PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 20, 2021

Tyrrell Hatton

The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon. We are joined by Tyrrell Hatton, who opened with a 1-under 71 today. Well played. Start off the back side, played well, then you hit the gauntlet there in the back side. How was your play? What did you see in the wind there today?

TYRRELL HATTON: Yeah, obviously, to start with, I would say I'm really happy with shooting under par today. It was pretty tough out there, certainly with the holes that we played into the wind. Starting on 10, we had sort of 14 through to the 4th kind of just straight into the wind. So it's a tough stretch, but considering how bad my warmup was today, I'm even happier that I managed to shoot under par.

Q. What went wrong with your warmup?

TYRRELL HATTON: I think I forgot how to swing a golf club. Yeah, I was pretty miserable. The dummy was out on the driving range. I wasn't a happy boy walking to the 1st tee -- or 10th tee. Yeah, kind of I didn't feel very comfortable with the first few holes. I think I was quite fortunate that they were downwind.

My caddie Mick mentioned -- said something to me after a terrible shot into the 13th hole. It kind of sort of helped me with a swing thought in a way, and, yeah, from that point, I played really nice.

Q. What did he say?

TYRRELL HATTON: He just said that I look like I'm kind of coming up and out of it, that I wasn't really keeping my head down. It's almost like I'm looking for the shot before I've hit it. It was a case of I just had a couple of practice swings before hitting the shot and just almost tried to get that feeling of keeping my head down, as daft as it sounds. Obviously, it worked pretty well in the end today.

Q. Talk about the birdie on 18. That's a tough hole. How you made that magic happen.

TYRRELL HATTON: Yeah, I was quite happy they moved the tee forward there, after the practice round I had on Tuesday when I hit driver 3-wood short of the green. Was quite relieved to see they moved it forward. Today I hit driver, 4-iron to about three or four feet. So that's a bonus there to make birdie. Yeah, you just have to make the most of them.

Q. Tyrrell, most of us in this room are familiar with shaking our head before we get to the 1st tee after the driving range. Can you talk about how you can mentally deal with that and how often that happens to you out on Tour?

TYRRELL HATTON: Well, it happens more often than not, I'd say. I guess you kind of want to leave the bad stuff on the driving range because it doesn't matter too much there. On the flip side, it is nice to actually hit some good golf shots and go out there with a little bit of confidence. I didn't really have that today.

I didn't feel like I was going to have a good day with just how bad I actually did hit it.

So you still got to go out there and try your best. Obviously, I tried to do that. Thankful for the score I ended up with.

Q. How hesitant are you when you're standing over the ball on the 10th tee, which I think is your first, knowing all that just happened on the driving range?

TYRRELL HATTON: Yeah, I think, if you get a good tee shot away, kind of try and build a bit of momentum there, and I ended up hitting it into the left rough. We were quite lucky I had a good lie and managed to get it onto the green and sort of make par, which isn't disastrous.

It's kind of one of them days where you know par is going to be a good score out there. Then just obviously take it one shot at a time and see how you go.

Q. You haven't played since the COVID thing, have you?

TYRRELL HATTON: No.

Q. Did that affect you at all?

TYRRELL HATTON: No, I was very lucky. I had very, very mild symptoms. I had a little bit of a headache for the first five days after testing positive. I think I lost a little bit of taste and smell, but no fever, no nothing. I was, like I said, very lucky and thankful to kind of be here playing this week.

Q. How tough is it to gain any momentum or consistency on a difficult course in windy conditions that change in complete opposite directions depending on the hole?

TYRRELL HATTON: Yeah, it's pretty tough. I think everyone going out there knows that par is going to be a good score with the wind that we've had in the practice rounds. We know we're in for a tough week. Even getting up-and-down when you've short-sided yourself or you're in a difficult spot and making par when it looks like you're probably going to make bogey. Those are big moments where you can kind of build a bit of momentum from that.

So it's going to be tough week. It's going to be a marathon, not a sprint.

Q. Does this course remind you of anywhere from back home?

TYRRELL HATTON: To be honest, no. I actually find it quite hard to remember the holes out there. I don't sort of massively sort of stick in the mind when trying to go through the scorecard. We'll be playing it hopefully over the next three days and get a little more used to it.

Q. What was your line today at 17? How did you approach that hole?

TYRRELL HATTON: I actually hit 7-wood in there today. I was in between taking the 7-wood or the 3-iron out on the golf course from the range, but with the rough wind out here, if you miss the fairway, you need a bit of help to try and get out of there. If I had 3-iron in, it wouldn't have been an option. So we had 7-wood. Not really a nice hole to be trying to flight a 7-wood into, but thankfully, we managed to hit it to about 30 feet and two-putt par.