TRAVELERS CHAMPIONSHIP

June 23, 2022

J.T. Poston

TPC River Highlands

Quick Quotes

Q. Were you kind of surprised at your 6-under start on your front nine today?

J.T. POSTON: Surprised? I wouldn't say surprised maybe, but it was nice to kind of finally put some good swings together, hit some good shots and make some putts. I feel like my scores and my results may not have shown that the last few weeks or months, but I felt like I was getting close, and I've been working hard at it. I guess today was kind of one of those days where it finally clicked a little bit.

Q. What was working so well for you today?

J.T. POSTON: The iron game. I gave myself a lot of really good looks. I putted really well, too. I made some nice length ones and made a lot of putts that were in that 10 feet and in range when I gave myself that look. It just kind of all came together. I would say the one thing is I'm going to probably go hit a couple drivers and try and hit that a little better, but for the most part it was an easy kind of day ball-striking-wise.

Q. Do you feel like the wind kind of kicked up this afternoon? Scores fairly low this morning. When you saw the wind kicking up this afternoon, did you see an 8-under par round this afternoon?

J.T. POSTON: I figured you could do it with the rain that kind of rolled through here yesterday. I figured the greens would be soft and receptive. With the wind kicking up, I knew it wasn't going to be too easy, but I felt like it didn't really pick up for us until our last nine holes.

I was able to kind of take advantage of playing the back nine first and getting some birdies out of the way and then just played real solid on the inward nine.

Q. You shoot a 29 going out on a course where a 58 has been shot. Did that ever cross your mind, and what were you thinking of after that front nine?

J.T. POSTON: You know, I didn't really think about it that much. I probably would have thought about it if I would have made a few birdies in those first few holes on the front nine. But I gave myself a few looks but kind of made a bunch of pars to start the front. That was kind of out of the picture after a little while.

I might have thought about it a little bit more if I'd have made a couple of early birdies, and who knows.

Q. Obviously this is a course where a lot of guys are going to have chances for birdies and a lot of guys are going to go low. Does it enter your mind when you think, okay, I've got a good round going but there are guys all around me also shooting low?

J.T. POSTON: Yeah, it's a four-day event. You've got 72 holes. Just because you play nine of them really well doesn't mean you need to settle down or start hitting the middle of the greens. I tried to stay aggressive and shoot 2-, 3-, 4- or 5-under on the other nine. I'm trying to look at it -- it's something I've been trying to work on a little bit is trying to look at it as a 72-hole event instead of each individual round and kind of approach it that way.

Q. Is that something you feel like is a new approach recently, or how is it working out for you?

J.T. POSTON: Well, I think it's easy to get caught up -- myself at least, get caught up in the score that I'm shooting today, wanting to shoot 3-, 4-under every day. Sometimes it's okay if you don't have it that day or if it's kind of a grind, you can grind it out and shoot even par or 1- or 2-under and then go shoot 7-, 8-, 9-under on another day. Just trying to get in that mentality where I don't force it too much especially early on in the week and kind of let it come to me a little bit.

Q. You tweeted earlier about your dream of playing against Rory and Tiger, and can you just talk about what you're feeling right now? You tied Rory with your last shot of the day.

J.T. POSTON: Yeah, I tweeted earlier, Max was on a podcast with No Laying Up that I heard a little bit of, and I liked a lot of what he had to say about playing on the PGA TOUR. That's what we dream of as kids growing up is playing out here, playing for the trophies, playing against the big names that we've looked up to, and Rory is one of those guys. Tiger was definitely the guy that I looked up to wanting to play against, but Rory falls in that similar category, too, for me. So it'll be -- hopefully I can keep it going and we can duel it out on Sunday.