PRICE CUTTER CHARITY CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY DR PEPPER

July 24, 2022

David Kocher

Press Conference

Q. I guess led from the very beginning to the very end for the first time in your career. Talk about how weird that felt.

DAVID KOCHER: It was definitely weird. I shot I think my career low on a PGA TOUR sanctioned event, 63 the first round, and then just kept the momentum going. I started off, I think we had seven birdies in the middle of that round, and then kind of the putter got hot every day. Yesterday was the only day it kind of felt a little weird, but I hit a lot of close wedges and kept the momentum going. Yeah, I'm just over the moon right now, to win from especially in front the whole way.

Q. Did you have any kind of qualms sleeping last night knowing you had this lead going into today?

DAVID KOCHER: Not really. I was just definitely a little nervous after the round. My girlfriend is here, so we played actually a lot of -- just kind of pointless games just to kind of keep my mind off it. She beat me in every single one of the games.

I figured I can't lose all weekend, so I wanted to win today.

No, it was no problem sleeping. Just I told my caddie coming out this morning, we're just going to stick to our process all day, and I called my coach last night and he put my mind at ease, honestly. Very happy.

Q. Was the recipe just go out and get as many birdies as you could in the first five or six holes?

DAVID KOCHER: It's funny, so I told my caddie I'm not going to look at the leaderboard all day today. We have walking scorers, and they had the scores up there. I wasn't really looking at all, and then we get to 4 and there's a huge scoreboard right there, and I see Kevin Yu making a run. I'm like, oh, my goodness, I definitely need to keep making birdies. That was I think the only leaderboard I looked at until 17.

But you have to make birdies out here to win, and especially on this Tour. Made a lot of them this week. I think I probably led the field. But yeah, just very happy.

Q. Can you talk about that birdie on 4? That was a very lengthy putt in kind of a pivotal moment for the round.

DAVID KOCHER: Yeah, I told myself before every shot, just have confidence and have commitment. That putt was pretty fast down the hill left to right, and made a good stroke on it, and to see that one go in, it helped me make the birdies on honestly 5 and 6 because I knew the putter was hot at that point.

Q. On 11 you got an eagle -- a little bit short and then you put it in for the birdie. That set a record for Price Cutter Charity Championships and you were only on 11 and you still had a bunch of holes left.

DAVID KOCHER: I didn't actually know that, but that's pretty cool. Obviously I wanted that one to go in. It probably would have made 12, 13 and 14 that much easier because they were definitely stressful.

No, going up to the putt, I hit a good putt, I just didn't give it enough speed and it didn't go in, but great shot for sure.

Q. You said earlier in the week that your game was trending. How much satisfaction or relief is there to finally come out on top?

DAVID KOCHER: Well, a little bit of a relief. Trevor Cone has been kind of pushing me to kind of win the last few weeks ever since he won. He's been kind of bugging me about it. So to finally get that off my chest, I mean, it's hard to win out here, but still, I didn't think it was going to happen this week. I didn't know if it was going to happen this year. But I just kept sticking to my game plan and just made a lot of birdies out here.

Q. Between this win and then the one in 2020 in Mexico, does any one feel sweeter than the other?

DAVID KOCHER: Both are just very different. Coming from behind in Mexico, I think I was five shots behind going into the last round. It was definitely a weird feeling because I was like, I didn't know I was even in contention until I got to 15, and then this one, I knew I just had to play well all week. Coming into today I was definitely nervous, but I was very proud of myself how I hung in there and hit a lot of really quality shots, and especially being bogey-free out here with the wind and everything today, I thought that was very important, very cool.

Q. You're within striking distance of getting to the regular Tour. You've got two more Tour events. Talk about that.

DAVID KOCHER: I mean, it gives me a lot of confidence. Like I said, I think I've been playing really well the last five or six weeks. I've made every cut since -- I don't even know, ever since BMW. I think I missed the cut there. But it gives me a lot of confidence. I know my game is in a really good spot, obviously, with this win, but I really like Utah, I really like Omaha.

I think -- I am not sure how many spots out of the top 25 I am, but I'm just going to keep playing my golf and keep hopefully playing really good golf.

Q. You mentioned that you hadn't looked at the leaderboard before until 17. When you finally see it at 17 and you see where you're at and the cushion that you had, what's going through your mind in that moment?

DAVID KOCHER: Well, it's funny because walking up 17 fairway, I asked my caddie Parker, how big of a lead do I have, and he's like, dude, I have no idea, I haven't seen a leaderboard since 9. I was like, oh, man, I think I have quite a big lead. He's like, you have the lead over the guys in your group for sure.

That gave me a lot of confidence, and then walking up to the green I saw it finally flash up. I still have to tell you, 18 tee shot, it doesn't make it any easier, but once I got it in the fairway for my third shot, I knew just wedge it on the green and two-putt and get out of there.

Q. What do you do in between holes to kind of distract yourself?

DAVID KOCHER: Honestly, me and Parker just kind of hang out and talk. I'm a pretty big talker. Just me and Parker just kind of chatting it up. The past couple weeks we've played actually 20 questions, which is kind of weird. We pick an athlete, and he picks a lot of athletes I have no idea who they are. I don't think anyone has any idea who they are.

But we've been doing that, and it's kind of kept my mind at ease. We did that a few times today, but it was all business this week.

Q. How good did that shot on 18 feel?

DAVID KOCHER: It felt really good. It felt really good. Hopefully I can have a few more beers after this.