THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY NATIONWIDE

July 16, 2020

Brendan Steele

Muirfield Village

Quick Quotes

Q. Brendan, let's start with the conditions out there today. How difficult were they and how good is that round that you shot?

BRENDAN STEELE: Yeah, they're very difficult right now. The course is much firmer and faster. That goes for the fairways, the greens. The greens are firm and fast, much more the speed that we're used to playing when we get here, and then obviously the wind is whipping today. That combination makes for pretty tough scoring and a big difference from last week.

Q. What was working so well for you out there to shoot 4-under in these difficult conditions?

BRENDAN STEELE: Yeah, I hit a lot of good shots, but when I got into trouble I was able to make some really good saves. Got lucky on 9; hit kind of a bad tee shot and it kicked back out in the fairway, had 5-iron in, which can be really dicy there. Made a good par there. Hit it in the rough on 10 and was able to get it up-and-down from the fairway after chipping out, and then holing a wedge on 11 obviously helped. Just a little tighter scoring than I've had the last week.

Q. Are those saves, especially in these conditions, kind of big to keep your round going?

BRENDAN STEELE: Yeah, you know you're going to have to do quite a bit of that. Even when you hit good shots, you're struggling to make pars with how quick the greens are, how firm they are, and it's tough to even hold the fairways right now. You've got a lot of crosswinds out there, especially on the back nine, so that makes for a really tough challenge.

Q. Even for Mr. Nicklaus and the incredible grounds crew that is here, are you still impressed how much firmer and faster this place is than it was just a couple days ago?

BRENDAN STEELE: Yeah, for sure. It was a big adjustment last week. I don't think I ever quite got there, but I was hoping that I didn't get there today, that I wasn't still feeling like it was going to be soft and a lot slower than we're used to today. I was able to adjust. This is more what I'm used to here. You had to kind of flush all your memory of last week if you wanted to do well, and then this week you've got to bring it all back.

I was able to do that, and it's much more what we're used to, but very difficult.

Q. You've kind of had a mixed bag since you came back from the break. Do you feel the missed cut and the T52 are more where you are, or the T6 at Travelers, where your game kind of is?

BRENDAN STEELE: Yeah, so definitely the T6 at Travelers. I played well at Colonial even though my scores weren't good. My game was nice. That's a course that I never have had any success at and normally I skip it, but this year you've got to go play. Went to play there, played well at Travelers. I think I was in fifth place on Saturday on the back nine there last week and then just wasn't able to finish it off. I think that's more indicative of where my game is and today, so I'm excited about things moving forward.