THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 12, 2023

Alex Smalley

TPC Sawgrass

Quick Quotes

Q. Just take us through it, the whole shot.

ALEX SMALLEY: Well, I made a mess of 16. Hit a wedge over the green in the water, and then hit one too many more putts than I wanted to.

I figured I might as well just go right at it, so I think it was 134 yards. It was downwind. I was between a sand wedge and a 50-degree wedge, 56- and a 50-. I felt like if I hit the longer club I would have had to have taken something off of it and it wouldn't have had a whole lot of spin coming in downwind. I think we had 128 yards to carry that bunker, and we figured it was playing 118, 117, so I went ahead and hit a hard sand wedge.

I guess it landed right on the downslope and just went in.

Q. It was your first hole-in-one on TOUR?

ALEX SMALLEY: Yeah.

Q. First hole-in-one you've ever had?

ALEX SMALLEY: This is number four, I think.

Q. How many of those were in competition, the previous four?

ALEX SMALLEY: Three. Three of them. Well, counting today's, three of them.

Q. You really weren't going to throw -- I guess you did a fake throw in the water?

ALEX SMALLEY: My caddie told me it would be pretty funny if I kind of fake threw it in the water, so I went ahead and listened to him.

Q. But there was no way you were doing that?

ALEX SMALLEY: No, not at all, and there was no way I was teeing off on 18 with that ball, either. It's in my bag somewhere.

Q. Are your parents and sister here?

ALEX SMALLEY: Yeah, whole family is here.

Q. And what are their names?

ALEX SMALLEY: Mom is Maria, dad is Terry, sister is Katie.

Q. What did they say do you when you came out?

ALEX SMALLEY: They just said, "Way to go." Not a whole lot. I saw them walking down the cart path on 17. They seemed pretty excited. Pretty cool. It was very neat.

Q. Short of actually contending and winning this, doing something like that in your first PLAYERS championship, that's always going to be something pretty dog-gone special?

ALEX SMALLEY: Oh, absolutely. I was sweating it out Saturday morning, I guess, because I was at 2-over, and it was kind of teetering back and forth between 2-over and 1-over making the cut, and I made the cut right on the number, right on the purse, and actually if there was one more person that finished ahead of me, I wouldn't have been here this weekend. Felt kind of lucky to be here playing on Saturday and Sunday. Obviously didn't have a very good day today. Didn't play exactly how I wanted to. To play the weekend at my first PLAYERS, I feel pretty good about that.

Q. The other unusual thing about that is there's only been one hole-in-one in a final round in this tournament, Fred Couples in '97.

ALEX SMALLEY: Okay.

Q. That pin is pretty hard; it's not like the other two where they're front pins and they kind of trickled down. Is that understandable that it would be hard to get that on that pin?

ALEX SMALLEY: Yeah, anyone who hasn't been on the 17th green doesn't realize how much slope there is. That front section of the green has got a lot of slope back down to the front towards the water, and then that right side where the pin was today, there's a lot of slope going left to right.

I think this afternoon that hole is going to play tougher. Well, it was already playing tough today. But the greens are only going to get firmer. I think the wind might pick up a little bit more this afternoon, and like I said, the wind direction down and off the left, that back right section is going to get baked out, and it's going to be tough to hold the green.

I think I wouldn't be surprised if there are a number of balls that hit on the green and don't hold that green on that back right section this afternoon.