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WYNDHAM CHAMPIONSHIP

August 16, 2017

Kevin Kisner

Greensboro, North Carolina

JOHN BUSH: We'd like to welcome Kevin Kisner into the interview room. He's making his 5th career start at the Wyndham Championship, including two consecutive Top-10 finishes. He closed with a 63 last year.

Kevin, I know you're back at a place that you feel really comfortable. We can get some comments on being back in Greensboro.

KEVIN KISNER: Obviously happy to be here. This is one of my favorite golf courses that we play all year. It suits my game extremely well.

Everybody on my team circles this one as one of the ones that we should have a chance to compete in. We're excited to get the week started. Obviously remember that 63 on Sunday last year and lot of fun.

Try to open up with one of those tomorrow.

JOHN BUSH: No. 9 in the FedExCup standings right now, a win and two runner-up finishes this year. Talk a little bit about your goals this week and also as the FedExCup Playoffs approach.

KEVIN KISNER: Yeah. We're playing here to try to bolster some more points for the FedExCup Race. Tight race all the way to the end. We felt as good as this golf course is for me it will be a great way to catapult up the standings and have a better chance to win the FedExCup.

Obviously that's a goal of ours to start the year, not only get to East Lake but have a chance to win the FedExCup. So, we felt like this is a great tournament to springboard us up the standings.

JOHN BUSH: Kevin, just go ahead and talk a little bit about Quail Hollow last week. You were disappointed not to win but what a great showing for you throughout the week and what can you learn from that?

KEVIN KISNER: It was a -- it's always great to be in the hunt. You always learn about yourself under those tough conditions, you learn about how you're going to handle yourself and the shots that you're going to hit and, in my opinion, anytime you have that opportunity, it doesn't work out you get to re-evaluate things that you can do better the next time you're there.

And I loved the atmosphere at Quail Hollow, the PGA did a great job of setting up the golf course and the amount of people that were there were awesome and it was a big crowds and great week and looking forward to playing in the last group here.

JOHN BUSH: Great.

Q. Kevin, after evaluating what happened Sunday, what did you learn?
KEVIN KISNER: Well, I think it's just extremely difficult to win and that's one of the things that I've learned and Major Championship events are more difficult than regular PGA TOUR events and the shots that we had to hit coming down the stretch at Quail Hollow were totally demanding.

And, obviously, I went for it on 18 trying to make a 2 but I still -- three extremely hard holes to try to close out a Major Championship. So you have to be prepared to hit those shots coming down the stretch. I think I will be next time.

Q. After having a few days to digest, what is the overriding emotion, the excitement about putting yourself in contention to win a Major Championship or the disappointment not winning the Wanamaker?
KEVIN KISNER: I'm more excited about where my game was headed. I worked really hard with John on the last couple of weeks heading into the Major. I remember telling him on the range on Saturday I was pretty impressed how well the things we are working on moved into competition rounds. I was hitting the ball fantastic the first few days.

I'm excited where we're headed. We've got a big stretch run here of five of the next six weeks of playing golf. If I can keep playing the way I'm playing, I'll have plenty of chances to win.

Q. Kevin, is it good for you to get right back out there this week; that kind works well for you?
KEVIN KISNER: Absolutely, I think so. You know, playing well breeds playing well, in my opinion, and you see guys go on runs all the time and you see guys go in slumps all the time. It's hard to break out of them.

I haven't played great all summer. I just started to see the signs kind of late in Akron and hopefully I'm on the rise up to a peak and that's why I'm here, is to get back into competition and get back in the fire and I just love the golf course.

It's going to be fun to actually make some birdies and not understand every hole.

Q. Overall, do you think your game -- you're playing very well right now -- do you think you're coming in here with some momentum?
KEVIN KISNER: I feel really good about the way my game is going. The greens are a lot like Quail Hollow with the same undulation and the same surfaces. I love to putt here. I'm looking forward to having chances at shooting another low number here and keep riding the momentum that I built last week into the FedExCup Playoffs.

Q. I came in late so I'm sorry, when exactly did you find out what Justin had posted and what you needed to do?
KEVIN KISNER: I knew he got to 9 at 17. When we walked off the tee at 18 we asked the walking official what he made on 18. We knew he finished at 8. We knew we had to make 2 to have a chance.

That pretty much put that mindset only in my mind.

Q. That's my next question. What is it like to know you need a two to tie?
KEVIN KISNER: It's not real fun from 214 (laughter). That's what I had to the hole. The only disappointing thing, got out of there the rain over night made the fairways so soft.

I didn't get much roll off the tee and had mud on my ball and a long way in. So hard to judge how the mud will affect it.

We talked about aiming further to the right. If the mud doesn't take it and aim right then you have no shot. We aimed more at the flag and tried to pull it off but it just -- it came out hooking extremely hard left right off the face so you knew those hopes were dashed quickly off the face.

Q. It was a mud ball?
KEVIN KISNER: Yeah, mud on the ball.

Q. Did you drive or fly back to Aiken? What was kind of the mood like leaving Charlotte?
KEVIN KISNER: The best part about having a family is they don't really care. It was on to watching Beauty And The Beast about 30 minutes after that 18th hole. We watched Beauty And The Beast and ate Cookout in the car.

I said, "Man, this is exciting here." We got home late. We had planned all our stuff for these two days at home. We've been hustling and bustling Monday and Tuesday at home to get everything done to get back up here.

Q. You just arrived?
KEVIN KISNER: Yes, sir.

Q. Are you going to have a look at the course today?
KEVIN KISNER: Probably not. I'm going to go practice with my coach. My wife is 35 weeks pregnant. She had a doctor's appointment today. We asked for a late arrival so she could go to that. We're trying to keep that baby in for a few more weeks.

Q. When is she due?
KEVIN KISNER: Saturday of Chicago, the 16th.

Q. Kevin, you did a great job of finding fairways and greens last week and you talked about accuracy more than power as part of your game.
When you look broadly at the Major Championship venues and the governing bodies, do you think that they are doing a nice job in offering a variety of players to win that championship, much like -- in other words, would you like to see maybe a venue like here or Colonial, obviously be tougher but --

KEVIN KISNER: Yeah. I think overwhelmingly in golf, firm greens, tight fairways, lots of rough is always going to be most difficult and then wind. We can't always predict wind.

Length I think necessarily doesn't make it that much more difficult unless we made some 10,000-yard course where everybody it was impossible to get to.

The guys are hitting it so far. I remember of everybody talking last week about how short I was compared to everyone else which is true, but John Tillery showed me a screen shot of my tee shots on Saturday on the range. I had 12 of 14 over 300 yards. I was the short knocker. What is this game getting to, short knocker averaging 305 off the tee.

It's incredible. Even Hideki and everybody talks about Jordan not hitting it far. He hits it 20 by me. How short is he? The game is just moving in a direction where power is so much of an asset.

Q. So what's the plan? Obviously you got three events, what's the plan with the baby?
KEVIN KISNER: The plan is to have it on Monday of Chicago. We won't make it till the 16th no matter what. We'll induce before then. The plan is Monday the 11th and play every event.

Q. Boy or girl?
KEVIN KISNER: No idea.

Q. Ten, eleven years ago when you came out on Tour, grind and trying to get your card. Something, two, three years ago, something clicked.
What was it and is that a normal story of a lot guys out here, he's grinding and grinding and something, bam?

KEVIN KISNER: That story is kind of diminishing. Seems like the guys that are making it now are making it right away, less of the grinders, in my opinion.

I was never a great ball-striker and I wasn't aware of until four years ago when I went with John Tillery to be confident in the ball-striking, and then obviously I had a great short game and so marrying the two allowed me to be more of a competitor on the Tour.

Q. You were talking about your driver. How far do you carry it normally?
KEVIN KISNER: 280 max.

Q. Did you ever think you would see the day where people are calling it short?
KEVIN KISNER: I see it everyday. I played with Jason Day on Saturday. On No. 2 I hit it two yards behind him. "Take a picture of that, Bud."

Both hit driver.

Q. What excites you most about the Presidents Cup?
KEVIN KISNER: Team atmosphere. We never get the opportunity to do that. We have a big group text message chain going around already and the comradery already started. It's pretty cool even a month and a half out already building team relationships and trying to get together and play and do as much as we can to know each other better.

I think that will be very beneficial to the team.

Q. Who is the finniest?
KEVIN KISNER: You can always laugh at Kuch, for sure, whenever he's on there. Most of it is R-rated so we stay away from that.

Q. Who do you think you partner well with?
KEVIN KISNER: I don't really care. I just want to play with somebody that loves to compete because that's what I love to do.

I think we have a team full of that. Obviously I'd love to go walk out there 370 yards and hit somebody else's tee ball one time (laughter). Any of those guys I'm willing to do it.

JOHN BUSH: Kevin, we appreciate your time.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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