THE AMERICAN EXPRESS

January 22, 2021

Nick Taylor

La Quinta Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. You played very well last week at Sony, a continuation of kind of what you did well last week?

NICK TAYLOR: Yeah, I drove it really nice the last two days. I hit my irons really well today. I had quite a few chances, especially on the front nine. I don't know if it's the newer surfaces, just tricky reads, a lot of really straight putts subtle breaks that I was misreading a few, but it was nice to make a couple longer putts coming in on 15 and 17 and just played the par-5s really well too so solid day.

Q. No bogeys today. Going back to kind of the putting aspect of it, you have heavy Bermuda the last couple weeks and this week it's a lot different. How do you make these adjustments going from week-to-week when you have those grainy greens and over here it's not much of anything?

NICK TAYLOR: You got Monday through Wednesday to kind of adjust. I think using the grain the last couple weeks it's easy to help with reading breaks and with speed. Here again with so much subtleties, you use the Salton Sea, you try to take it off the mountain, there are a lot of elements here that -- there are so many subtle breaks that it's tough to get it right. So it was nice to make a couple putts coming in, but hopefully work on that the next couple days.

Q. You're defending up at Pebble Beach, how excited are you?

NICK TAYLOR: Yeah, it's going to be a little different obviously with no ams and only Spyglass and Pebble, but I'm looking forward to it. I think any time you can play three rounds at Pebble that's a great week.

So I'm looking forward to it, my games feels really good right now so hopefully it keeps peaking.

Q. 66 out there today, how good does that round on the Stadium Course feel?

NICK TAYLOR: It is, it feels good. Obviously it was a lot of intimidating tee shots, iron shots into greens. I feel like I missed in the right places. I drove it really nice on the par-5s and gave myself pretty easy looks on a few of them. So that's kind of where you got to take advantage and try to place it off the tee on other holes.

So I made a couple nice putts coming in on 15 and 17 which really made the round great and so that was nice.

Q. What did you find over the Christmas break over December that got you started into this side of the calendar year?

NICK TAYLOR: Yeah, I didn't do a whole lot. I was back in Canada, not a whole lot to do. I think rest was nice. I felt like leaving in the fall I kind of found something at Augusta. I didn't play -- I missed the cut at RSM, but felt like we were working on the right track, so I feel like what I'm working on with my coach, everything is coming together.

The short game has been nice, which is nice coming off a break, that's usually what you think is going to be a little rusty. So that's been really sharp the last few weeks, I think that's why my scores have been so well, just scoring nicely.

Q. This year it's a little different not having the third course to play on, you're going to be playing two more on the Stadium and coming off of today's round how encouraging is that looking forward towards the weekend?

NICK TAYLOR: Yeah, it's nice having a good round at the host course. Everyone's going to be here for two days which that was a factor the last handful of years I played here where, if I was playing La Quinta tomorrow, obviously scores would be low.

So it's nice we're all at the same spot, this course can be playing really difficult if there's no wind and it's scorable, but anything in the 60s is usually a pretty good round out here.

Q. What's something you want to work on to get better for tomorrow?

NICK TAYLOR: Tee to green was great. I might hit a few putts just to make sure I'm hitting my lines and starting it there. A few misreads from kind of that six-to-eight foot range today, but overall everything was great so I'm not going to be working on a whole lot.