BMW CHAMPIONSHIP

August 26, 2021

Tony Finau

Caves Valley Golf Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Middle of the round, how do you recover from some of that rough stuff and just keep going?

TONY FINAU: Yeah, I knew at least I had some holes in front of me. That was a big part. Hiccups on 13 and 14, not what I was looking for after really just kind of cruising through the round and playing really nicely. But that putt on 15 I thought was huge, to bounce back with a birdie. A great up-and-down on 16 and then a great birdie on 17. I thought par on 18 was important, as well, just to finish off that little stretch.

I was happy, really happy with the way that I finished the round today.

Q. A two-shot lead next week would be nice; I think everybody would take it. But you're still going to be in great position one way or the other. Is there any type of freedom you feel this week that you might not have in previous years during this time of the year?

TONY FINAU: I don't know if I -- I would say the freedom comes from just the confidence of coming off last week. I haven't thought too much about it other than I know I'm No. 1 in the FedExCup, and I'd like to stay that way at the end of this week. That's most likely going to take a win, so that's why I think that finish was so important, that I don't get too far behind the guys that played really, really well today.

Q. There was a picture somewhere on Twitter of you taking a phone call from Stricker and then it disappeared. Do you know anything about that?

TONY FINAU: I can't recall, no.

Q. He called you or texted you?

TONY FINAU: Yeah, we had a phone call. We had a phone call, and he was just congratulating me, which was a cool thing from our captain.

Q. It seemed like a really nice -- it's been a while since we've seen a first-tee start, just everyone starting off the first tee for a tournament. Felt like a really nice pace out there today. Did you notice that at all?

TONY FINAU: Yeah, we didn't wait -- outside of it being really hot, we didn't wait at all, so that was really nice. I think it helped the mojo of our group. All three of us played nicely and scored, and it was nice for that to be the case.

Unfortunately out here it's not the case most of the time. You're double teeing, seems like you're waiting really often. We were able to get in a groove today and not wait very much, which was nice.

Q. Can you think of the last time on a weekday round where you didn't wait on anyone and weren't holding up anyone behind you?

TONY FINAU: Nothing comes to mind. I know it's happened in the last month or so. I want to say maybe Memphis on Sunday I played a twosome and was able to cruise around there pretty nicely. But it doesn't happen very often, so it was really nice today.