LIV GOLF TUCSON

March 17, 2023

Danny Lee

The Gallery Golf Club

Quick Quotes

Q. What pleased you, what displeased you on day one here?

DANNY LEE: Well, obviously I was playing well. I got to minus 5 today, and then I kind of had a whoopsie finish at the end. I putted a 15-footer downhill birdie putt on a short par-4, I believe it was 6 -- 7.

Q. You bogeyed 7 and 9, so yeah.

DANNY LEE: Yeah, 7. That was a big ouch. Then 9, I thought I hit a pretty good 3-wood, but it just curved too far to the right into that bunker, and that's the only place you don't want to hit.

Q. The terrain here is quite different than the comparison I'm going to give you, but the guy who designed this, he actually visited Pinehurst to remind himself and get some ideas about what the great designers do when they design a course. Are there any similarities to these green complexes that you can remember to Pinehurst No. 2 when you won as then the youngest ever U.S. Amateur champion?

DANNY LEE: Yeah, I think around the greens are very similar to Pinehurst. If you miss the green over here in a certain spot, it's almost impossible to get up-and-down. Tee to green, not so much, but around the greens, yes.

Q. Talk us through what happens next. Do you have dinner together tonight as a team? How does it work?

DANNY LEE: Except yesterday I was feeling a little tired, so I missed the team dinner yesterday, but we've been having dinner every night together, but we don't talk about any strategy or anything like that. We just talk about funny stories and just other stuff other than golf.

Q. Does that help going into a team competition but also an individual competition, because golf can be a very lonely sport.

DANNY LEE: Yes, this team thing is a whole new concept for me, but I really like it, and even -- the problem with the golf, I think, when you haven't won really like -- let's put it, if you have a horrible first round, you feel like just out of the tournament, but the LIV Golf tournaments are very different because there's always a team game. If you can put one decent round and your score counts, you can help the team to finish top 3 or win the team game. I think that's huge.

Q. Do you feel in good form and do you feel like tomorrow you could really make a move to join the leaders?

DANNY LEE: Yes, I'm hitting it well enough to do it, and I've just got to get the putter rolling.

Q. What is it with -- you've gone through a number of different putters, lengths, styles. Why did you settle where you're at now with the longer putter, and what does that help you do well?

DANNY LEE: Yeah, I tried every length, every different style, different head. I tried a whole bunch. But with the long putter, broomstick putter, it just makes me feel like I don't have to think about the technique as much, and most of the time I can start the ball on line wherever I'm looking. Only thing I've got to think about is reading the breaks right and think about the speed.

Q. A lot of guys have found the speed difficult here because the entire slope of this golf course is down toward the valley, the city of Marana. Sometimes it doesn't look downhill that way. Is there a little confusion on the greens sometimes?

DANNY LEE: Yeah. My caddie Grant has been really good with that. He will tell me where the valley is, and this one is going to be fast, and this one is going to be slow. He's been pretty good with that, so he's been helping me a lot with that today.