THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY WORKDAY

June 2, 2023

Patrick Cantlay

Muirfield Village

Quick Quotes

Q. Yesterday I asked Jon Rahm about this golf course and he said it kind of takes driver out of his hands or out of the players' hands. Is that unique on TOUR or is this something that comes across more often?

PATRICK CANTLAY: Maybe for him. I hit a lot of drivers around this place. But there's a nice mix of holes, some lay up holes and some holes where the driver is a really tight fit. So you do have to put the ball in the fairway. So I can understand taking some 3-woods off the tees to make sure you do play from the fairway.

Q. As someone who takes every shot at a time and round at a time what it gives you, playing yesterday afternoon and you know that this is a morning to take advantage, are you conscious of that or do you just go play?

PATRICK CANTLAY: A little bit, but it's pretty obvious when you're out there yesterday afternoon that birdies are hard to come by. I think I made 15 pars and felt really good about it. There were a lot of holes playing difficult in the afternoon yesterday. I imagine that's what it's going to be like this weekend.

Q. But you don't have a target score in mind or how many birdies you need to make? I just wonder if it put any extra pressure on you knowing this is good weather?

PATRICK CANTLAY: Not really, but when you get today, like this morning, which was a warm morning but not a lot of wind, yeah, the golf course is scorable.

Q. You stay in the moment. I'm just curious, like yesterday, how hard is it to not be impacted or affected when a guy's struggling like that? I mean, you just -- do you stay in your lane, is that essentially it?

PATRICK CANTLAY: Yeah, just trying to do as best I can and stay as focused as I can. These golf tournaments are marathons, so as much as you can click in and focus on every shot, that's really my goal.

Q. What was your best shot today, do you think? Which one did you like the most?

PATRICK CANTLAY: Believe it or not, I hit a really nice 6-iron on 16 that landed pin high and bounced over the green. But that might have been my best swing.

Q. How did that look in the air?

PATRICK CANTLAY: It looked great.

Q. Did you think you were going to have to work that hard for a 3?

PATRICK CANTLAY: No.

Q. You've had a few tournaments with Joe now. How's it been going and have you noticed anything that's maybe been different that might have helped you?

PATRICK CANTLAY: It's been great.

Q. Has he given you a different perspective, perhaps?

PATRICK CANTLAY: Yeah, Joe's a professional and does a great job out there. So it's been really nice having him on the bag.

Q. How often do you play with Hideki?

PATRICK CANTLAY: I haven't played with him in a while. We were laughing about that. But I seem to have played with him a few times around this place.

Q. What caused you to laugh?

PATRICK CANTLAY: Just that it had been a long time since we had played together.

Q. And you had that conversation that led --

PATRICK CANTLAY: Could have been nine months or a year.

Q. But the fact is you had a conversation that led up to that laughter.

PATRICK CANTLAY: Yeah.

Q. He's not a big talker? I mean, look, I know there's a language barrier and he understands probably way more than we let on, but is he fun to play with?

PATRICK CANTLAY: Yeah, I enjoy playing with Hideki. He's a great player, he's a gentleman, and I've enjoyed all my time with him.

Q. Who would you guess enjoys this course more, if you had to put it down between the two of you? Because that seems to be kind of the one thread is that you both really, really like this golf course.

PATRICK CANTLAY: That's a good question. It is one of my favorites, so I always look forward to this week.