AT&T PEBBLE BEACH PRO-AM

February 4, 2022

Hayden Buckley

Pebble Beach Golf Links

Quick Quotes

Q. Tell me about the birdie, eagle start on 1 and 2 at Pebble Beach?

HAYDEN BUCKLEY: Yeah, I mean the first tee shot I thought I hit it way right, but found it in the fairway. Our motto the whole week has been having opportunities. Put a new putter in the bag, so I'm a lot more confident. It's pretty much the same putter I had. I gained a little confidence just over the week practicing and gave myself a chance on 1 and it went in.

And we kind of laid back on 2 to find a good number. I really like that 250 number. In relation to 230 or so it's an awkward number for me. So I hit a great -- I was actually in a divot on 2, hit a great 5-wood up there to a really skinny green to about five feet and made the putt.

I just saw a couple more putts fall in that haven't fallen in the last couple weeks. Just having a lot of birdie looks and at some point they will go in.

Q. Great start and a really great strong finish too with birdie on four of your last five holes.

HAYDEN BUCKLEY: Yeah, again, I feel like most of our rounds the last two or three weeks I get off to a hot start -- even yesterday at Spyglass the type of scores I make out here, 3-under through 6 or 7 holes and I think somewhere in the middle of my round I've kind of been stalling out and dropping one or two shots and killing momentum. And I kind of did that again today I guess through 12. And then I think everything changed on the par-5s 13 or 14, whatever the par-5 is. I thought I hit it miles right, I think I had the wrong line, kind of laughed about it. Somehow got a good kick in the middle of the fairway and got it up there green side on a pretty tough little hole, a long par-5 and was able to make birdie and just kind of kept rolling.

So our game plan is just finding greens and giving chances and if I don't make any putts I get over it and keep going the next day. But today they went in.

Q. Are you surprised how quickly you've been on the PGA TOUR, we're about a year removed when you get in just at the last second in the Korn Ferry, end up winning and from there you've been very solid. But you have come a long way in a short period of time.

HAYDEN BUCKLEY: Yeah, it's not surprising, we kind of talked about it, even there at Sarasota, we said we just need an opportunity. Because my ball striking is something that, something I kind of, we kind of pride ourselves on. That's our game, that we're going to hit -- the stats don't lie, if you look at the stats from last year and really this year, we hit a lot of fairways and the strokes gained tee to green are top 20ish on the TOUR and all the ball striking stats are where we want, so it's just a matter of putts going in. So for me the hard part is staying patient. The last two weeks have been rough. Palm Springs I was a little bit lost and last week at San Diego I felt great and just didn't make any putts. So it's one of those weeks where the frustration is great, but I know that I hit it great and I just didn't make any putts, and it's just a matter of time.