THE SENTRY

January 5, 2024

Ben An

Plantation Course at Kapalua

Quick Quotes

Q. 9-under par today, excellent round, if we can get some comments, please?

BEN AN: It was nice. It was kind of a stress-free. I hit it pretty good, hit a lot of greens, made a lot of good putts here and there. Yeah, seems like a few of the birdie putts were all straight-ish puts, so I made a lot of decent putts and nice to finish with a 3 on the last hole. So, overall, it just felt very comfy out there. The wind wasn't too hard, harsh on us, so that's why you saw a lot of good scores today.

Q. Speaking of that last hole, take us through that eagle.

BEN AN: Yeah, I hit a pretty good drive in the fairway, so good drive. 230 to the front was a perfect 4-iron, as long as the wind didn't blow into us. Luckily, the wind was just across right-to-left, it suits kind of my shot shape. I was aiming a little right of where I wanted to pitch it and it drew nicely and it pitched exactly where I wanted, rolled out exactly how much I wanted and to about, what, five feet. It was nice.

Q. What have you learned about this golf course here at the midway point throughout the week?

BEN AN: It's got some great views. It takes your mind a little bit off from it, which is great. You can't really focus on that for a five-hour round, it's long rounds out here, and a lot of walks. I got my breath back to normal after walking up some of the tee boxes. I love looking out there at the ocean, it feels great. On the course, it's a pretty wide-open golf course, but there's some bad stuff out there, long-ish grass, I call them cabbage fields, obviously don't want to go in there. But, overall, just scenic. I think it's great it can take my mind off a little bit and relax and focus again. It makes it a lot easier, I think.

Q. How excited are you specifically for this season and what are your goals?

BEN AN: Very excited. It's a good feeling when you know you're in all the signature events. It's so much easier to schedule your tournaments out. Compared to last year, I wouldn't get in some of the events last year, but this year, knowing that you got in a lot of events, it's a lot easier to schedule yourself. I'm very excited. I feel like I have room to get better than last year, and I feel I've been playing better than last year over the last winter, so we'll see. I'm very excited.

Q. Just two back right now. What's your thoughts going into the weekend? What's your mindset?

BEN AN: Keep making birdies. I feel like, I don't know what the forecast is like, but if it's staying like this, everyone is going to go low. Just seeing, like today, there's a lot of birdies out there, so, hopefully, can keep this up and hit some good shots and make some good putts and two more days.