants, finding hotels?
BILLY HURLEY III: It's all of it, I think. You pull in the parking lot this morning and you don't know where you're going. You're like, all right, okay, that looks like the clubhouse, I'll go over there. And from there you kind of go where's the locker room. And then on Sunday you'll learn that, oh, there's like this cool shortcut over here that would have saved me 15 minutes every day.

So, it's just kind of all of that stuff. Where to stay, what's the right side of the town to be on, close to restaurants, off the traffic map, kind of all that stuff. So it's just a little bit of kind of everything that makes it, not hard, I don't want to say it's hard, but it's just a little bit more difficult new places, new cities, new things.

Q. I'm curious, watching Rory last week a lot of people were saying that he struggled with his putting for however many weeks and all of a sudden he putts great. I'm thinking back to your victory at Congressional, you hadn't played all that well heading up to that week and then you flipped the switch and you won by three shots. So I'm just wondering what that says about the PGA TOUR and maybe golf in general that guys can seemingly find an answer over a four-day period.
BILLY HURLEY III: It's one of the best parts about our game and one of the most maddening parts about our game all at the same time. Sometimes I think that the average golf fan and the mainstream media really think the only person who can win this week are the guys that finished in the top-5 last week. And it's just really not true at all. There's 70 guys here who can win. In a normal field there's 150 guys who can win.

And it just, it doesn't take much just to find that little feeling, that little switch that just makes it all feel right and the ball starts going where you're looking, putts start dropping and you have a great week.

Q. In your case, what was that little switch and have you been able to kind of continue that it throughout the rest of the season?
BILLY HURLEY III: The thing is I didn't have a whole lot of great results leading up to Quicken Loans, but I was playing pretty good. I played 63 really good holes at Byron Nelson and had like one nine holes that got me or else I probably would have finished 15th or something like that.

I played okay at Memphis.

I actually hit the ball maybe the best I've ever hit it in practice at the U.S. Open and then missed the cut by a mail at the U.S. Open. But that's a U.S. Open. That happens.

So, it was just kind of a slow build, I think, in my case. There wasn't a switch that flipped. I did certainly hit a ton of really, really good iron shots at Congressional and Congressional is a golf course where you just have to hit pretty much perfect shots all the way around or it's really hard. And for some reason that also suits me in the sense of like when I know what I absolutely have to do, I'm able to kind of do it. That's one of the reasons that I like Congressional. I think the shot is right in front of you and there's almost only one way to do it. And that makes it a little easier for me to get mentally into the shot, I think.

So, it wasn't necessarily a switch that flipped for me at Congressional, it was just kind of building towards it and then kind of being on a course that I liked and having a good week with everything.

Q. If you could guess, how many swing thoughts, putting tips, mental images do you have throughout the year that you try and use?
BILLY HURLEY III: Throughout the year, probably, if we go swing thoughts, let's say 15 to 20. Obviously not all at the same time, like little different ones. Like one this week, two of them next week, and whatever.

But as I kind of journal a little bit about that and kind of like write down what's working, you go look at that, you always come back to the same things, so trying to keep it simple is a big key, too.

Q. The point is that you're always kind of trying to chase something?
BILLY HURLEY III: Oh, for sure, one week you have a hard time drawing it, the next week have you a hard time fading it, and you're kind of always just in this bouncing back and forth. When you kind of get that needle right towards the middle is when you just can move it both ways with ease and you know that the putting feels right and everything else. So, yeah, it's very funny how it kind of back and forth it goes. Especially throughout the year. You go to one golf course and you can't hit a five yard draw to save your life and then you go two weeks later you can't cut it anymore because you're working so hard on drawing it. So, it just, yeah, it's kind of definitely a back and forth kind of thing.

Q. I know you get to go to Hyundai next year, Masters next year, I don't know some others, how much more fun is it going to be for you to make your schedule outgoing to next year?
BILLY HURLEY III: Well, once I got out of like January, I feel like it actually gets harder because there's a lot of tournaments I like, a lot of places that I like to play, and I'm just, you can't play them all. So, trying to pick and choose the right ones and play at the right time and rest at the right time, that's going to be a little bit of a challenge.

But, yeah, certainly looking forward to going to Maui, love being in Hawaii. We lived there for two years when I was in the Navy, so it's always kind of a homecoming-type tournament for us and this year getting to go there for two weeks will be awesome.

DOUG MILNE: What's your fall like?

BILLY HURLEY III: I haven't quite figured out the fall. I think I'm going to play Napa, Malaysia, Vegas, and Mexico. I haven't committed to anything and I'm not a hundred percent sure, I definitely will go to Malaysia, just haven't figured out how to schedule around that cross world trip.

DOUG MILNE: All right. Billy, as always, we appreciate your time.

BILLY HURLEY III: All right, thanks.

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