ZURICH CLASSIC OF NEW ORLEANS

April 23, 2021

Jon Rahm

Ryan Palmer

TPC Louisiana

Quick Quotes

Q. How tough is the alternate-shot format for you guys?

JON RAHM: I think it's difficult for anybody, right. You know, it's tough to get into a rhythm sometimes because you hit a shot every so often and sometimes the way things work out, one player ends up putting more than the other, so there could be a couple holes where you really don't hit a putt and then all of a sudden you have six feet to maybe save a par, so it's things that happen.

You've just got to have a lot of trust in each other, which we do. We didn't play our best golf by any means and still shot under par, which it's a good score. We're only three back against the two guys that we played against, and they played really, really, really solid golf. Rosey played good and Stenson was pretty amazing to watch today.

It's a boost of confidence knowing that without our best stuff we're not too far away.

Q. Ryan, you've won this tournament as a team tournament, you've won stroke play tournaments. How tough is the challenge to come back and defend?

RYAN PALMER: It is because you come back to a place from the fun we had in '19 and thinking about the good times you had and how bad you want to have them again. So you put that little extra pressure on yourself to want to play well, but then again, it's been two years now. But we have a lot of friends and family here in the area, so it's fun to be defending, but also it's hard to do it two times in a row.

But like Jon said, we haven't played that much great golf this week so far, and here we are three shots back. We go out tomorrow and take care of some business and put ourselves right up there for the Sunday alternate-shot, and we're going to have a good chance.

Q. Jon, how about that hole-out at No. 6 there after Ryan left you in a bunker? That was pretty special.

JON RAHM: Yeah, I think that's the little spark we needed. We hit good shots coming in, but that was a little bit of what we needed. I kept telling Ryan, I've hit so many good putts today, and so did he, but I hit a lot that I thought went in and nothing was going on. I told him, man, I'm due for something to happen. If that ball just trickles in the bunker with a normal lie, it's not the hardest shot in the world, but it just bounced out and then plugged, and that's what made it so difficult.

Well, it's one of those amazing things in golf where expectations kind of lower, like let's see if I can give my partner a chance to make a par, and hit the shot perfect, and I mean, it dropped in exactly the way I visualized it in my mind, even though I didn't have that many holes that was going to go in.