THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 11, 2021

Patrick Reed

TPC Sawgrass

Quick Quotes

Q. How would you assess your round?

PATRICK REED: It was okay. Obviously off to a good start. Birdie on 1. Hit a good wedge shot. But 7 out of 10 with driver, 1 out of 4 hitting fairways with something less than driver. When you're hitting something less than driver, you got to hit it in the fairway, especially on those holes. And so with that being said just go out and kind of fine tune a couple things in the swing and kind of lock it in and when you play from the fairways you can attack, but the par-5s I played horribly. Crazy thing is the two that I made a mess of I played from the fairway. Stuff like that that just need to tighten up. When you're in the fairway especially on some of these par-5s you have to take advantage of them. And I was having to scramble it seemed like after putting the ball in the fairway on those two holes.

So going to go back, see where the pins are going to be tomorrow and assess kind of my game plan, go out and attack it.

Q. I know this isn't the first week with fans but does it feel different because of this being the anniversary and there's a couple more probably?

PATRICK REED: Oh, no, it definitely does. It's awesome to have them back. I know we're not at full strength yet with fans, but just to have them back, have the cheers going, have people out there, it's nice, because whether you hit a good shot or whether you hit a poor shot they're either picking up or they're there cheering you on. It's always nice to go out there and hit a good golf shot and give the fans something really to watch and something to cheer about.

Q. With Every Shot Live thing, it's kind of like The Open Championship, where you could watch in the morning and then go out and play in the afternoon. Did you find yourself doing that at all or just kind of mind your own game?

PATRICK REED: I normally, when I have an afternoon round, I normally watch the feature groups in the morning just to kind of see how it's playing, but also just kind of get in the mindset of going out and playing golf. For me I've always been a leaderboard watcher since I was little. So with that being said, rather than sitting there and always hitting refresh on the leaderboard I might as well watch some golf shots being hit. Especially at a place like this that you know how fast the greens can change on firmness. That being said, I watched it this morning to try and see how much skip was in there, especially on some of the par-5s, especially I mean when you get to 11 where that pin was on 11 it's like, okay, how do I want to attack this hole, because long there is no good. Lucky enough to be able to get up-and-down from the long bunker, but at the same time those are the ones you kind of watch to maybe hopefully save yourself a half a shot here or there.

Q. Did you notice anything about 17?

PATRICK REED: I didn't. By that point I was already kind of like in warmups and stuff. Kind of whether it was doing stuff at the house I was staying at or whether I was on our way here to the golf course. But I knew playing it the two times I did earlier, how firm it was kind of getting throughout the day and when I was walking down 16 kind of looking over and watched the group of in front of us hit a couple iron shots and you saw how big the bounce was. It was perfect for me, a stock gap wedge, so I knew it was going to either land into the ridge or on top, and hitting it full it was going to have enough spin to stay on the green, it wasn't going to go long.