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CAREERBUILDER CHALLENGE

January 21, 2017

Brendan Steele

La Quinta, California

Q. Obviously, a 70 is a good score, just how well did you play to shoot it?
BRENDAN STEELE: I played pretty well today, I made a couple of mistakes. That bogey on number 4 was a little sloppy.

And the bogey on 10 was actually a great bogey. Made about a 35-footer there.

The wind kind of picked up and I hit a few bad shots on the Stadium, which doesn't really tend to help you out too much, but a good shot finish makes me feel pretty good.

Q. 17 has been a daunting hole all day. Players not really knowing where the wind's coming from. You hit a great shot here.
BRENDAN STEELE: Yeah, it was playing really short when we were there, the wind was kind of moving all around and I played it 135 and it flew even way further than we thought it would. We were trying to land it like five or six yards short and it flew about flag high. But, fortunately, it stopped and got a good read from Christian and made a nice 2.

Q. You mentioned Christian there. How valuable has his advice been? Because, obviously, Luke Donald's brother caddied for him for a long time. Must have learned a lot from that experience.
BRENDAN STEELE: Sure, yeah. Christian has caddied for a lot of great players. He caddied for Luke for a long time and Paul Casey and Martin Kaymer. So he brings a ton of experience and he's a good player in his own right and a teaching professional and knows what my coaches want me to do. So I lean on him really heavily and he's helped me out a ton.

Q. Another highlight for you was, obviously, the birdie at 18. Setup with this wonderful second shot.
BRENDAN STEELE: So, the wind's coming hard off the right and got it into the right rough there and we were trying to land it about 10 short and the wind carried this a little bit farther as well, but it's stopping really fast still. So left it right under the hole and we were looking at just outside right and just barely curled in, went all the way around the hole and down. So really happy with that.

Q. You're from this area. How much did you play these courses as a kid?
BRENDAN STEELE: I played here actually quite a bit as a kid, but it's been about 20 years. So, before last year I hadn't been here since probably about 1998, I would say was the last time I was here. But I did play them a lot in those days. Game's a little bit different these day, but I remember them pretty fondly.

Q. Great finish, 2, 3 on this golf course at the Stadium Course. Really well done.
BRENDAN STEELE: Those are two holes that you kind of think about all day and you get a little bit worried about. The wind kind of picked up when we were on 16 and I was thinking, oh, man, here we go to the island green with a bunch of wind. And it was swirling around, we were having a little bit of trouble figuring out where it was coming from. And the hole played really short for us. Fortunately stopped kind of toward the back of the green.

Q. You're from Ottawa, what, about an hour drive from here, got a lot of friends, family here. What's this final round going to be like for you?
BRENDAN STEELE: I'm going to have a lot of crowd support from local friends and family. And I had a good finish here a couple years ago and it was a lot of fun with a really good Sunday to get all the crowd support and kind of feed on that.

Q. You're a much more confident player going into that final round than you were a couple years ago, would you say that?
BRENDAN STEELE: Definitely. I feel a lot more comfortable in this position, kind of getting there a little bit more often and being able to close it down there at Silverado was huge, only. So, I think it's going to be a tough day, but I'm going to feel pretty good.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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