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ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL PRESENTED BY MASTERCARD

March 9, 2019

Chris Kirk

Orlando, Florida

Q. Obviously a good round -- disappointing way to finish -- but there's got to be some highlights in there for you.
CHRIS KIRK: Absolutely. I've definitely struggled this year and so to play a round like today. I felt like some good golf was coming, I've definitely seen some really positive signs the last few weeks, I didn't think it was going to come all at once like it did today. But, yeah, it was awesome to feel like I was swinging the club that good and feeling a little bit of nerves there on the back nine, still hitting really good shots and rolling the ball really good. Obviously, 18 was disappointing, I got a little bit too aggressive, I was really trying to stuff it in there close and make one more birdie. That was a hundred percent my mentality. I was trying to hit it right at it and I did. I just caught it, I just the tiniest bit off the, off about a groove thin, I guess, and didn't carry. But other than a little bit of confusion there of -- obviously I wasn't trying to drop it up there if it didn't cross, but there, I was sitting there looking at my ball and it was about six inches away from the line and it didn't hit a rock. And they were, the people over the radio were saying, TV people were saying that it wasn't even close. So I was just like, I mean, I'm not saying it crossed the line, but it certainly had to have been close. It didn't make any sense. So that's why I was trying to get some clarification there.

Q. Sure. Can you just talk to us through 16 and your thinking on that hole, on TV they were saying your decision to lay up there rather than go for it?
CHRIS KIRK: Yeah, I just hated the lie. I had about 205 front and was, it was sitting, it was the worst lie I've, you couldn't possibly get that bad of a lie in the first cut out here because the first cuts are perfect and so I don't know how the ball sat down like that. And I, I was kind of thinking that if anything it was going to come out soft and so trying to decide do I need to hit a 4-iron or do I need to hit a 5-wood. And finally I just was, I felt like I was so clueless as to what the ball was going to do, I would just try to hit it down there and give me a wedge. And then trying to lay up to 90, a hundred yards and had a huge flier out of it and almost laid up in the water, it went so far down there, and gave me kind of an awkward number. So who knows, if I had gone with my instinct and gone for it, that it was going to come out slow, I would have hit 5-wood and I probably would have hit it in somebody's house over the green because it came out so hot. Yeah, I just was too unsure what the ball was going to do out of that lie.

Q. I think Rory said recently that when you're playing well you feel like you don't know how you ever played poorly and the opposite is when you're playing bad you feel like you never played well. Have you almost experienced those emotions over the last few weeks as you started this year?
CHRIS KIRK: Yeah, I mean the last few months there's been a lot of times where you kind of get the feeling like you just are not good at this anymore and it's hard. But I've definitely been putting in the work and have awesome support from my family and so it's, yeah, I mean, obviously, one round is great, but I feel like I'm, hopefully, going to be able to turn this into a bunch of days like today.

Q. Can you also talk about the eagle.
CHRIS KIRK: Sure. Yeah, that was a little bit of a mistake that I got away with. I'm trying to remember the number, I think I had 215 or so front and the pin was on 40 or something like that 250 today. And I hit an -- I had a 5-wood, it was into the wind so I was trying to hit a 5-wood just 20, 25 feet right of the hole and hit it up in the air and let the wind keep it short of that back right bunker and leave myself kind of a 40-footer for eagle. And I just over -- I hit a draw on pretty much everything, but I over drew that one just a hair. But I hit it good and it kind of fought through the wind a little bit more and thankfully that front number wasn't a huge carry, but as you go further left, it is. So it was still coming down right of the hole and just fed back there perfectly.

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