THE ASCENDANT PRESENTED BY BLUE

July 2, 2022

Dawson Armstrong

Quick Quotes

Q. 70 today; walk me through your round and how it feels to be T1 heading into the final day.

DAWSON ARMSTRONG: So I started out the day not really feeling nervous or anything. Just didn't get any putts to fall. I didn't get anything out of the round basically the entire front nine with the exception of maybe the putt on 7. Finally found a little bit of a rhythm starting on hole 11, finally made a few putts. Didn't really hit it how I wanted it for a majority of the day, but kept it in front of me for the most part, and at the end of the round I made two pretty good putts on 16 and 17 to keep the momentum going.

Yeah, missed the putt on 18, but overall kind of putted average, hit it average. It was just an overall pretty average day, but I kept it together pretty well.

Q. A lot of guys were going super low out there today. There was probably some points where you see the leaderboard and think, am I still in this or not. Did you go through that at all?

DAWSON ARMSTRONG: I kind of knew that early in the round I saw Pearson birdied the first seven. I think I saw Carl finish 8-under as I was on No. 9, Harrison made the cut, I think shot 7. So I saw some guys were going low. But you see that the first two rounds anyway and you see that the final round, as well, you're going to see guys shoot 65, 64, 66, and find their way from T20 to top 5. It's just a matter of for me just staying in my own game and trying to keep up with -- for the entire day it was Ryan that I had to keep up with, but it was more so just me kind of sticking to my plan and not really getting overly aggressive when I didn't have to be. Just plugging away like I should have.

Q. Second day in a row having the lead going into the final day. How is the feeling different tonight having that lead?

DAWSON ARMSTRONG: I think tonight it's a little bit more relaxing for me knowing that I've already kind of done it today. There was definitely a little bit of nerves last night, just getting home, being with the hosts, I actually told my host I wanted to go fishing. He was like, no, you can't go fishing, you've got to stay focused. I'm like, okay, fine.

But yeah, I think tonight will be a lot more relaxing. I think tomorrow morning will be more relaxing, too, because I kind of know I can do it like I did today. But throughout tomorrow it's going to be a completely different day. It's keeping my head down and just keep plugging away.

Q. Sam your wife is here; what does it mean to have her here? Was this a last-minute trip for her?

DAWSON ARMSTRONG: Yeah, we actually don't have a return flight for her yet. She called me after the round. She was with some of her girlfriends back in Jacksonville, and she called me and said, hey, I see a direct flight from Jacksonville to Denver hopefully around 10:30 landing. Hopefully you start on 1 and hopefully it's in the afternoon or else I'm not going to make it in time. Luckily everything came together and no delayed flights. She got here probably 20 minutes before the round, was able to see every shot. It was great.

Q. What does it mean to see her out there on the course?

DAWSON ARMSTRONG: She's been out here for about half the tournaments so far. It's always nice to have her out there, a familiar face in the crowd is always nice. My parents are actually here, too. They flew in from Nashville last night around midnight, surprised me, as well. Their rule of thumb was if I'm within three going into the weekend they'll fly out, and they brought that up as soon as I birdied the five out of six holes or whatever, so they immediately booked their flight, got out here, picked up Sam from the airport and got here about 12:20 when I teed off at 12:40.

Q. Walk us through the mentality of having the lead going into the final day. How is that?

DAWSON ARMSTRONG: You know, like I said yesterday, you kind of -- you plan on being here. You don't play on this Tour and you don't play golf just to be comfortable with finishing fifth or seventh. This is a position that I feel like I'm ready for. I feel like I've always been ready for. I tend to find myself really focusing in a lot more when I get up near the top.

But yeah, I think this is kind of similar to college golf where I went to a smaller school, but I played really well and won a good amount of tournaments for my career. It was nice to have those leads then, and it really prepared me hopefully for what's going to lead to tomorrow.

Q. How long were the putts on 16 and 17?

DAWSON ARMSTRONG: The putt on 16 was about nine or ten feet uphill, right to left, probably about half a cup out. 17 was I want to say 12 feet. The pin was back left. I was just short right of the hole. It broke a whole lot and barely caught the left edge. Both of them lipped in on the low side, which was really nice. The first ones I think I lipped in all day. I had a lot of lip-outs, but it was good to see those go in.

That up-and-down on 17 was big. I was really close to that big face on the bunker. My only goal was to get it out. I had no intentions of hitting it -- really I didn't have any intention of getting it up-and-down. My only goal was to get it out, and luckily I hit it 12 feet and made the putt.

Q. Was that family you talked to on 18 after your second putt?

DAWSON ARMSTRONG: Yeah, that was Sam and my parents. The only thing I told her was, hey, I just saw the leaderboard, and one of the graphics said that the tee times are from 6:30 to 9:00 a.m., and the only thought that came to my mind was, okay, great, we can get a flight tomorrow afternoon to get home to Jacksonville for the 4th of July. My brother is down there in Jacksonville just to visit me and some of his friends that live down there, so I'm trying to get down there as quickly as I can.