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THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY NATIONWIDE

May 31, 2018

Grayson Murray

Dublin, Ohio

Q. Some thoughts on your round?
GRAYSON MURRAY: Started off with a birdie which was nice, got things going. Played pretty solid. I hit a lot of greens, gave myself a lot of looks today, had a good game plan coming in here, as far as course management and how to try to attack this course. I saw the pins last night and I knew that there were some that were a little more tucked than usual, because of the soft conditions. Kind of have to protect the course from us going too low, give us soft conditions, we can really take apart any course, even a course with the rough how it is.

So, yeah, I'd liked to have finished a little better there, bogey on the last, but I'm not going to hang my head. I played nicely.

Q. Good vibe? Two years ago you won in Columbus, right?
GRAYSON MURRAY: Um-hum, I did, yeah. For the Nationwide.

Q. Peter is on the line too. He won last year?
GRAYSON MURRAY: Yeah, yeah. So I guess the mojo is in the air this week.

Q. How is your game?
GRAYSON MURRAY: Oh, last couple weeks have been -- I withdrew, didn't feel well in Dallas and probably shouldn't have played Colonial, just because I, kind of the last second decision, but I kind of regret it. But I missed the cut there and went home, didn't touch a club for four days, so I kind of needed a little break there. And it's the time of the year where it can get to be too much sometimes, all these tournaments and the heat wears on you. So that was good. I'm glad I went home for those couple days, instead of staying in Dallas. Just kind of recharged. And obviously I think today I was more fresh out there and didn't use up too much energy. Still have a lot of energy going into tomorrow and hopefully do the same thing tomorrow. A course like this, you've got to be patient and the less juice you use, the better off you are. So I think I did a good job of that today.

Q. How does this heat compare to Texas heat?
GRAYSON MURRAY: Well luckily we played early this morning. It started getting hot the last hole, I think, my caddie told me I heard him say I'm glad we're finishing now. But we're going to get another hot one tomorrow, probably. It's humid out there, thicker air to start the day, so the ball wasn't going as far, but I'm used to it. North Carolina weather is pretty similar to this.

Q. How different do you think it will be for the afternoon group compared to the morning?
GRAYSON MURRAY: If anything, if it doesn't rain, I don't know what the forecast is, it's going to dry up a little bit. So it's still the not going to dry up enough where balls are going to be bouncing on the greens or even in the fairway, for that matter. I don't see, at least today, not firming up that much. So I think it should play similar. I wish we would have played it up today. I think there was some cases where all three of us in the group were getting mud balls, hitting good shots where you're supposed to hit them and it becomes a little more luck involved at that point. Especially how penal the rough is here, you can get away with playing it down on a course where you can miss fairways, but out here you hit it where you're supposed to and I guess that's kind of the rub of the green. But at the same time I think it brings in more luck than skill at that point.

Q. Talking about saving energy. How do you do that?
GRAYSON MURRAY: I do it by mental energy. I'm -- physically I'm fine energy-wise, it just becomes mental for me. If I live and die by every shot or if I get mad out there and hang my head and let bad shots affect the next shot, that's where I kind of can just basically spot the field some strokes. Whereas guys who are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the world, Top-20, whatever, they're just better in general, they're not doing that. They've learned over the years and that's just part of the learning curve for me. Since I won last year, it feels like I may have a little more expectations on myself this year. And I've played nicely this year, but I'm good enough to be in the winner's circle already this year and that's probably due to the fact that I've been doing too much pouting.

Q. But how important is it to do that?
GRAYSON MURRAY: No, it's important. He's very good with me when it comes to keeping positive and trying to save as much energy as I can out there. We talk about it all the time. That's a big key for me. It's never a matter of if I'm hitting it bad or putting it bad, it's all mental for me. And so if you see me near the top, that means I'm probably having a good mental day and hung tough and didn't shift too much emotion.

Q. What's his name?
GRAYSON MURRAY: Josh Gregory. He works with Patrick Reed.

Q. (No Microphone.)
GRAYSON MURRAY: Yeah, I wear it on my sleeve, but I've gotten a lot better over the years, I would be pretty upset on bad shots when I was younger and I've kind of grown out of it. But it's tough, you want to hit such good shots, you want to perform under big stages and sometimes you just don't do it and you get frustrated with yourself, but that's only going to make it worse.

Q. From yesterday, with the pre-rain to rain, I mean what kind of difference are you talking? I know it's softer but was it real fast and real firm and now it's not?
GRAYSON MURRAY: Not this week. I haven't seen it firm at all this week. I got here late Tuesday, so I don't know how it played, the course played Monday or what. But I, from last year it's a lot softer. I know last year there was, some of the holes last year where like, for instance, 16, par-3 it feels downwind. You couldn't hold the green. The wedges are spinning back a lot, so you're having to hit a lot of three quarter shots, which is challenging in itself. But at the same time, you give 150 players or whatever the field is, 120, I don't know, small. 120, smaller field this week. But if you give us soft greens, I don't care how tough the rough it, how tough the pins are, there's always going to be a couple guys that can go low. I'm sure, I don't know what the forecast is but I'm sure, it always seems to come back. The field comes back after the first day, always someone is out and running and then there's always that target winning score that these guys do a good job setting the course up and won't get to that if they don't want it to.

Q. What is it about your game that or what is it about this course that plays to your strengths or weaknesses?
GRAYSON MURRAY: I think it just fits my eye. You can hit a lot of fades off the tee, which is good for me. Pretty generous fairways. And you just got to hit it at -- when you're coming out of the fairway you have a lot of scoring clubs and for me if I can hit fairways, which I did a pretty good job today, scoring clubs are usually my strengths, so I can take advantage of it. And then obviously you get to a couple 20, 30 footers rolling in and there you go, there's your 5-under right there. So that's just the difference between a 5-under and a 2- or 3-under, just making a couple more long putts than normal.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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