KITCHENAID SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 28, 2022

Paul Goydos

Press Conference

Harbor Shores

JOHN DEVER: Just carded a third round 67, that's by my math 4-under par for the day, 9-under par for the championship. Currently alone in fourth place. Cleaned off today, four birdies, no bogeys, and only looking the last few days, only three bogeys on the whole dang tournament through 54 holes. You've avoided trouble and done some scoring, too.

PAUL GOYDOS: Is that a question? It sounded like soliloquy.

I've driven the ball in the fairway and I hit a reasonable number of greens. This is a golf course where there's times when you're missing the greens in better spots depending on hole location than maybe being on the green in two. I've hit the ball pretty much to where you can play. I bogeyed 14 yesterday from a bad spot and other than that I've been in pretty good shape to be able to salvage par and stay pretty consistent. I haven't made a ton of birdies but I've just kind of plotted around and kind of what I need to do to be successful.

Q. Did you play morning yesterday?

PAUL GOYDOS: I played one of the later times in the morning. I played the 18th hole in a pretty good rain storm. I played 7 and 8 in the rain but you know, manageable and I think I played one in the rain. Other than that, what I learned, you don't want to trust the weather channel because they were completely wrong at every turn. They are right today I guess. I guess that's better. But as soon as we got done, I was in my car, ten minutes after I signed my card and you have to go and unpack your bag and use the hair dryer to dry everything out again. But my understanding is it was pretty bad from about two to about five. That happens in golf. Looks like the leaderboard full of guys who played late early. Again the forecast wasn't good for late on Thursday and it worked out great, too. So we have had the lucky side of the draw for sure.

Q. Where your game is right now, does it feel as good as it's felt?

PAUL GOYDOS: I haven't played that well this year. I had a couple good rounds here and there. I'm going with, I've gotten old. I'm on the older third of this tour now, which means something on this tour. Doesn't mean that much on the regular tour.

But yeah, I'm happy with -- I don't think -- I just think that as you -- as I've gotten older, I've struggled maybe with concentration a little bit more than I'd like. I don't think, my game is as good as it's been in my been. I've just gotten dumber, which has made it harder to score.

Q. Chris said outside of maybe outside of Biloxi, this is the best he's seen you play in a while.

PAUL GOYDOS: Tee-to-green I've gotten better and better over the last six weeks, and the putter has just been -- it's not really the putter. The short game has been lagging, let's use that words. This week it's been a little bit better. Hopefully that's the progress.

I haven't really played well the last, you know, since the COVID. I didn't have a great 2021 season either. But again, if you go to the big picture, when I was 50 years old, and you told me when I was 57, I'll be 58 next month, then I would have won five times out here. I'd say, that's pretty good. But if you'd told me when I was 53 and I just had won my fifth event, that you're only going to win five times out here. Well, that's not very good.

So there's a perspective there you have to take and so I've never been accused of being consistent in any way, shape or form and so I'm trying to let things happen. It's gone pretty well and hopefully many it will, too. But just keep doing your work and try to stay patient. It's amazing how you would think as you get older theoretically you should become more patient. I'm becoming way less patient.

Q. Looking at the guy ahead of you right now, Langer.

PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah, he doesn't count. He's, again, one thing you find out in this sport over time is you can't hide talent. You know, no matter what we do on Tour, the best players seem to rise to the occasion and be the best players. It may take a while for them to get there. It may not happen every single week but it's not hard to figure out right now who the best ten or 15 players are on the regular tour and it's really not that hard to figure out who the ten or 15 best players are on this tour. It may not show on a leaderboard each week but it's pretty easy to figure out. That, to me, is talent and talent matters. Not every type of talent -- some guy's talent is driving it great and putting it good. His is being unbelievably prepared to hit the best possible shot he can hit every single shot which to me is the greatest talent there is. The guy just is incredibly dedicated to the moment at hand. And everybody on the planet except maybe guys like Tiger and Jack can learn from that. He is the most prepared player I've ever seen.

Q. You said you were -- kind of plodding along.

PAUL GOYDOS: That's the way I am. I'm a plugger.

Q. Considering where you are on the leaderboard right now, is plugging going to be enough tomorrow?

PAUL GOYDOS: Probably not. I probably need to putt a little better. The weather is going to be different, a little warmer and windier and whatnot. But I think that a big part of that is I haven't gotten one of those -- I think all three rounds, even today to some extent was almost the highest I was going to shoot. Made a really nice par on 2. Probably should have doubled 2 and made par. Other than that I got what I got out of the round. I haven't made a ton of birdies. It was stress free other than the second hole but the guy, you have to make putts at the right time, hopefully tomorrow I'll maybe make a few more putts but we'll see how the weather plays out too. I'm hearing gusts to 25. That changes things a little bit, too. I don't have a problem with it. And I think that this golf course with the way the green complexes are, the wind will make it play a lot harder than other golf courses where the wind might blow 25 miles an hour because you get the ball in the wrong place here, I don't care who you are, you're in trouble. But I don't mind the wind. It's never been a real problem for me.

Q. What was your save at 2?

PAUL GOYDOS: I kind of hit the worst iron shot of maybe of year, I got a with a head of it, short and quick after missing a 5-footer for birdie on 1 and hit it in the short right bunker on the downslope to a front right pin, really haven't got anything and hit a really good bunker shot to about 12 feet. One of those bunker shots that I could have easily left in the bunker, to hit it 1 feet, I had to take a risk of leaving it in the bunker and I got just out or I could have played it safe and hit it past the hole, on these greens, a 30-footer is not just a job. It's an adventure at times out there. That didn't seem like the right idea either.

Q. Showing you're age there.

PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah. I show it in many ways. Still, I think I'll always be younger than you, Alex.

JOHN DEVER: Chasing a major here. You've won five times here. Is there any mindset --

PAUL GOYDOS: I guess. I've never really, I haven't ever really competed that well. This is probably the best spot I've been in any major, whether the regular tour or this tour. I don't know if there's majors on the Korn Ferry Tour -- I wasn't in contention on that one either. It's kind of new territory to me. We'll see how it plays out.

Stephen could birdie a bunch of holes coming in and it could become problematic. There's no question, tomorrow, winning this tournament is probably more important than other Champions Tour events.

Q. Jerry Kelly talked about why he couldn't win a major and he said he physically had the game must mentally it was impossible.

PAUL GOYDOS: I think that you look at the really great players, Tiger and Jack, I'm a 20 handicapper compared to those two. Tiger was just relentlessly patient, relentlessly patient and then Jack talked about, it was more about other guys losing than it was him winning a little bit. Koepka talks about it, which the thing about Koepka when he was playing his best golf when he was healthy, he would knew how to play those golf courses. It is harder. The thing that's unique about the Grand Slam is each major kind of, you need something different. The Masters has one thing. You have to be able to hit your pitching wedge 30 feet of the lowly -- that level of patience -- I look back at the 2019 Masters when Tiger won the Masters, everybody hit in the water, Tiger was two back, not leading, two back, hit it 40 feet left and 2-putted. That level of patience is rare. It's just rare. And Tiger was aiming nowhere else. The U.S. Open tests your patience in a different way, can you handle the worst break of your life when you've hit a good shot. Can you deal with what they do to you or the deal at Shinnecock where Phil's ball was going to go off the green -- I think Jerry is selling himself really short by the way. People like me, it drives us freaking nuts and eventually you lose patience and you finish 35th and you're, okay, that's who I am. The British Open, you have to deal with conditions, links golf courses, another skill set that I don't have and have proven that over numerous links rounds. But it's a totally -- there you have to be a great lag putter and long iron player in my opinion and those things help you in links. PGA is a jumble of all three. PGA is generally the best field.

It takes different skillsets. Unfortunately I don't have any of them. That's why I was never in any majors. I need a major like Sony at Waialae, is what I needed.

JOHN DEVER: Well done today. Appreciate the time. Wish we could have gotten something out of you. We'll try again tomorrow.