KITCHENAID SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 27, 2021

Shaun Micheel

Quick Quotes

Southern Hills Country Club

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, welcome back to the 2021 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship, Southern Hills. Tulsa, Oklahoma. Joined by Shaun Micheel. 1-under par 69. Not bad at all. I'm looking at a pretty close or excuse me, clean scorecard here, three birdies, two bogeys. I've seen that out of you before, it's a formula that can hit pay dirt now and again can't it.

SHAUN MICHEEL: Yeah, I typically like really tough golf courses and this is certainly one of them. I played well, I drove the ball well. I think that was definitely the key. I did not hit my irons as well as I would have liked, but I kind of had to manage my game and I put a brand new putter in the bag yesterday afternoon, so it seemed to work pretty well today. But, yeah, I mean, it's tricky out there, trying to figure out the winds and then of course you got 9 and 18, just difficult to really judge kind of distance out there, so it's just really about kind of getting yourself in a good position to get the ball up-and-down. And I did that pretty well today.

THE MODERATOR: I'm going to guess that somewhere around the turn for you this morning the wind started to pick up a little bit gradually, get a little bit more blustery. But how much does that change things from early in your round to the end? Was it a different golf course at that point?

SHAUN MICHEEL: Yeah, this morning just warming up it was just kind of a light breeze, the flag's over there blowing pretty good now, but it started picking up on 8. I hit a really sloppy 6-iron to the left just trying to ride the wind and it really started to pick up there. It's difficult. You got uphill, you got down hill shots, side hill lies, so I think it's just a difficult golf course to kind of pick the right club. So I go back to kind of managing your game. There were quite a few front pins, the greens here are phenomenal but the front pins are tricky because the greens are still pretty firm. I intentionally missed a couple greens just because of that. But the wind, yeah, you kind of just get used to it. Everybody's battling out there and just trying to pick the right club, keeping yourself underneath the hole as you know. The greens are strongly pitched from back to front so really anything short of the flag you got a good opportunity to get it up and in.

THE MODERATOR: You said something interesting. You chose not to go at a couple greens. Is that hard for you to grapple with? You've been a world-class player throughout your career and then to not do what you've been doing for years is it just as simple as changing your target or is there some concession that you have to make mentally?

SHAUN MICHEEL: Sometimes you'll find you yourself out there kind of in between clubs and you got to -- just trying to manage yourself -- the perfect example is 14. 14, the pin was on the front and I was in the right part of the fairway, I was in between clubs, if I hit a full out shot it's going to hit on the green and go over. If I hit the 9-iron that I wanted to hit yardage wise it's going to come up short, it's going to balloon up in the wind. So I just took an 8-iron and hit a low driving shot and just hit it short of the green and the pin was only on five, so it happens quite a lot more than you think. I think the barometer for the fans are guys hitting it next to the flag or flag high or whatever, but they don't often know that sometimes we're playing to certain areas just because you just don't have the right club or just doesn't feel right. Sometimes you just have to do that. I call it just kind of take your medicine a little bit and just leaving yourself the next opportunity. There are places out there where you realize you're not going to make a birdie and so you just kind of figure out how can I make a 4, make a par and move on. So that's really the mindset there is just kind of playing for a score.

Q. I was curious when you said intentionally missed a few greens you gave an example of 14. Was there any other specific example?

SHAUN MICHEEL: Like on the par-5 on the front I had to lay up and I just had a bad yardage so I just aimed it way to the right. With a wedge. Just the way the wind was blowing, I just didn't feel it. So I'm sure people were snickering when they get up there and I'm 30 feet from 115 yards. But again sometimes you just have to take your ego and shove it aside and just hit the shot that's required. Somebody might go out and shoot a low score but you cannot -- after last week, I kind of felt like I maybe needed to change my mindset a little bit and maybe change my strategy and just hit more greens and that's -- and I did that.