HONDA CLASSIC

March 19, 2021

Rickie Fowler

PGA National Resort

Quick Quotes

Q. Two-parter, what are you happiest about the last two days and what are you not so happy about the last two days?

RICKIE FOWLER: I'm happy with how I stayed in it. Yesterday foot slipped on 6 off the tee and obviously a lot of times that causes you to pull it. So ended up in the hazard, made double.

Chipped in on the next for birdie and kind of kept things going, saved, kind of moving forward.

Same thing today. Bogeyed my 1st.

So I think a lot of it was just staying patient, I know I'm getting close, starting to hit a lot more fairways, more greens, the other thing was on the greens I made some good putts coming in yesterday, haven't been seeing them well so I've been calling Joe in a little bit more than normal and we're trying to get that going, but made a couple birdies to finish off the day today, so happy about it, but I know there's, it can be a lot better.

Q. Was the course different today? Was it easier today than yesterday?

RICKIE FOWLER: I would say condition-wise for the golf course it's very similar today as it was to yesterday, just more wind yesterday. As far as the afternoon, I know it started to pick up about 11 o'clock yesterday morning, so the morning wave, it played a little easier, but it's still a tough golf course, so with what Matt did yesterday in the morning, nothing short of impressive. There was less wind in the morning, it started to pick up, today it was a little bit more consistent, about 10 miles an hour throughout the day. But this golf course is still demanding if there's no wind.

Q. What are you learning through this process now and like you just said starting to come back, what have you learned through it all that you can apply to the future if it happens again?

RICKIE FOWLER: I think part of it has just been the patience part and sticking it out and kind of keeping grinding, keep working, keep kicking down the door and it's going to fall down at some point here. I know we're getting close and the last two days were good, this is a golf course that tests all parts of the game, so I'm happy with 70, 68 is not terrible around this place. Like I said, I know it could have been better, but we got a tee time tomorrow and see if we can go put some good numbers up this weekend and give ourselves a chance.

Q. People are always trying to look at reasons for things. When you hear the outside noise of something like what they call those things, how do you take that in, how do you react to that and does it ever motivate you or is it just I'll do my thing?

RICKIE FOWLER: No, I know where Nick was trying to come from on that and it's like competitor to competitor, you're trying to needle each other and get each other going type of thing. I am fortunate to have some great partners and make some great commercials and it's been fun to be able to do that. I would much rather be playing the week of the Masters than working. But it's all part of it. I'm going to keep kicking down the door, if we're able to do something special in the next few weeks before Augusta, we'll be there. If not, we'll keep grinding and we'll be back in the winner's circle soon.

Q. Living in this area now there's more and more TOUR players. As people keep coming in here, how cool is that and how does that help everybody's game when there's so many of you in the same area?

RICKIE FOWLER: Yeah, I've been in South Florida for a little over 11 years now and I loved it, it's definitely continued to grow as far as the amount of guys that play the TOUR, not just the PGA TOUR, but from the Korn Ferry on down, a lot of mini-tour players live out here as well. There's always guys to play with, there's always good games, and that's something I've always enjoyed from my junior golf through high school golf to college golf, being around guys that I can compete against and help push each other to be better. So yeah, I enjoy it, there's some guys that like to be away from their competitors or guys they play against when they're off and at home, but the guys that choose to be around this area, it's a good option to be able to go out and tee it up with someone I play with a lot, JT, Cantlay, and on down the list, we enjoy it and have some fun.