ABU DHABI HSBC GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP

January 20, 2022

Tyrrell Hatton

Yas Links

Quick Quotes

Q. Another great start, 6-under par, has to make you think that the off-season was packed full of work for you. Was it like that?

TYRRELL HATTON: December, definitely not. I've done a bit of work at start of this year but I definitely needed to, I didn't touch a club for three weeks after the Bahamas which was lovely. Enjoyed playing Xbox and not doing much else but started this year going out to Orlando and getting back into the swing of things.

I'm quite surprised how I scored today. It didn't actually feel like I played that well. I think I was bogey-free as well. Yeah, it's a good way to start.

Q. How important is that off-season to you guys?

TYRRELL HATTON: I wish it was longer. It's not enough time to be honest. It's just nice, because obviously we do it all the time, it's nice to just have a break and not worry about going out and practising and everything like that. So it's nice to just hit the refresh button and obviously go again in the new year.

Q. Here as defending champion, different golf course, different type of vibe, and when we spoke yesterday, it didn't set as nicely to your eye. How did you go about today?

TYRRELL HATTON: I just went out and tried to pick targets off the tee. I tried to score -- that's how I visualise it on each tee, just trying to score as many goals as I can. I don't think I actually hit many fairways today but obviously got away with that.

Hopefully I drive the ball a bit better tomorrow. We're going to have pretty windy conditions and I think I'm going to have to play a bit better than I did today.

Q. That was a mighty fine start to the week and given how down beat you were yesterday, has it come as a pleasant surprise?

TYRRELL HATTON: Yeah, I guess I am a little bit surprised, start of the new year, you don't really know where your game is at until you play in tournament golf so to be honest, I don't feel like I played like that great out there. I just scored really well. Obviously I'll take that, start of the year, 6-under, bogey-free is great.

Q. It was a very efficient round of golf, wasn't it?

TYRRELL HATTON: Yeah, I wasn't in too much trouble. I had a couple of good two-putts from long range which helps with a little bit of momentum. Messed up a little bit on the second with a three-putt there but that was just a weird little short one that didn't do what I think it should have done. But overall, can't really complain, I guess.

Q. Listening to you yesterday, it would be fair I think to draw conclusions that you probably had lower expectations than other stages of your career. Sometimes lower expectations can help, can't they?

TYRRELL HATTON: I guess so. Everyone should really be coming into the new year with not high expectations purely because you don't know where your game is at because you haven't played any tournament golf for a while. I don't think it's a bad thing. Sometimes it helps.

Obviously in the middle of the season if you've got low expectations, that's probably not a good thing but starting out, I don't see it as a negative.

Q. So proper wind coming in certainly tomorrow. What are your thoughts there which w what could be a blustery afternoon?

TYRRELL HATTON: Hopefully it's so windy we get a day off. That would be nice. Can only hope, anyway.

But yeah, it's going to be a completely different beast tomorrow. It will be interesting to see where they put the tee boxes. There's obviously going to be some holes that when they play into the wind, they are going to be beasts no matter where the tee box is, and it's going to be a grind. You just have to try get through it, and obviously at the end of the day, par is going to be a good score. Just see how you get on.