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CAREERBUILDER CHALLENGE

January 20, 2018

Jon Rahm

La Quinta, California

Q. A round of 70 today with six birdies and four bogeys. How do you reflect on it?
JON RAHM: To be honest, by looking at it, three of the bogeys were on par-3s, which none of them was in a water hazard, which shows maybe poor club, poor shot, poor approach shot, some was just bad luck. But other than that I played good golf, a little bit of a survival day, you always get those in a tournament. I still had a couple good shots there, I'm just hoping, looking forward to tomorrow that I continue to play the same way I did the first two days, especially on this course, it's a lot more demanding.

Q. Talk about some of those good shots. You started with three pars, a bogey at 4 and a birdie at 5 and then came to the par-3 6th. Talk us through this one.
JON RAHM: Yeah, it was 194 meters, just left-to-right wind, it was right, straight 5-iron, left of the pin and I couldn't hit it any better, it went exactly where I was aiming, five feet left and it landed really soft and ended up with a really straight putt downhill, 10 feet. It won't get much easier than that on that hole, that's for sure.

Q. Great shot into the par-5 5th hole, even better one here at 8. This one looked like it might go in.
JON RAHM: I didn't know. I had 193 meters, downwind, ball above my feet and Adam is like, you know, you might as well just draw a 7-iron in there, you're not going to hit the green either way, just hope for the best. And I hit a really high, like I hit a really high draw 7-iron and too bad I couldn't convert it.

Q. Your birdie putt here at 16. The 12 par-5s so far you birdied 11 and eagled 1. What's been the reason for that success?
JON RAHM: No idea. I can't tell you. Again I think the main reason has been the outstanding drivers off the tee. That is the only one there that I missed the fairway there. I had to make a long putt there. But a lot of good drives off the tee.

Q. Stadium Course tomorrow, you have a little ground to make up, how are you going to approach it?
JON RAHM: It's only two shots. I mean out here going ahead of the leaders you make a couple birdies early you can make it up really quickly. The first few holes can be a little tricky, I mean I struggled in the first four and they're not the hardest ones on the course. So it all depends on the weather conditions, the course is firming up, I know if we have similar wind to today, if we shoot something under par you'll be way up there contesting it over the last few holes. So I'm not going to have a 10-under, but hopefully I can keep charging on the back nine.

Q. Bit of a slow start then you got things going and then a tough finish. What was the issue out there today for you?
JON RAHM: I think that I was just a little off with everything. At the beginning it was the tee shots. I couldn't find the tee shots and as soon as I hit a couple good ones I went on a three birdie run in four holes. But again I believe it was finding the fairway. Towards the end I did not find the fairway, I was in the rough, it's a little deeper and thicker and the greens are firmer and it's not an easy golf course when you're not in the fairway. Hopefully just keep it in position tomorrow and see what happens.

Q. How big a factor was the wind out there today?
JON RAHM: Huge. Again, this is by far the hardest course of the three, the narrowest one, the one where you need to be more precise and when you get a lot of wind it's going to be a lot harder. I was joking with Bubba that I wish we would have teed off here the first day and had the Nicklaus, the widest course of all to play today. But anyway I'm still two shots back and hopefully I can just hit it the same way I did off the tee the first two days.

Q. You're in great position heading into Sunday. I got to tell you, the up-and-down at 3 and when, after you hit that shot you had a huge smile and that may have been one of the best I've ever seen. Describe how difficult that was.
JON RAHM: I think I told my caddie, I told Adam, I was like, this is going to be, starting right now, for sure, up-and-down of the year. I was 20 yards left of the green, everything's downhill, I had about 12 feet of green, downhill, I'm in the Bermuda rough on a severe down slope. Luckily I had a good lie, which made it a lot easier and I just opened up the face and put my hands back, hoped to get a little spin and swing hard and it came out nearly perfect. I mean, it landed perfectly just in front of the green where there's a little bit of an up slope, it spun and trickled to two feet. I believe it doesn't do it justice me explaining it right now, you need to see it or go to the spot, because I was thinking anything inside 10 feet is going to be an amazing shot, anything on the green is going to be a good one. I couldn't believe I had a tap-in for par.

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