THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 10, 2022

Jon Rahm

TPC Sawgrass

Quick Quotes

Q. How would you characterize your round today?

JON RAHM: It was like two rounds I played today. It was good. I was playing -- I would say it wasn't my best day tee to green, maybe not my best day with the irons, but luckily short game was good. Kind of reverse to what it's been the last few months. I was able to post a score.

Q. I know you put the old putter back in play. Did it feel good today?

JON RAHM: It just needed a timeout last week. That's it. Luckily we had -- I'm going to start calling them browns because they weren't even greens. They were browns last week, and that was enough to not want to use it again.

Q. I'm wondering where you are at with this course. Obviously this is a place you definitely want on your resume.

JON RAHM: Yeah, yeah, so it's a little different because I played two years in May and then we moved it to March. It's a completely different golf course. I would say March suits my game a little bit better. The ball doesn't usually release. It's a little colder, it's a little more damp, so if you're a longer hitter, ball-striking is truly a premium. I think it plays to my strengths, and ever since it's been in March, I've had good showings here.

There is a little bit of strategy to learn. It's a little personal. You learn how to hit certain tee shots, and I feel like you need to play the course in all types of wind conditions because it can change quite a bit depending on the wind direction, especially those last three holes, 16, 17 and 18. You've just got to get enough experience and hit certain shots when you need to.

Q. What would winning here mean?

JON RAHM: It's the closest win you can get without it being a major. If they ever were to do a fifth major, this should be it. It's the closest win you can have to a major.

Q. The way you finished today with a birdie-par-birdie, what's that mean for tomorrow?

JON RAHM: First of all, I don't even know if I'm going to play tomorrow, but it gives me confidence because I was playing good golf. I was hitting a lot of good putts out there, and it can be easy to get down. Making that putt on 7 gave me a little bit of a boost knowing that 8 was playing the tee up and then 9 with it being the par-5.

So happy about it. Had a couple errant iron shots on my back nine and had a lot of great tee shots that I probably should have taken advantage of a little bit better and I didn't, so happy I could finish this strong.

Q. You showed with your short game that you are No. 1 in the world. Your short game is impressive.

JON RAHM: I had one bad month. Why is everybody panicking? I'm also first in greens in regulation and second off the tee, so when I'm on the green that often if I'm not making a lot of putts, it's going to show that it's not that good. When I'm only missing two greens a round, if I miss one up-and-down, it shows that it's bad. It's not really bad.

I've been working on some things, and sometimes, like I said in the press conference, I see improvements, the numbers might not say there's improvement, but I see it. It's kind of what happened.

Today was a bit the opposite. Today I could tell my iron game wasn't quite there, and when the short game needed to be there, it was.

Q. What happened on 6? It seemed like you guys moved your ball in the fairway --

JON RAHM: Well, it's lift, clean and place.

Q. How often did you have to do that today?

JON RAHM: Every time I was in the fairway. I'm not going to hit that golf ball with anything on it if I can clean it. Yeah, every time I was in the fairway, chip shots, anything, that ball was lifted, cleaned and tried to find the best possible lie I could hit.

Q. Would you expect that to be in effect tomorrow if there's no rain tonight?

JON RAHM: Well, they have to. First round already started, so they have to do it tomorrow. They should keep it through Friday.

Q. I was talking about the second round.

JON RAHM: Yeah, so they should keep it through Friday. It looks like it's going to be like this, so it could be like this all week. It's not going to dry out. The sun is not really going to come out. I wouldn't be surprised if after that we lift and place it all throughout the tournament.

Q. You mentioned on Tuesday you've been working on some stuff with your putting. Just curious what you've been working on?

JON RAHM: It's been more short game than putting. I think I said it in the press conference, too, I haven't been hitting bad putts. It's been a month of seeing putts go by the edge of the hole that were good, and that's what it was. Sometimes -- I'm usually the last person to ever blame the putter. But I felt like I needed to because that was kind of out of sorts.

You know, went back to it today, and I feel like I almost -- sometimes when you're working on something and something is not working properly, I feel like I myself at least can put too much attention to it and I can be thinking too much on what's going on with the putter, and I feel like this weekend completely reversed it.

I said, it's all good, let's relax, and let's try to get the speed of the greens. There's nothing wrong technically. I tried to just get the speed of the greens, and it worked out beautifully. Almost kind of got me out of being too technical and more into putting as an art.

Q. Did going back to the old one help you simplify things?

JON RAHM: Like I said, it just needed to be in timeout. That's it.

Q. On the short game itself, things you were working on, is there anything you can tell us specifically?

JON RAHM: No. No. It's stuff that I needed to -- sometimes as a player you try things, and you're working on certain things, and sometimes it takes a while on the course to --

Q. Was it more comfortable today?

JON RAHM: I think I got 100 percent of the up-and-downs I had today, so it was more comfortable. I've got to say these conditions are very much what I grew up in, rainy, muggy, soft conditions, so I couldn't have imagined anything better for me to kind of get back into the groove.