BMW CHAMPIONSHIP

August 20, 2022

Scott Stallings

Wilmington Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Scott, how would you characterize your round?

SCOTT STALLINGS: A solid day. Nice to get off to a good start. Birdied the first hole. Playing a lot different than it did the last couple days with the complete opposite wind direction as we played.

Did a good job on the par-5s that I didn't do the first few days, and that was kind of the goal, and kind of managed it from there. Even when I got out of position, put myself in spots where I could get it up-and-down.

There was just some pins that if you don't have the perfect club, man, it is really hard to get it close or even like on the right section of the green. I was happy with the way I handled it, and nice to make par from a really bad position off the tee on 18, and look forward to tomorrow.

Q. In your list of goals, where would you rank making it to East Lake?

SCOTT STALLINGS: I mean, that was my number one goal to start the year. I don't know, statistically, FedExCup, whatever, financially, this is definitely the best year of my career. Like I'm very cognizant of that.

A lot of the goals that we set in Napa, I've achieved. Being in contention, kind of creating some variance within my game as far as when I am playing well, kind of sneak up there a little bit closer there towards the lead, and just hadn't really had that Sunday great round. I've had a lot of 1-under, 2-under, even par, stuff like that. Kind of pulled back on some of that experience that I've had throughout the course of the year, and look forward to being out there tomorrow. Looks like basically we're going to have the same day as we had today.

Q. It's a really stacked leaderboard. Do you have something to prove tomorrow?

SCOTT STALLINGS: Man, I've done a lot of good things to get to this point, and the way I handled myself today in the situation of all the stuff we're dealing with, Playoffs and Rory and crazy fan and all this stuff, I feel like I handled myself. I don't have anything to prove.

Q. What's been so different this year than other years recently, why you feel like you've had your best year?

SCOTT STALLINGS: Hunter has been a huge part of our team, and just kind of everyone kind of got together in the off-season and kind of created -- this is my 12th season, and starting to look at -- not like we're on the back end of a career, but as far as like to create a little bit more opportunity. I was going to be the guy that -- man, the way that I was playing and kind of the way I managed my game, I was going to be that 100th on the FedExCup, never really pushed the gas, never really played aggressive enough when I was given a situation.

Kind of the idea of 2022 was to create some variance. Instead of trying to be the same person week in, week out, kind of go with a little bit more aggressive game plan, and when a course matched up or conditions matched up to what I do best in my game, kind of build a plan from there.

Q. When you went and played last night down the road, did you work on anything? You talked about wanting to play more and that's how you work on your game. Were you working on anything or just having some fun?

SCOTT STALLINGS: No, we were just having some fun. It was funny, we were playing with a couple of the caddies and a member that's over there. I was looking real average real quick, hitting some kind of loose shots here and there, and next thing you know, they said, y'all want to have a little match? One of the caddies that caddies for Denny McCarthy, the very first hole of our little match, he's like, boys, the lights just came on, and I made a few birdies. So we had a good time.

But I prefer to work on my game like that. I'm not a range guy. I understand there's a time and a place, and I'll probably even go hit a couple just to kind of cool down tonight. But it was a fun afternoon to kind of get away from here and kind of enjoy the game, and that place is incredible, and they've been an unbelievable host to us this week, as well as here.

Q. How often do you do that during a tournament?

SCOTT STALLINGS: Not very often. It kind of depends on the experience and kind of where we're going. The idea of throwing on some shorts and sitting in a golf cart riding around hitting a few shots, I don't know what order of holes we played, but they were not in the correct order. Basically told the guys that as soon as we start waiting, I'm done.

I think we made it 14 or 15 holes and packed it in, kind of -- it was time for dinner for everybody.