ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL

March 3, 2023

Matt Fitzpatrick

Bay Hill Club and Lodge

Quick Quotes

Q. How would you characterize your round today?

MATT FITZPATRICK: I played really well. That's as good as I've felt I've hit it tee to green in a long time. So I was really, really, really pleased with that. It would have been nice to hole a few more putts but managed to sneak one on 17 there at the end. It was a good round overall.

Q. In these conditions how good does that feel to say that that's as good as you've hit it in a while?

MATT FITZPATRICK: Yeah, massively. I knew it was going to be tough today. I was looking at the he weather and seeing that it's going to get gusty. I think it kind of died down a little bit in the middle of our round, which was quite nice. But just really, really pleased with the way I hit it after the last few weeks, really.

Q. How much did it die down in that middle of the round from early on in the round?

MATT FITZPATRICK: Definitely it did quit a lot. Certainly around the turn I felt that there was a couple shots that maybe didn't go as we anticipated. I didn't get the wind that we thought we might. But on the whole I thought it was pretty easy to navigate in terms of direction and stuff. Fortunately, it kind of stayed the same way the whole day, so that was nice.

Q. How is the neck feeling?

MATT FITZPATRICK: Yeah, it's all right. Yeah, it's okay. It's better than it was at Riviera. It's just like a slow thing. I've got to be really careful with it. I try not to kind of overdo it, overload it. Just working with my guy every day to make sure that it's all right.

Q. You know how this place gets over the weekend. Obviously the wind will die down. They will probably ratchet this place up a little bit. What's your mindset heading into the weekend knowing how difficult the course will probably get?

MATT FITZPATRICK: It's just the same as the first two days. I absolutely love this place. I think for me the biggest thing is it's about fairways and greens. You just got to plot your way around. You can't be too aggressive. That's all you can do. You just got to be patient.

That's one thing I've learned about this place is pars are good scores and if you can make a couple putts, then all of a sudden you turn a good score into a great one and all of a sudden you're charging up the leaderboard.