THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 14, 2021

Tyler McCumber

TPC Sawgrass

Quick Quotes

Q. Tyler, on balance, first PLAYERS, you make the cut, you have an under-par weekend both days, so you're really on the first page of the leaderboard, but was it a very good week in a lot of ways?

TYLER MCCUMBER: Yeah, yeah, I'm happy with the week. Obviously we always want to win, but drawing back and looking at the positives, I really liked the way my game is trending. I've been working really hard on it. It was great to see this course in these conditions. I thought it was a great test. The last few weeks have been -- played rather difficult, I thought Riv to Bay Hill to here, challenging and pretty fun and demanding. It's good to see where my game is at. It's definitely going in the right direction, and looking forward to the next event.

Q. Yesterday and today you went crazy for a couple of streaks there, a lot of birdies in a row. Is that something you've been prone to? You get hot for quite a few holes in a row?

TYLER MCCUMBER: Yeah, I have. I've kind of been doing that, yeah, since I've always played. A little bit of a trend of mine. It was really close today. I hit it pretty close to the hole, and I was putting well. I just didn't read the putts right on the front nine, and then the back nine started to make a couple and got some momentum there.

Overall it was really close to being low yesterday and today.

Q. There's a lot of crazy shots out there happening today and a lot of high numbers on different holes and everything. If you make a little bit of a mistake out there on a lot of these holes, can there be some disasters?

TYLER MCCUMBER: Yeah, there can. I think having plays here growing up, I know a lot of sort of the little Dye pitfalls where you can get hosed. And obviously a couple of them are just the angles. They look like they're forgiving but they're really not. Like 16 is a good one where that pin is over there and it looks so attackable, but really the way you attack it is by landing it in that like two-thirds part of the green, and that line is pretty conservative looking, but that's the aggressive line.

I know I've put it in the water numerous times there playing here, and I kind of know to go at that palm and hit your little fade and if it fades, it runs down there to a couple feet.

Q. What's the biggest difference between this golf course this week and any other time of the year that anybody plays it?

TYLER MCCUMBER: Well, from what I've heard, it depends year to year, whether it's playing firm or fast. But this year -- I haven't seen the greens this good, rolling this fast. So it was exciting to see some of the new knobs, the new crowns within -- not new, but the existing crowns that are in the greens that you don't see day in and day out here from pitching the ball to subtle pin locations like 9. Normally you kind of just fly it up there and you can kind of hit a pitch from anywhere on the green, but today it was really tricky, three feet further, three feet behind and you can have a shot or not have a shot, and it was neat to see the course play like that.

Q. Just overall experience this week at your first PLAYERS, your hometown event?

TYLER MCCUMBER: It was great to have my family out there. It was so exciting to have my buddies and just old teammates, old classmates. Pretty much everybody that lives here came out and supported me. I appreciate that. We're always on the road and in new towns, and it's a different feeling to play in front of a home crowd, and it was amazing.

Q. St. Johns Country Day School?

TYLER MCCUMBER: No, I went to Nease, Nease High School.

Q. Your brother went there?

TYLER MCCUMBER: A couple of my cousins went there, yeah.