FEDEX ST. JUDE CHAMPIONSHIP

August 13, 2023

Taylor Montgomery

TPC Southwind

Quick Quotes

Q. Taylor, you said you've been fighting your swing. Has there been a particular miss, I guess, or certain aspect to it that has just been a little bit of a mystery?

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: Yeah, I mean, I've been diving into it, and then when you dive into it, you've kind of got to back out of it. It's the same move that I had my second year of Korn Ferry. Sure enough, the projections are probably going to be close to, about the same as when I finished 26th out there.

It's really hard. I will say I don't think anybody else is shooting what I'm shooting from where I'm playing from. Even the guys that I played with and my caddie is like, you're the best scorer I've ever seen in my life. I think I am a really good scorer of the ball, but to be a top-tier player and move to the next level, you have to clean things up.

There's a reason why the top 10 guys are who they are. It's because they do every aspect of the game really good. Obviously we're all trying to do that, but it would be nice to get to that next level.

Q. You knew the situation during the break, what you felt you had to do at 18?

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: Yeah, I mean, I'm normally pretty good in those situations, but it's really hard when you have no confidence over the ball, like tee-shot-wise, and I was fine with my tee shot, at least gave myself a chance. This week I felt like I was playing almost Bubba golf where I was aiming way right and way left because wherever I was aiming it wasn't going there.

I'm happy with the way that I kind of fought back after the start that I had and gave myself a chance at least.

Q. Obviously you've been on the bubble a couple times on KFT. How does the pressure of this bubble compare to being there a couple times?

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: I think it's just all whatever you put into your head. If you tell yourself and think about all the good things that come from being top 50 on the TOUR, which obviously it's a lot, I think if you think about it that way, you're going to feel a lot of pressure. But it's all about kind of tricking yourself in a sense and being able to control your mind in those situations, which sometimes I'm good at and sometimes not.

I think that's kind of how everybody is.

Q. Out on Korn Ferry you're obviously fighting for a card. You've got your card locked up this year regardless of how it finishes. Do you take away more positives this week than you have in past times when you've been close to making it and missing out?

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: Yeah. I mean, my golf game comes down to one thing, whether I'm going to start hitting it good or not. If I hit it good, I'm going to be right there pretty much every week.

But if not, then it's going to be the same ol' grind and try your hardest and try to fit through the bubble.

Q. Consolation is that what happened on KFT kept you from playing the PGA TOUR; in this regard, you're locked up. It's not quite the same consequence --

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: Oh, no, definitely not. It's not like that. Obviously I've had a great year. I've probably made over $2 million this year playing golf. I mean, my life is great.

You can't be too sad about it. Would I have liked to finish inside the top 50 and maybe gave another run at it next week? Yeah. But at the same time, I feel like I need to start this golf swing thing to maybe help myself out a little bit.

Q. What do you do with that over the off-season?

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: Well, my bad move right now is I get to the top and my head dives down and left and then I back out of it. I tried changing it in the middle of the season, and obviously that's kind of where the bad run started, and then for the last month now I've tried to not think about it as much and just try to play golf to see if I could get through that top 50 bubble and maybe just go back to playing golf.

But it's so hard. When you're trying to -- over every tee shot, there's so much concentration just because of how bad some of the shots that you hit, I mean, out here you just can't do that. You've kind of got to know where the ball is going.

I felt like this week I did pretty good, but like I said, earlier I was trying to play Bubba golf where I was aiming way right and way left and trying to manipulate it in the fairway.

Q. Will you play Vegas maybe?

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: Yeah, I'll play Vegas. I'm thinking about probably playing three or four maybe, kind of depending on how things go. Just go on to the next.