MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 7, 2022

Sepp Straka

Quick Quotes

Q. First real round at Augusta National. I know you played this place a lot, I guess, with your Georgia years and everything else. How was it different today?

SEPP STRAKA: It's a little different. It plays a lot softer when we play it, but with all the rain we got in the last couple days off the tee, it was pretty similar. Just played really long and a little quicker on the greens.

But, yeah, overall it played just faster and a little tougher.

Q. I didn't get to see 16, 17, 18. I know you had two bogeys right there at the end. Can you go over what happened on those?

SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, a couple of three putts. On 16 I hit a pretty good shot. It was two more yards right or two yards farther, it probably would have been about 15 feet. But I took a slope and went down about 40 feet. Unfortunately, just hit that putt too hard.

Similar thing on 18, I hit a good drive and hit a 7-iron up there that looked like it was pretty close to getting to the top and just came back down and a sloppy three-putt.

Q. What's the Dawg Nation situation been like so far this week?

SEPP STRAKA: As in?

Q. All the Georgia people.

SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, it's been great. It's always great to have a bunch of Dogs in every tournament. I would think we've got six here this week. It's nice to see familiar faces.

Q. Being in Augusta, do you get more than that usually here so far this week?

SEPP STRAKA: Oh, from the crowd, yeah, yeah, definitely. It feels like a home event being so close to Athens.

Q. How much different did the course play than the last couple of days with all the rain?

SEPP STRAKA: Pretty similar to the last couple days, very different from Monday. Monday was very firm, fast. Today was slow and just played long. It just played really, really long. I think it's going to get closer to that by Sunday.

Q. What was your proudest moment out here today? What did you feel like you did? What you're going to remember from this round.

SEPP STRAKA: I don't know about a specific hole or shot, but just in general, I hit the ball pretty good. My irons were really good. I hit it terrible off the tee and didn't feel like I putted as well as I should have. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the results I got.

Q. Got any intra-dog pools going on between you and your old teammates or anything?

SEPP STRAKA: No, nothing specific. Nothing special.

Q. Nothing to be low dog here this week?

SEPP STRAKA: Nothing for low dog, other than a little bit of pride.

Q. I guess the cut is the ultimate, right? You've got to be thinking about that?

SEPP STRAKA: Yeah, for sure. You can't really control that until maybe the last few holes you can start playing to it. But you've really just got to go out there -- on a course that's this tough, you've just got to play your best golf.

Q. How many times did you get to play here as a collegiate?

SEPP STRAKA: I got to play five times, yeah, once a year.