ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL

March 5, 2023

Kurt Kitayama

Bay Hill Club and Lodge

Quick Quotes

Q. You were heading the wrong direction, where it could have got away from you. You found a way to dig it out. How hard was the fight over the last 36 holes?

KURT KITAYAMA: It was really hard. I'm going to sleep really well tonight. Yeah, it's everything I kind of mentally prepared myself for. It was pretty much as hard as I expected.

Q. Let us into a window inside your head when you walked off 16 and made that walk to the 17th tee. I know you were upset with yourself with that first putt, maybe feeling like, hey, I let one slip away. What was the talk you had with yourself there to try to get back and focused to hit that tee shot on 17?

KURT KITAYAMA: Yeah, I mean, it was just a hard putt. I gave myself a good run at it on the second one. But, I don't know, at that point there's nothing you can do. Just kind of you, see the leaderboard, you know you're still right there in it, and just focus on the next shot, really.

Q. You made almost 140 feet of putts today. It's that last inch that kind of changes everything almost instantaneously. But at the end of our call today we said, after all the continents, all the countries, it kind of ends here. What does this mean? You think back, I know it's fresh, but your journey here to do it at Arnold Palmer's home, what's this mean to you?

KURT KITAYAMA: I've always dreamed of winning on the TOUR and to finally do it, yeah, it's pretty amazing. It's pretty unbelievable, really.