THE AMERICAN EXPRESS

January 19, 2023

Jon Rahm

PGA WEST Pete Dye Stadium Course

Quick Quotes

Q. Did you get everything you wanted out of today's 64?

JON RAHM: Yeah, give me enough time I'll be picky about a lot of things. But it's a great start to the tournament. You can't really win it on this golf course, but you can sure fall off the pace. It's a great start, solid round of golf, great putting out there. Hopefully I can keep that going the whole week and feel a little bit better tee to green.

Q. You mentioned yesterday that this is usually the easiest course here, but when the wind blows it can be the hardest. But with tomorrow the wind's coming up a little bit, are you happy to be done here and moving on?

JON RAHM: I'm happy I played this golf course in these easy of conditions. And, yeah, it can show some teeth because some of those fairways are quite narrow to hit. Missing fairways, it's not going to cost you too much, but you can't be throwing darts like you usually do off the fairway here. If you put it in the fairway you have a short iron in. If you start getting gusts, it can get away from you. Mainly because it's a golf course where you can shoot of 5- or lower pretty often and if you play the other courses on pace and don't shoot low here you can find yourself just a little bit off of the lead group. We all have to play all courses. If it's blowing tomorrow on Nicklaus, Nicklaus can also show some teeth. It all evens out.

Q. What was your best shot today?

JON RAHM: Tough to know. I wouldn't say I had my absolute best out there, but I have to say the best shot should be the second shot on 11. That 3-wood to eight feet I think was, by far helped to change momentum from the missed putt on 9 and a pretty silly bogey on 10. To hit that 3-wood and get things back on track was needed.

Q. Coming off Hawaii and with your play today 8-under, seems like you can't be beat out there. Do you ever think that you're going to be beat? Right now you're the prohibitive favorite to win the tournament. Just how much confidence is in your game right now?

JON RAHM: Very confident. I think it showed out there. I didn't have my best. I didn't find myself in the fairway very often through the round, but was able to get birdies out of it. And that's the beauty of that.

Yeah, I mean I would like people to think that it's hard to beat me and almost impossible because, again, if I don't have my A game and I'm shooting rounds like this it should be a pretty good year.

Q. You won here four, five years ago. How much confidence does that give you going the rest of the way, knowing that you won here before? And how bad would you want to get another one? That would be two wins in three weeks for you.

JON RAHM: Really badly. But I could say what gives me more confidence is I never finished outside the top 14 in this tournament. I've been consistent every single time and I've given myself a chance. So hopefully again I can just keep doing what I've been doing and find myself on Sunday with a chance.