AT&T BYRON NELSON

May 13, 2022

David Skinns

TPC Craig Ranch

Quick Quotes

Q. What ignited that round out there today?

DAVID SKINNS: I don't know. I played well yesterday that helped. I put a new driver in play on Wednesday and I think last week I was 154th in driving, which you can't, you can't compete. And I realized my driver was broken, actually, the face was broken and I've been playing with it for who knows how long. So we got that fixed thanks to the Ping guys on Wednesday we got that sorted out.

I drove it well yesterday and I felt like I could do the same again today and I did and I got in a nice run there in the middle where I believe I made five in a row, which it's one of them where you just, you're feeling it, you're in the zone and I just rolled it in to playing a nice back nine as well.

Q. This driver, is it same spec, same brand that you've been using or totally different?

DAVID SKINNS: It's still a Ping G 425, but I think I've been using it for too long. It was a pretty old driver. And then the shaft combo probably wasn't exactly what I was needing at this time, so my coach made some suggestions on Tuesday and the Ping guys were able to do exactly what he was asking for and exactly what I was trying to feel. So, yeah, we got there in the end but it took a little work.

Q. So from a feel perspective with the driver what differences do you see?

DAVID SKINNS: I was hitting a lot of good drives last week in that cold and rain and in DC and it just kept leaking into the right rough over and over and over again and I couldn't figure it out. And I didn't think it was all me, I mean it was some me but I didn't think it was all me. And then as soon as we got on the range with the new, a new shaft combo and a quarter inch shorter it was like night and day and I knew straight away we had found something better. Now it's just on me to keep swinging it properly and use it correctly.

Q. How would you assess so far your rookie season?

DAVID SKINNS: Bit of a struggle. I came off a really nice run on the Korn Ferry TOUR to finish and I felt good going into the PGA TOUR season, I played nicely in Napa the first two days and then didn't play well on the weekend. But then when you find yourself not getting in every tournament and you start to slip behind a little in the points when you can't quite sneak into the top 10 and, yeah, it's a tough, it's tough to see yourself continue to fall down the points list. But you eventually got to figure out a different game to play, you can't keep looking at that, otherwise it will demoralize you a little bit. You just got to get back to the reason that you're here and I think I've done that decently the last six weeks or so, even though the results haven't quite shown, haven't quite been able to break into that top 20, but most of my pro career it's taken me a little while to get used to every level. I'm just excited to be in a position this weekend where I can make a step forward hopefully.

Q. What is it about this particular golf course you've liked over the first 36 holes?

DAVID SKINNS: It just fits my eye. I like it off the tee, the greens I'm really never second guessing my reads, which is great. When you look from one side and look from the other sometimes it looks completely different. But here it seems to look the same. So I've been pretty comfortable with a lot of the reads. I like Weiskopf designs, it just seems to fit my eye. Don't know what else to tell you.