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MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 7, 2017

Ryan Moore

Augusta, Georgia

Q. How did you feel about the round today and in particular the 2 pin and 13.
RYAN MOORE: It was just a really solid round of golf. I controlled it great off the tee, hit some ‑‑ I actually controlled the ball really well yesterday, I didn't putt particularly well. Today I just got my iron shots a little bit closer to the hole it felt like. I had a few better opportunities to make birdie and less opportunities to make bogey, which was the most important thing. My goal starting the day, I knew it was tough, but I felt like I could go shoot a couple under and let's get back to even or kind of get into an interesting place going into the weekend. I knew it was going to be a tough day and I bettered that by one. So, all in all, it was a great, successful round of golf and honestly couldn't play much more solid than I did.

Q. What about the conditions out there?
RYAN MOORE: It's tough. This golf course is difficult enough. And you add 15 to 20 mile an hour gusting winds that are changing directs slightly every single hole and shot and distance control is so important here, that you can just end up in places that you have no shot. So, it just makes controlling your golf ball that much more important and controlling the trajectory, controlling the spin, doing all of those things that matter so much on a day like today and I was able to do that.

Q. What did you have on 18?
RYAN MOORE: I don't know. I hit a 7‑iron. I think it was about 185 yards or so. Something like that.

Q. It's not the hardest hole on the golf course, but it's certainly one where guys can particularly in these conditions can make mistakes and sort of the importance of you making par there, to sort of keep your name on the leaderboard and that sort of thing. How would you sort of describe the hole, I guess, in terms of that.
RYAN MOORE: The most difficult thing right now is a 20 plus mile an hour cross wind down a super narrow chute, but you have no space to work it, necessarily. So you have to hit about as good of a tee shot as you have to hit on this entire golf course virtually. And you can even hit a pretty darn good tee shot and end up in a not great place, like over on that right side. So it's really, that hole is, everything is off the tee right now. So if you can get it out there in good position and give your self a mid iron, it's not too bad. Especially the pin position today. But there's a lot of bad places that you can end up with as narrow as it is and with that much of a crosswind. It's just a really difficult tee shot.

Q. Is it also one you got some familiarity with, just from the standpoint of there's been so many iconic moments there, it's the closer, so from that standpoint.
RYAN MOORE: Yeah, it's something you're comfortable with and you watch and you see it and I have played it enough to kind of ‑‑ I've never seen it quite in these conditions ‑‑ but, yeah, again, a hundred percent it's the tee shot on a day like today. It is probably the most difficult tee shot on the golf course right now, just with the cross winds and you have no space to start it left, so you're trying to draw it back up against it, but you get it turning a little too left and get behind those trees, it actually keeps going left. So it's just very, it's a really, really tough shot.

Q. No. 1 has been crushing guys. I saw you chipped well from the back of the green. What happened there?
RYAN MOORE: Yeah, I didn't hit a particularly great tee shot, but I was in the fairway and then I hit it just over the back edge of the green. And it's actually rare that you get a putt that you could putt it off two different directions off the green, and I had one of those on No. 1.
If I, honestly, had two feet less speed of what I had, my ball would have gone off the green to the right and if I hit it two or three feet too hard and a little bit more left, it would have gone off the green, through the green. So, I thought it was a good place until I got there and I was like, oh, well, this is not a great place. I mean, it was a putt, but it was very ‑‑ I was very happy to get that within five feet.

Q. Is it because it's elevated, slopey, is that what makes it so tough?
RYAN MOORE: Yeah, I mean it's just, yeah, there's a lot of slope, there's a lot of undulation, and they put those pins just in the right spots to where you have to deal with all of those things. So, again, it's a golf course that if you hit it in the right place, it's scorable, it's possible to shoot a golf score. If you start hitting it in the wrong places, and that can even be on the green, you're going to make bogey. That's the beauty of this golf course.

Q. You have a lot of experience out here over the course of a decade or so, what can you take away from those experiences that helped you get through the last two days and get into the position you're in right now?
RYAN MOORE: Honestly, this is going to sound a little bit weird, but I changed golf balls two weeks ago and the golf ball is so much better in the wind. I've been struggling in the wind a little bit and it was really windy at the Match Play, I tested new golf balls there. To be honest, when I heard it was going to be windy ‑‑ and I was also in Vegas all last week, and I think it blew 30 miles an hour every single day. And I thought, well, I might as well go practice, I guess. I didn't know it was going to be 30 miles an hour of wind here.
But, yeah, I'm a lot more comfortable in the wind right now with the golf ball. I'm just hitting shots in crosswinds way better and through the wind a lot better and so I gained some confidence with that. So, and since I knew the conditions were going to be like that I was a little more at ease than I would have been if you asked me a month ago before I had changed, made that equipment change.
So, in the end you know it's going to be tough, you know it's going to be hard to make birdies, because I played number 10 as good as you can play it, I ripped, drew a 3‑wood down there, out of control 8‑iron in, hit it four and a half feet right of the hole and I literally have a putt that, if it does not touch the hole, I have a 4‑footer coming back. I mean that's ‑‑ and with wind and with all of these things, it's like I can't play a golf hole any better and I still might have a 5‑footer for par. Like, you know, starting with a 4‑ or 5‑footer for birdie. And it's just, that's how this golf course is and you just know, no matter what, it's going to be tough. Especially in these conditions.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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