SONY OPEN IN HAWAII

January 13, 2022

Kevin Carrl

Waialae Country Club

Press Conference

Q. Low man on the Hawai'i leaderboard so far. Were you surprised by how well you played out there today?

KEVIN CARLL: To be honest, a bit surprised, yeah, I haven't been playing a whole lot lately. Obviously this is a busy time of year for us with the club, and so one of the duties of getting ready for the event than anything else but it was a nice surprise.

Q. When did you know you had your game where you needed?

KEVIN CARLL: As far as knowing about the event, it was, I want to say Monday of this week, right, and at that point we were obviously well into all of our duties. At that point I think it was our dream cup, our Sony Dream Cup that day in the Pro-Am. It was a bit of a scramble to make sure my staff was covered. My staff has done a great job and they covered for me and I wanted to make sure that they were okay, and obviously had my support with whatever they needed.

Q. What about today? When did you kind of feel like your swing was in a good place today and you would be able to get around the gorse?

KEVIN CARLL: Yeah, I started off the very first hole, hit a shaky drive. Second shot I was in the rough. I really couldn't do much with it but third shot hit a good wedge and that's what got me on track. Hit some good shots today. Probably could have made a few more putts but overall extremely happy with how I played today.

Q. On 9 and 13 when you made those birdies, what was it hike having the support?

KEVIN CARLL: They are the best. And it's not just today, I've had a lot of e-mails from our members, in practice, every time they see me, it is absolutely the best to be supported by our membership. We have a great membership.

Q. And now you put on the head pro hat. Was there anything on the course that you said, okay, we can tweak that. Usually you get the feedback from the pros and now you had it firsthand?

KEVIN CARLL: You know, our volunteer pool is a bit short because of COVID and so there's a couple holes we probably could use a few spotters on. But volunteers and great, and unfortunately, I actually hit a volunteer on our 10th hole and I felt awful. It took me awhile to get over that. I three-putted that green. But luckily she's okay. She had a welt on her arm, but yeah, that was a tough one.

Q. How have you been able to balance shifting from player mode to now head pro mode? How do you manage that?

KEVIN CARLL: It's tough. You really wear two different hats. It's a challenge to say the least. It is a challenge but I have a great staff and this is not their first Sony Open. They have done a great job to pick up the ball and cover for me. So it's made it much easier.

Q. And now looking to tomorrow, what are the things you want to get done tomorrow in tomorrow's round, things you want to clean up from today, just going into Friday?

KEVIN CARLL: Yeah, definitely want to work on my driver and 3-wood just to clean that up a bit. I got myself in some bad shots out there. I hit a drive today that maybe went 80 yards but I made par. But yeah, I think I probably spent a good 20 minutes on the range and just cleaned that up.

Q. Last year, COVID, no fans here. Just the energy that the fans have been back this year and just kind of how has it been for you to see it and feel it on the course, throughout the whole week, really?

KEVIN CARLL: It's great. It's great to see people back on the golf course. It felt almost like a glorified junior event, guys would make a birdie and you didn't hear any applause. It's nice to have the fans back as we hear the applause there.