THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY WORKDAY

June 2, 2023

David Lipsky

Muirfield Village

Quick Quotes

Q. What was working in your round today?

DAVID LIPSKY: I really took advantage of the par-5s. That's sort of my game plan the whole week. Play the tough holes in even par, or try to. Try to avoid big numbers out here because they can creep up on you fast, and just score when you can. There's a bunch of short par-4s. There's obviously four par-5s that you can get to. So you just need to really take advantage of those to post a number.

Q. Everyone struggled with 16, 17, 18. You bogeyed the first two of those. Just the fact they're tough holes?

DAVID LIPSKY: Yeah, I mean, I made like a couple marginal swings on those holes and that's what happens. When you're playing a 220-yard par-3 water left and dead right. So it's not easy, but it's fair and I think if I just -- if you pull off the shots you get rewarded.

Q. At one point I think you had a three-shot lead. Were you even aware of that?

DAVID LIPSKY: It's Friday. It was Friday morning. I don't think it really matters that much. If I have a three-shot lead on Sunday I think I'll care more about that then.

Q. For you personally, did you have -- obviously going late afternoon into early morning, did you have a prevailing positive thought that kind of ended your day that kind of helped you today?

DAVID LIPSKY: Not necessarily. A lot of it is just carryover from last week and Colonial. I was inside the top 10 or top 5 or something until my last nine holes and, you know, it's golf. But my game feels like it's in a good place, so I tried not to change too much and just keep going from there.

Q. On 3, from the rough you were able to get in for birdie. Just what did you see on that shot to just be able to find the back of the hole there?

DAVID LIPSKY: I actually, my caddie and I misclubbed off the tee and we got way too close to the end of the fairway. I was on like a slight down slope there. I tried to hit a nice little lob wedge, but it came out a little quick, one hopped over and into the rough. I got fortunate, caught a decent lie where I could get the club on the back of the ball. I sort of like those shots, sort of you just chop at it, it comes out soft and it worked out for me.

Q. Couple top 10s this year as well as last week you were flirting there. What is that feeling and what have you been learning from those experiences that could help you this weekend?

DAVID LIPSKY: This game's tough. I'm coming off of like a little bit of a bad stretch, I would say. But good golf's right around the corner and that's what I kept telling myself. I kept working hard, believing in what I'm doing and that's where I'm at and that's why I'm here.

Q. Doesn't seem like anything's been distracting you up to this point. Weather, is that a factor for you at all, as far as the heat's concerned?

DAVID LIPSKY: No, the hotter, the better for me. I played a ton of golf on the Asian Tour and this is like a nice winter day to compared to Malaysia or Singapore.

Q. So would you prefer to tee off in the afternoon group today seeing as we're looking at highs in the 90s?

DAVID LIPSKY: Well, yeah, it looks like I'll probably be off in the afternoon tomorrow. It's not too cold in the morning, but, no, I definitely like it warm.

Q. Including a loud speaker noise when you were about to try your birdie putt there on 18. That was no distraction at all?

DAVID LIPSKY: It happens. It's no different than like some drunk fan yelling. So it's all good.

Q. Has anything like that ever happened where you're about to approach a putt and all of a sudden some sort of malfunction or something crazy hams that distracts you possibly?

DAVID LIPSKY: I remember I was playing, when I was playing the Asian Tour I was playing in Indonesia and the one of the Muslim prayers kept going off right when I was about to pull the trigger. I never heard that before. But it's something you deal with and you just work with it.

Q. You mentioned playing around the world and you're a big foodie. I mean, what makes you so like adventurous when it comes to food? Like why do you enjoy being adventurous with your food choices?

DAVID LIPSKY: I'm from a multi-ethnic background. My whole family's in the restaurant business. I think that leads a lot to why I make the choices I do. I don't shy away from too much. There are a few things, but no, not too much.

Q. What would maybe be a couple of the more like unique eating like experiences that you've had?

DAVID LIPSKY: I mean, there's been a lot. I remember playing in Vietnam and I had snake liquor from a restaurant. There's a snake at the bottom of this barrel and that was it. They were distilling some alcohol and the owner gave us a couple shots. It was terrible. But I still took it.

Q. Have you got a first-time-I-met-Jack kind of moment?

DAVID LIPSKY: Yeah, I do. I remember, so I played golf at Northwestern. Our team would go down in the winters to West Palm and because of Luke Donald, who is a member at the Bear's Club. So we went out and practiced with him. Jack was there or Mr. Nicklaus, I should say. He was gracious enough to talk to the entire team, that's when I first met him.

Q. Did you ever imagine then you were going to be playing in this tournament?

DAVID LIPSKY: I hoped. (Laughing.) But, you know, it's one of the tournaments I grew up watching on TV all the time. Someplace I've always wanted to play and compete.

Q. I guess when you're drinking snake alcohol in Malaysia and Vietnam are you thinking about playing here then?

DAVID LIPSKY: You're not thinking about too much actually, I can guarantee you that.

Q. It's been a long journey to get here. Graduated from school, takes you a long time to get to the TOUR. Can you kind of describe that journey and the challenges, I'm sure it took a lot of determination and resolve to overcome adversity to do that?

DAVID LIPSKY: Yeah, for sure. I missed Q-School in 2011 to get into the PGA TOUR or WEB.COM then to -- went to the Asian Tour. Played pretty well out there. Jumped back to the WEB.COM and jumped back to the Asian Tour. Then got my European Tour card, played out there for years. And then took a gamble and -- because I had a pretty decent career out in Europe to play the Korn Ferry Tour, because this is where I want to be. I took a gamble, it paid off and second year on TOUR, so life's good.

Q. How many tours have you played?

DAVID LIPSKY: I played in probably events sanctioned by almost every tour in the world.

Q. How many continents?

DAVID LIPSKY: I played on everything but Antarctica.

Q. Were there times you got discouraged and thought is this going to happen for me, because you're in your 30s now.

DAVID LIPSKY: Yeah, I mean, for sure. But, you know, I think everyone has doubts. But it's how you face that, how you overcome it and how you deal with it that matters.