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ZURICH CLASSIC OF NEW ORLEANSApril 29, 2017Ryan PalmerJordan SpiethAvondale, Louisiana Q. Talk about that finish. RYAN PALMER: Great by Jordan to finally roll in a putt, a little rough for me on the greens with the wind. Was a tough one. JORDAN SPIETH: Had a good number here for a full gap wedge. Ryan got me over that bunker so I could hit it from 107 yards into that breeze, got on to the ridge and spun back, gave us a lot of momentum there grabbing one coming in. Q. How challenging were the winds? RYAN PALMER: That putt in particular, you get with the grain and you get the winds whipping and swirl, makes right-to-left putts to break right because of the wind. It's tough. Q. You made this shot look easy. RYAN PALMER: It was a perfect number. Bad tee shot -- this is the way the game goes right here. Part of it. Q. We hate to bring this up and it seemed like a lot of missed short putts for you guys. How do you assess today? JORDAN SPIETH: We struck the ball beautifully and only missed one green and that's when I missed the green on 9. If we said we were going to hit 17 greens today -- that would have been ridiculous and it was. We just didn't have it going. It's very difficult out here with these grainy greens when you get the wind going one way in the hill and the grain the other, and you are trying to figure out, because the wind gusts, the putt breaks an entire cup different amount. So even on a 6-footer you're trying to figure out exactly where you want to hit it and get comfortable. I ran a few putts way too hard, instead of hitting them soft and recognizing how difficult it was, I was almost trying to force them in and left my partner in some tough spots. Q. Taking conditions into account, fourball tomorrow, what's the plan of attack? JORDAN SPIETH: Aggressive. RYAN PALMER: Yeah, we're both hitting it well. We get the putter going tomorrow, we're going to make a lot of birdies I think. A little sluggish on Friday in fourball but tomorrow, we're going to come out and stay aggressive. We'll be three or four shots back. Q. Seemed like a really fun battle on the back nine, certainly fun for us to watch. How much with Charley and Nick did you feel the competitive fire on the back nine? RYAN PALMER: It was great. Playing against him a little bit but had a lot of fun out there with those guys. They are obviously good friends of ours, but it was a challenge. Each team had struggles going into the back nine. We were able to get a few birdies there. But you get these grainy greens in a lot of wind, it makes it tough on short putts for sure. Q. You talked about the frustration of missing what you thought were some makeable gusts, with gusts up to 40 miles an hour, how much did that impact things, especially on the greens? JORDAN SPIETH: Significantly, and that's completely the reason why. When you get a putt where the wind is blowing one way and you've got the grain the other, and the hill back with the wind, you just have no idea what that putt is going to do, given the amount of wind that was blowing out there today. If it gusts or doesn't gust when you're over it, it affects the putt by an entire cup, even from six or seven feet. It's really a guessing game. It's staying very confident with your initial read, which is what I don't think I did. Staying confident with that with that stroke. But at that point, it's just up to the conditions, and you hope that you're going to hit with the conditions when you're over the ball and it doesn't gust then. It's very difficult. They did a great job with the hole locations. They did a great job with the course setup today, the TOUR did. I thought it was fantastic where tees were placed, where pin positions were, and it made it very challenging from ten feet and in, because you got greens going one way against the wind. They must have obviously known what was going on there just to fool everybody, and they certainly fooled us a bit. We're striking the ball great. Ryan's been putting tremendously well. My putter's yet to heat up, and that bodes well for us going forward, going into tomorrow. We'll get out there, we'll strike the ball the way we have been and get into a rhythm on the greens. Q. Will it be easier to make up a deficit tomorrow in fourballs than alternate-shot? JORDAN SPIETH: It's tough to tell. In the wind, I think it gives us a better chance in the four-ball. If there was no wind, I would say definitely alternate-shot. But with the early start and some windy conditions and storms coming in, I think that's going to definitely help our chances tomorrow. Q. Does the wind frustration get multiplied when you have a partner you're relying on, too? JORDAN SPIETH: Probably. Q. Because you're playing for two of you. JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, sure. A bit. That's kind of the adjustment in going into this format and kind of an adjustment that we have never had to make before on the PGA TOUR. So yeah, maybe a little bit. Q. To be in contention heading into the last day, obviously in a different format like this, that's a good thing, right? RYAN PALMER: Oh, I think it's great. You see the fans in New Orleans who came out to support the Zurich this week, it's awesome what they did with the tournament, what the TOUR did. You have to applaud them very much for making this change. I think this tournament will get better and better each year. We're both excited about tomorrow. We're going to be three or four shots back I think. We'll just go for broke tomorrow. We have a good chance. Q. Will you adjust your target score -- JORDAN SPIETH: I have not looked. We didn't know what the tee times were going to be until we got here and we were on the range today when I saw tomorrow what is a 6:40 start. If it's like today and we're four back, we probably have to shoot nine or ten. Are we at 14? Somewhere around 24-, 25-under probably. These guys, Cameron and Jonas, seem to be in full control. They shot 10-under yesterday in that format, and you've got to ham-and-egg it, too. You can make five birdies each and only make five birdies in the round for the team. It's about having them at the right time, but yeah, probably somewhere around there. It's really tough to tell. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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