PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 19, 2022

Tom Hoge

Southern Hills Country Club

Flash Quotes

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JOHN DEVER: Good afternoon, and welcome back to the 2022 PGA Championship here at Southern Hills. We are pleased to be joined by Tom Hoge, who opened with a 4-under par 66 today. Terrific looking scorecard, really quite clean. You really have to feel good about how you played your last 14 or 15 holes. It just seemed smooth as silk.

TOM HOGE: Yeah, I would say the middle stretch of that front nine, 6, 7, 8, I was scrambling pretty good and got up-and-down on all of them and made some really nice six-, eight-foot par putts that you've got to make around here, and that really gave me some momentum going forward.

Then started to hit some nice iron shots into the green. I played great the last 10 holes I would say. The key for me is getting in the fairway. I felt like I did that a lot, and hopefully can do more of the same this weekend.

Q. What did you experience out there with the wind? Was it steady throughout the day? Did it increase as your round went on?

TOM HOGE: Yeah, I would say a little more calm off the start, and certainly could be a little more aggressive there with the wind laying down at the start, but it picked up pretty good there.

It was tough, but I live in Fort Worth, so just down the road a little bit, and feel like it's pretty similar conditions. I felt like I could judge the wind pretty well, and certainly felt comfortable with the wind that we had out there.

Q. Talking about the wind being a key this week, the wind is going to change. It might be like three or four different winds this week. How do you prepare for that?

TOM HOGE: I really haven't thought about it a lot. I've just tried to keep it simple and just try to hit the next shot in front of me, and more so, like I said, get the ball in the fairway and go from there.

Q. Just the mentality after going 4-under today, just coming back tomorrow and try to keep that momentum going, what kind of mental approach do you have to have to do that from day one to two day in a major like this?

TOM HOGE: I would say the golf courses are so difficult that you almost throw a score out to a certain extent this early on in the tournament that you just try to keep battling. Pars are good out there, and just try to keep grinding away and checking off hole by hole as we go.

If you get to Sunday and you're kind of in the mix then score becomes a little more important obviously, and we'll figure that out at that point.

Q. But today really went well for you; this is kind of how you might have written it up if you had that ability, right?

TOM HOGE: For sure. I felt like the golf course was a little bit softer than I expected it to be. The greens were very receptive out there.

So certainly felt like you could go out and do it and shoot a few under par if you played well, and I was fortunate to do so.

Q. That was the positive side more than the negative side, which is it's also a major with the tough conditions; you might get down, you might get closer to par instead of -- is that something you assume is going to happen this week?

TOM HOGE: Yeah, for sure. I think that -- I don't think a major champion here has ever been double digits under par, so you know the scores aren't going to go much further, and certainly the weather is going to have a lot of impact on that, how firm and fast the golf course will get and how much wind we have.

Like I said, it's a grind out here. If you get out of position in the rough here, it's tough to control the golf ball around these greens because they can get running off so fast. You just try to keep it simple, like I said, and hit that next shot in front of you.

Q. You mentioned that a couple of your par saves around the turn were just -- those can be equally powerful as a couple of birdies, can't they, in terms of momentum?

TOM HOGE: Yeah, more so I would say. And these majors you're going to have a lot of those six, eight-foot par putts and that's what you're going to rely on.

For me I hit a lot of nice putts early on. Even the second hole I holed about a 10-footer for par, so there were a lot of nice par saves early on that kind of kept me hanging in there and gave me some momentum going forward.