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CAREERBUILDER CHALLENGE

January 19, 2018

Zach Johnson

La Quinta, California

Q. You have to be happy with your 64 today. Five birdies in a row including a hole out at 1 and a couple really long putts. When you're in a zone like that, what kind of things are you noticing?
ZACH JOHNSON: Well I was giving myself opportunities. I made a nice one on 18 to make the turn, my 9th hole, and hit a really, really poor second shot at 1. Miss club. And that one just kind of catapulted me, it kind of got me going. From there I gave myself a lot of great opportunities, with the exception of my bogey -- apparently I need to go back to that, right? Any athlete does, they want to go back to the mistake -- but I righted the ship, made some coming in, and just gave my self good opportunities. That's all you can really do and hopefully your putter behaves. But it was solid. After yesterday I noticed I was starting to get the putter certainly more on line and it kind of just bled into today.

Q. Talk about capitalizing on opportunities how about the momentum you've had this season and what it's looked like so far coming off of a top-15 finish last week. What's been working over this stretch?
ZACH JOHNSON: Doing a lot of good things. Trying to -- if we're going to pick apart a weakness it's probably because I haven't been putting great, I mean, or even sometimes poor. But ball strike's good, I'm hitting my driver in the fairway, I'm getting more loft into these greens the last two weeks than I've ever been accustomed to. My golf ball, new Pro V-1 X, new PXG clubs, they're going further and frankly straighter, so golf's kind of fun again right now. But all that being said, I'm putting time in the gym, I'm putting time on the range, and my team's, we have got a good plan, we had a good meeting, and so it's not due just to luck, there's work involved there. But at this point what I like about golf now is I just feel like I got to be patient and make some putts, when it all comes down to just making putts, then golf's fun.

Q. You talk about it being fun, we saw some emotion out of you. A lot more smiles than usual.
ZACH JOHNSON: I was playing with Phil. I mean, he makes you smile.

Q. How do you handle these three courses being just a little bit different, but you've been at this game long enough, what does it take to perform well at three different places?
ZACH JOHNSON: Well certainly a lot of patience. My preparation this week was different than the previous years here. I really pushed it the last couple years, not necessarily see every hole, but see most of the golf courses, all three, in my practice rounds, after red eye from Hawaii, and I was spent and I didn't perform well. I'm not saying that's why I'm playing well but I took it really chill and the golf courses haven't changed, La Quinta's still really pure, right out in front of you, as is the Nicklaus, so I played nine holes on Tuesday and nine on Wednesday at the Stadium because I knew if I played well that's where I would be playing most of my golf, I'm excited about tomorrow and what that course brings, it's probably the most difficult test of the bunch, but you can get it too. So it's a beautiful Pete Dye, I've always been a big Pete Dye fan. Certainly to my eye I like his designs and excited about the opportunity. That's all it is.

Q. You built a little momentum with a nice birdie at 18 and then rip off four in a row to begin your inward nine. Tell us, was there a difference in technique or just gave yourself opportunities?
ZACH JOHNSON: You said it, the latter there, opportunities. I had some on my front, the back side, just didn't capitalize, didn't get it quite close enough. But the pitch in on 1 after I misclubbed from the fairway. I hit the shot, so there you go. But nice pitch in there got me going. And I started hitting fairways, started hitting it close and making some putts. Basically 2-putt birdies for the most part -- that helps on the par-5s -- and a couple putts you don't necessarily make, so it kind of, it just gave me some momentum and I feel good I've been feeling great about my game it's just a matter of execution. That's fun.

Q. You've had 15 birdies in 36 holes, tell me about the 35-footer at the par-3 8th.
ZACH JOHNSON: Well I hit a poor tee shot after Phil hit it to inside the leather. I was probably in between clubs, I didn't know what to hit really there, I just laid off an 8-iron. I probably could have been a lot more aggressive with it. It's one you're trying to 2-putt, clearly. It was just one of those that got on line and fortunately it hit the back of the hole. But for everyone you lip out you get one of those back.

Q. I was curious how you would play this week. I didn't know whether you were building momentum at Sony or whether you would be disappointed coming here because you probably didn't finish it off the way you wanted to?
ZACH JOHNSON: Yeah, maybe a little bit of both. I was not very happy -- actually I was very encouraged with the way I finished because I think I played my last four holes 3-under. And that, that may sound ridiculous to get to 14th place after having a good first couple day, but clearly there was some momentum there and it bled into La Quinta and obviously here at the Nicklaus. So I saw some positives and I haven't been to practice that much leading up to the Sony, I was sick and weather was awful, so it was really just a matter of being patient and kind of sticking to my keys and really simplifying everything and simplifying it here on courses like this when you got three to prepare for, it can certainly help.

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