MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 7, 2023

Mito Pereira

Quick Quotes

Q. Mito, halfway through, looks like you're going to be sticking around tomorrow. What's your takeaways from the first two days?

MITO PEREIRA: Takeaway, this place is nice. It's tough to play it, but if you play it the right way, you'll have some opportunities.

I played solid these first two days, really solid from the tee to the green. Just my putting hasn't been really working well, but I managed to get some birdies coming in. Shot 2-under today for even par.

Pretty happy with how I ended up and just looking forward for the weekend.

Q. How would you describe, or what would you compare like the anticipation coming into this week for you? I mean, just first one, like you have to be super excited. What was that like?

MITO PEREIRA: Luckily I already have some experience in majors, so that helped me obviously a lot. But being here is always -- I mean, it's so special. You can't really hold off the nerves on the 1st tee, but when you start playing and you feel the vibe here, everybody really warms me. Like everybody is so happy to be here.

So you feel a little bit comfortable and try to play some golf.

Q. Now, there's guys here that have played 40 Masters, like Larry Mize and those guys, and there's guys that play one and then they never come back. Just knowing kind of it could be your first and last, you could play 30 more, how much are you finding yourself kind of just cherishing and soaking in like every little aspect of it?

MITO PEREIRA: So it's a fine line because obviously you're going to want to soak in everything, but at the same time, you don't want to be defensive against this place. So I'm trying to find the balance of like trying to soak it in but like try to focus and not just flutter around. So this has been good for me.

Q. What did you make on 6 today, the par-3?

MITO PEREIRA: Birdie.

Q. You birdied it?

MITO PEREIRA: Yeah.

Q. That's a tough pin.

MITO PEREIRA: It's a really tough pin. I think they'll have another one over there. I hit a really nice 8-iron to probably like 15 feet and just made the putt, one of the putts I've made in two days.

Q. Just seeing that where the pin was today, I mean, what are the challenges? Like José María was back and putted it all the way from back to front. Guys have tried to chip up.

MITO PEREIRA: It's so easy to do that on this course. There's so many slopes that, if you're out of position, sometimes just as close as you are from the pin, sometimes you have to lay it up. It's crazy to think that you have to do that, but sometimes it works, and sometimes you go for it and you can get pretty bad penalized.

Q. Lastly, going back to the first three days practice rounds, what do you think Joaquin would do if you told him, I don't want to play a practice round with you today?

MITO PEREIRA: I don't know, he'd probably laugh because he knows it's not true.

Q. Your experience at the PGA Championship last year --

MITO PEREIRA: Again?

Q. All of that, it brought you here. From there to here, you made good of it?

MITO PEREIRA: Yeah, I think that was the experience I was talking about -- PGA, U.S. Open, British Open. Big tournaments, obviously playing nicely. This one is the first time, and I think it's a little more special than the other ones.

I think I did it well, and like you said, the PGA Championship obviously helps not only for this tournament, just for every tournament.