PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

August 6, 2020

Scottie Scheffler

Harding Park Golf Club

Flash Quotes

JOHN DEVER: Welcome back to the 2020 PGA Championship here at TPC Harding Park. Pleased to be joined by Scottie Scheffler.

Scottie, you just opened with a really, really solid 4-under 66, went off the back and started with three birdies in the first four holes. Maybe tell us a little bit about your start and where it went from there.

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, it was a solid start. Put myself in a good position on 10, had a nice up-and-down there, and then 11, hit a great shot in there probably 20 feet, something like that, made the putt. I was like, great. Wasn't really expecting to birdie No. 11.

And then 13 is another difficult hole that -- hit an iron shot in there really close and made another birdie. So it was definitely a great start to get off to.

Q. Did you kind of find some things the last couple weeks? Seemed like the restart was going slow and then the last couple weeks you kind of turned on a little bit.

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, for sure. I definitely got off to a slow start when golf started back up, but just a little competitive rust. Just wasn't swinging my best.

But kind of found a rhythm the path couple weeks. Started driving it better at Memorial and then hit it better last couple weeks, putter was a little bit cold, and felt like things are starting to heat up at the right time.

Q. There's been a lot of talk about you and Jordan both being from Texas, and you're a few years younger than him. How do you look at yourself now with Jordan? Obviously when you were younger you might have looked up to him. Do you still look up to him? You're near the top of the leaderboard of a PGA.

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, I mean, Jordan has been a great role model and a good guy to bounce some information off of, but he does his own thing out here, and so do I. I see him around a decent amount and we'll play a practice round. But he's really focused on what he's doing and so am I.

Definitely as peers, we're all peers out here, so there's no reason to look at anyone any differently, but definitely when I was coming up through high school and college, he was a good guy to bounce information off of and learn from. I mean, he's obviously had a great career.

Q. Were you a little surprised by the conditions? It's been so harsh out here the last few days. You guys are going early. Were you expecting a lot worse than what you got?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, I mean, I expected it to be really cold when we started. The sun had barely come up. It was pretty cold but luckily there was no wind. You don't really know what to expect out of the weather here because the first day I was coming over from my hotel and it was sunny and I get a text from my trainer, he's like, "Hey, you still coming out? I can't see 10 feet in front of me."

And I was like, "We're halfway there, I've got to do something." So you don't really know what to expect out of the conditions.

Q. You really took advantage of the fresh greens.

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, the greens are awesome out here and definitely going out early in the morning, they were really good. No one has been on them. Took advantage of it.

JOHN DEVER: I think this is your first PGA Championship. What did you see out there in the layout, and is there anything that really you must have taken with rather quickly there the way Kerry Haigh has the golf course?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I like the look of this golf course. I think it's really cool with the cypress trees and the thick rough. The holes are shaped really nicely off the tee. I think it's a really cool place. The greens are really good.

Don't really know what to expect in California. A lot of times it's poa annua and sometimes those can get a little bumpy, but the bent greens here are rolling really nice, especially early in the morning. I think the layout is awesome. I didn't really know what to expect as far as course setup because there's some PGAs that are really challenging like last year at Bethpage and then other ones go pretty low, so I didn't know what to expect as far as pin positions and whatnot, but adjusted to it fairly quickly and got rolling.