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ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL PRESENTED BY MASTERCARD

March 15, 2018

Justin Rose

Orlando, Florida

Q. What did you tell yourself walking to the 16th tee after that start?
JUSTIN ROSE: I had an overriding feeling that -- I obviously knew it wasn't a great start -- but I also knew that it wasn't necessarily the end of the world and I told myself that if -- I told myself, okay, basically four down to the golf course, I scratched a line on my scorecard and I said, all right, we start something new now, you're four down to the golf course and if you can get to all square by the end of the day I think that that will be a decent start to the tournament. It's cold out here this morning, it's obviously much nicer now, but man it was cold out there and the course felt difficult. So I knew that even par wouldn't be a bad start and it was nice to clip that by a few in the end. So we had a really fun day out there. Patrick Reed had a similar day, but in a better way. He had it to 3-under, dropped back to even and obviously got it to 4-under. So he had a good comeback himself. And Bubba played solid. So it was a nice three-ball to be a part of.

Q. Since last week you wore the sunglasses because of the allergy. How was it today without?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, when it's windy I feel like I need the glasses because my eyes water and obviously last week with the allergies. And I putted really well last week. I know that we talked a lot about putting in sunglasses, whether it's good or bad, but last week I had one of my best putting -- well I think maybe my best putting event since 2011 someone told me. So that was good, it was nice. But I chose not to wear them today because I didn't feel like I needed them as much with the allergies here, because there's been less wind.

Q. What's the key to shaking off a tough start and pulling it back?
JUSTIN ROSE: A choice. You have a choice, basically. You tell yourself a different story. Yeah, I could have been frustrated, obviously after five holes, and thinking about Friday and the cut and what if and what might be and this and that and the other, but I said, I chose to tell myself a different story, I wasn't out of this golf tournament. So I kind of had a bit of a, I guess it's a bit of a deep-rooted confidence that come Sunday things will even themselves out and, yeah, this is the kind of golf course, it's hard to play without one mishap. There's a lot of water out there, there's a lot of mistakes to be made, but that's what makes it a good ball-striker's golf course, which is why I've done well here typically. So I just got to keep trusting myself and keep playing the holes.

Q. It seems like an extension of last week with you, Patrick, Tiger all right there at the top. Is it just this time of year where you guys get on a roll, getting ready for Augusta.
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I think that's what we're all trying to do is definitely get some looks at the lead and get comfortable on the leaderboard and just get some good kind of feedback on our game and make refinements and tweaks going into the next week. But for me I took a bit of time off, a month or so ago, and there is my third week in a row and it was important for me to play a few in a row just to get some momentum going. So, yeah, it is nice to pick up this week ultimately where I left off last week.

Q. How did the atmosphere today compare to Sunday?
JUSTIN ROSE: Different, obviously playing the group in front of Tiger I expected there to be a lot more distractions today. It wasn't that bad at all. I hardly noticed it, to be honest with you. But I think maybe Bay Hill is just a bit of a bigger property maybe than Innisbrook. It's a bit more confined there. So, yeah, just felt like -- and I think our group maybe got about 10 minutes ahead of them -- so I felt like we didn't really feel as much of the crowd rushing up on us as I was expecting.

Q. You put a new shaft in your driver before China. Can you have maybe any thought about that?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I use the TPT shaft all of last year but when I changed to the M3 I just, for some reason it just didn't test as well as what I'm using now and I haven't driven it that well yet this year, so I actually used a new shaft today, a Diamana, so it seemed to work a bit better, seemed to be a bit more stable. I went back to 45 and a half inches, I was using 46 because the TPT was so light, but I'm back to my own spec and I feel like hitting a few less loose drives.

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