U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 16, 2022

Fred Biondi

The Ridgewood Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Tough out there it looked like.

FRED BIONDI: Yeah, it was not easy.

Q. You played in the U.S. Open. How much of that experience is helping you this week when you're seeing a setup that a lot of people are saying is very similar to a U.S. Open?

FRED BIONDI: It's good. I mean, experience is nice for sure, and I think the course plays kind of similar. Like I was telling my assistant that's on the bag this week, it's like the same course, the only difference is one is called the Open, one is all the Am and one has 100,000 people watching you. But no, it plays hard. It's fair. The greens are a little softer than it was at the Open, which makes it a little easier. But they can make this course really hard. It's nice.

Q. You got a stretch there where you got on a roll, three birdies in a row and then another birdie. Anything memorable about those three birdies in a row?

FRED BIONDI: Just the putter got hot. Again, my game plan today was hit a bunch of fairways and hit a bunch of greens, and I didn't exactly hit the ball the way I wanted to at some points, at some stretches, but I kind of managed it pretty well. Those greens I hit, I hit a couple good shots and made the putts.

Q. Any long putts in those stretches?

FRED BIONDI: Yeah, on that par-3, I couldn't tell you the hole. It was like 14, 13, something like that.

Q. 15?

FRED BIONDI: 15, yeah. It was like a 25-footer from the middle short part of the green. But no, other than that, the putt on the hole before that was really fast and I just barely hit it. Other than that just played solid golf. I made a couple saves coming in to keep the momentum going, ended up bogeying the last, but just caught a bad lie left in the rough and just can't do anything about it.

Q. That 8th hole seems like it's eating up a lot of people. You get into match play tomorrow; everybody starts fresh. Doesn't really matter what your seed is. You're going to be a high seed, obviously. Right now you're one off the medalist. How do you approach match play? Do you have a philosophy you take from stroke play to match play?

FRED BIONDI: You've still got to go out there and play good golf. It depends who you're playing against and the strategy changes mostly depending on what the other person does on that hole specifically, but other than that you're playing golf and trying to hit good shots and score well. I guarantee if I go out there and make a bunch of birdies, it's going to be hard to beat. It's like, it can happen to anyone, and just, again, keep it pretty straight in front of me, fairways and greens, and it's easy.

Q. Have you had much experience with match play?

FRED BIONDI: Yeah, I played it down in South America a bunch. I played the Palmer Cup earlier this summer.

Q. You went 2-0-2; is that right?

FRED BIONDI: Yeah. Also I got to play for Florida, SEC --

Q. You played it a little bit with that.

FRED BIONDI: Yeah, I wouldn't say a bunch of experience, but I have enough to know what to do.