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KITCHENAID SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 26, 2017

Vijay Singh

Washington, D.C.

JOHN DEVER: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome back to the 78th KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship. Glad to be joined by Vijay Singh, who is 10-under and currently our leader. He has fired a 66 in the opening round and then followed it up with a 68 here today and that's good for 11 birdies and one bogey. Vijay, I guess we'll just ask you about the conditions out there. It's pretty challenging and such and it wasn't anything that let up at all. How did that, how did your game fit into the conditions today to play so well?

VIJAY SINGH: Well, I played the, I think I finished seven holes in the morning and the wind was just getting up. So I was kind of getting used to the conditions. And then when you finish it was blowing quite nicely, too. But it was tough, it was really tough putting. I think 8, 9, 10, those stretch of holes where the wind comes straight off the river was really blowing hard. You can very easily miss short putts. But I played well, I putted really nicely today, I saved some nice pars that kept me going. It's blowing, you just have to manage your game well and just make sure you don't get out of position. If you get out of position, then you have to scramble and I didn't do too many of that.

JOHN DEVER: What might be tougher, just playing in excess of 18 holes, I guess it looks like you played about 25 or so today, or battling a stiff wind for five or six hours? What's more of a challenge, if you had to list one.

VIJAY SINGH: I think wind is always a challenge. I hit two, not the best drives, and they were both really strong into the wind and I had to keep my balance really well to stay still. And I lost my balance both times. So it was hard keeping your balance and hitting a solid shot.

And putting was really difficult. Wind blowing sideways, if you have a downhill putt, it's really hard to, you got to trust your read and hit solid putts. Guys out there, if you start going south, it's really hard to keep it together.

JOHN DEVER: Questions?

Q. Billy Andrade was just in here and he seemed a little surprised to be playing it down for round two. Were you surprised at all and how was the ball out there? Were there a lot of mud balls or did it seem like it was drying up okay?
VIJAY SINGH: When I got to the tee I was surprised. I said, wow, you know, and I thought we would get a lot more mud balls, because there was still surface water on the fairways. So we didn't really get that much, that many mud balls. Unless you really were flying it high and the balls landing on the fairways, really from a higher trajectory, then you would get mud balls. But I didn't get too many of them. I was surprised that it was fine.

Q. Take us through the drop you got on 15 and the par save there and on 16 were those key to continuing on your momentum?
VIJAY SINGH: Drop on?

Q. Didn't you get a drop on 15?
VIJAY SINGH: Yeah, it was a plugged ball. So it was just checking if it broke ground and it did. And it wasn't that difficult of a chip shot, but I kind of misread how tough that little bit of grass was. So it just caught my club. But there again I made a good save there.

And even on 16 I made a pretty good save for par, so those are things that you need to keep it going.

Q. You've gone through a lot of different putters, different putting grips over the years, are you more comfortable now with what you're using? Is that the reason you're putting better?
VIJAY SINGH: I've been using the putter for a couple of months now. And the grip change I did, the first time I played was the senior event that I won, the team event. So, I've been using that for four weeks now. So I'm pretty comfortable with that.

Q. You've birdied seven of the first eight par-5s you've played in the first two rounds, talk about your success, just length off the tee, just feeling comfortable on those holes specifically. Talk about your success.
VIJAY SINGH: I'm driving the ball really well, which makes a big difference. If you drive the ball well on par-5s you're going in with a middle to a long iron. The one that I didn't birdie was I 3-putted it today. So I got on the green and 3-putted it. That was the third hole, I think.

It's an advantage. Obviously, you have to hit it straight, otherwise no matter how long you hit it, if you're not in the fairway you're not going to make, not going to give yourself a good chance for birdie. But they're all reachable. So even for medium length hitters it, if you hit the fairways you can get in there with a 3-wood or 5-wood. So they're not awfully long, except for I think 7 is a pretty long one.

Q. Can you just give us an idea about your game plan going into these next couple days?
VIJAY SINGH: Just try and keep hitting fairways and if I drive the ball the way I'm doing, I'll give myself a lot of chances for birdies. I'm putting well, hopefully that keeps going. You can never tell. But I'm pretty confident.

New caddie this week as well that I'm working really well with, so it's always nice to have a caddie that you jell with and he's a nice kid and we have been working together good.

JOHN DEVER: All right, thank you.

VIJAY SINGH: Thank you.

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