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DIAMOND RESORTS TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONSJanuary 18, 2020John SmoltzLake Buena Vista, Florida Q. Talk about your round a little bit. Are you happy with that? JOHN SMOLTZ: Yeah. I like the position I'm in. I've just got to fix my putting. It was not where I wanted it to be. I lost control of the speed of my ball on the green, but I'm striking it well. My body's holding up. All in all, I think I'm in the exact same position I was last year with a four-point lead, trying to hold them off tomorrow. Q. Same approach as a year ago going into the final round? JOHN SMOLTZ: Yeah, there will be a lot of pars that will be the emphasis tomorrow. If someone beats me, they'll have to make a lot of birdies. That's the way I approached it last year, and it held up. So I'll do the same this year. Q. Do you feel the fire on your back, breathing down your neck? JOHN SMOLTZ: Yeah, there's some firepower that's behind me, so I definitely know I'll have to shoot the same kind of score tomorrow that I shot today to win the tournament. Q. Do you have an advantage this year because you were in this situation last year? JOHN SMOLTZ: I think so. I understand that being in the last group and not playing with any other celebrity, I'm going to have to concentrate on just doing what I can do. I'll peek at a score or two every once in a while just to see where they are and try to follow them from afar, but I've got to take advantage better of the position I put myself in. I had a lot of birdie putts, and I didn't make too many of them. Q. There are other ways to score other than with the putter, and you obviously were able to do that today off the tee and with your second shot. JOHN SMOLTZ: Yeah, I've been working on some things to try to correct my driver, and that's been good. The irons are getting better. I putted so good the first two days, and it got to me a little bit today. Q. Has it helped that you know how difficult it is to go back to back? JOHN SMOLTZ: Yeah, it's going to be fun. I came in here with the goal to try to put myself in position to defend, and I've got a good opportunity. Hopefully, I can make the most of it. Q. Talk about the conditions, a windy golf course. What's it like to post this score the last couple of days? JOHN SMOLTZ: The last two days have been a mental grind. Like every golfer, you give away some, but then you grind out some pars. Par is huge in our format. I'm disappointed in 16 and 17 that I didn't make birdie, but that's only one more point, and I've got to remember you stay in the game with pars and you run into birdies. Lost my putter today as far as speed control, but all in all, to be in this situation -- last year, same thing, I had a four-point lead. I will not be staring at a lot of pins tomorrow. I'll be making the guys behind me make a lot of birdies. Like I said, par is going to be king. Q. What's it like for you seeing some familiar names on the leaderboard? Mardy Fish, Mark Mulder. It's always about you guys, it seems. JOHN SMOLTZ: Those guys have so much length. Mardy -- my goal today, I told him, I always want him to hit first because I don't want to see his driver. His driver is 40 yards by mine. He got one bad break, but this tournament is about taking advantage of the holes, and I haven't -- I think I got two birdies in the whole tournament on par 5s, and that's just got to be better, but I will be trying to make a lot of pars. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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