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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 13, 2019

Aaron Wise

Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida

Q. Just talk about being your first PLAYERS Championship, how exciting is it to be here at TPC Sawgrass.
AARON WISE: Yeah, it's exciting. It's got a different feel to it to a lot of normal events. You can just tell there's excitement from the players, the course is in awesome shape, we're getting great weather, and it's going to turn out to be a great week.

Q. Your first impressions of the course?
AARON WISE: Yeah, it's different to what I've watched on TV the past few years. I think moving it up to the earlier date, it plays a little softer. It plays a little longer. It's been fun to play. You know, it's challenging. There's very small targets you can hit. But I think with it being a little softer, we can play a little more aggressive and hopefully make a few more birdies than when I watched on TV. It looked like it was playing really tough.

Q. A lot of people talk about 16, 17 and 18. Walk you through those three holes for you. What will you be thinking about standing on 16 tee on Thursday or even Sunday?
AARON WISE: Yeah, so I feel like you kind of separate them. 16 to me is a scorable hole. You're looking to make birdie, maybe give yourself an eagle chance. But then it kind of ends there. You get to 17 and 18, they're very difficult. If you can make two pars all week, you would take it. It's just one of those things. It makes you want to win the golf tournament because you've got to hit a lot of quality shots on those holes. If you don't, you get really penalized for it.

I think what makes them so great is that no one can ever be comfortable. No matter what shot lead or how far behind you are, you always feel like you have a chance just because of the unknown on those couple holes and the big number kind of lurking. I think it makes for a great finish. It makes for an exciting tournament, and it will be a fun week here.

Q. Talk about some of your early memories watching THE PLAYERS on TV. What comes to mind?
AARON WISE: Yeah, you know, there's a lot from when Tiger played here and played so well and made so many clutch shots all the way to like Rickie when he stuffed it there on 17 to the right pin going at it and just how aggressively some of those guys played to win, even though the miss was going to be so big.

I feel like it really just separates people who are going to play conservative and people who are going to play to kind of win the golf tournament. As hard as those holes are and as hard as the trouble is, I feel like people who have played aggressive and played to win have kind of walked away with the trophy after the tournament.

Q. How is the game feeling coming into a game like this?
AARON WISE: Yeah, game is feeling great. I didn't have quite the fast start to the year that I wanted, but I feel like I've built up a lot of pieces and I feel like it's coming together. Got kind of my keys back. I was struggling with my putting earlier in the year, put a premium on that the last couple weeks, putted really, really well last week, and just feel like as long as I can hit it in the fairway, give myself some chances, I think I can score around here and hopefully be in a good spot heading into the weekend.

Q. You talked earlier about coming into the weekend having a different feel. Does it in any way change the way you prepare for the event or have you kept everything the same?
AARON WISE: You know, mostly the same. It's nice that we don't have a pro-am here on the Wednesday, so we can actually spread it out more. Normally I probably wouldn't even play golf until Wednesday just because Wednesday is such a long day and then you have the tournament starting right after. But been able to play a little bit, played nine yesterday, I'll play nine again today, so maybe just a little bit different, but has nothing to do with the bigness of the tournament, just has to do with little scheduling stuff. But excited. You know, I feel like I have my prep down. I feel like I'm going to have a good day today and then start the tournament, and I'm excited for that.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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