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DIAMOND RESORTS INVITATIONAL

January 13, 2017

Woody Austin

Orlando, Florida

Q. Would it have been harder had you known you're putting it for 29?
WOODY AUSTIN: No, no. I mean, it doesn't matter who you are or what the situation is or whatever, you never want to‑‑ I say that all the time even when I'm playing with my boys at home or like yesterday playing with the guys out at‑‑ I played with Mark DeRosa and Phil over at Isleworth yesterday. Nobody wants to embarrass themselves. Nobody wants to mess up or whatever. So it doesn't really matter.
If you have any personal pride, it didn't matter if it was raining or 29, it was still a low round, and I knew it was a low round.

Q. Did you notice it started pouring between your chip and your putt?
WOODY AUSTIN: Sure, absolutely.

Q. What Hoch said to you, you should have hernia surgery more often. When did you have ‑‑
WOODY AUSTIN: This was my first off‑season where I had surgery. I had umbilical hernia surgery. So I did nothing this entire off‑season. I guess what he was trying to say is that I should be under the weather all the time. Yeah, I just started‑‑

Q. You're obviously 100 percent, right?
WOODY AUSTIN: Yeah, I just started playing. I flew down for Brittany Lincicome's Pro‑Am in St. Pete on Thursday of last week, and that was my first day of hitting balls and playing since the end of last year. So I've played each day. So I've had a week to kind of find it, and today it's just one of those days. Today just everything clicked.

Q. And you said a minute ago, I think to Damon, that you made more putts today than you‑‑
WOODY AUSTIN: Sure. I mean, that's the game. I mean, I flagged it. I holed it on number 9.

Q. From how far? Give me the shot at 9.
WOODY AUSTIN: I had 47 yards, and I dunked it.

Q. Okay.
WOODY AUSTIN: And then I hit it two inches on 13. I hit it a foot on the 1st hole. I mean, I flagged it. It's not like I didn't miss. But you still, when you think about it, that's 12 under par. You had to have made something, and I did. I made a 20‑footer on the 2nd hole. The biggest one was the 4th hole. That was my bad hole. I hit a bad tee shot.
Actually, it was the 3rd hole. The 3rd hole, the par 4. I drove it right, up against the pinecone, and couldn't hit it. All I could do was chip it into the bunker, the fairway bunker. Then I hit it on the green 30 feet and made it for par.

Q. 30 feet?
WOODY AUSTIN: So there was my round in there. That right there, that gets my round‑‑ keeps my round going because I just went birdie, birdie.

Q. So if I'm not mistaken, yesterday Justin Thomas was the seventh player? Eight 59s or sub‑60s. He was the seventh player because Furyk did it twice.
Woody is the eighth to do a sub‑60 on any Tour. What's that mean to you?
WOODY AUSTIN: That's pretty cool. I've always felt as if I've always been one of the better ball strikers in the game. Unfortunately, I've never been one of them really good putters. Like I said, today was my day.
That's what it is. It's really just a putting contest. No matter how great you hit it. I could have hit it even better today and missed‑‑ I could have missed five putts, and it would have been 64, and everybody would have thought, oh, you played good, and I'd be like, oh, man, I had this putt and this putt and this putt. And that's the game. You make them or you don't. Some days, when you hit it this good, you make them. But predominantly, as we all know, most of us don't.
You get close. Other guys have gotten close. A lot of guys will shoot 6 under on the front, and then all of a sudden, you miss maybe two of the first three on the back nine, and next thing you know you shoot 1 under on the back or 2 under on the back, and that's the game.

Q. The oddity of these two sub‑60s is we've never had anything resembling back‑to‑back days.
WOODY AUSTIN: Right, I understand.

Q. That's the craziness there.
WOODY AUSTIN: Yeah, I understand that. That's good because now I feel like a young kid then.

Q. You birdied five straight holes heading to 18. You eagled the 9th hole. What was the key to your great play today?
WOODY AUSTIN: Well, basically, I holed the shot on 9. I almost holed a couple shots on the fairway. So I hit it really close. I made two huge putts. I made a really‑‑ I made like a 25, 30‑footer for par on number 4, and then the up and down on 9.

Q. Jim Furyk shoots 58 last year. Justin Thomas shoots 59 last night. Is something changing in this game in terms of what the number 60 means?
WOODY AUSTIN: Well, I don't want to‑‑ I've said all along, the game's gotten a lot easier because of the technology in the golf ball and stuff. It really is a putting contest, and I proved that today. I made more putts than I've made probably all last year in one round.
If you get hot in one round and you play well enough, it's so easy to keep the ball in front of you nowadays that your bad shots‑‑ like I said, even when I hit a bad shot today, it was in play in front of me, and I didn't have to do too much, just get it up and down.

It just makes the game easier because, when you're on, you're really on, and then it's just a putting contest.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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