THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 15, 2024

JT Poston

TPC Sawgrass

Quick Quotes

Q. Hot start to your round but I know things kind of shifted towards the end. What did change towards the ends of your round?

JT POSTON: What changed at the edged of the round? It's just a hard golf course. You have to hit fairways, and both bogeys I made I missed it pretty far right and just was in a bad spot. Didn't really have much to really even give myself a chance to get it up-and-down by the green, so both times were kind of chop-outs or chip-outs.

The golf course, you can make birdies if you're hitting it in the fairway. It's scorable, greens are great, they're soft, but if you get out of position, it's still tricky enough.

Q. You made a handful of long putts out there. How crucial was it to see those putts drop early on in the day?

JT POSTON: Yeah, the putter is a strength of mine and so it's nice to see some go in early. I feel like I haven't quite putted my best the last maybe week or last handful of rounds, but I feel like something sort of clicked a little bit yesterday with some of the longer ones and my speed's been better and that usually helps. So, yeah, it was good to see them go in and hopefully do it next couple days.

Q. Seems like you enjoy the front side more than the back side?

JT POSTON: Yeah, yeah. Played the front better today, played the back better yesterday, it's just kind of how the golf course I think plays. Like I said, you got to hit it in the fairway, and the front I was hitting fairways and hitting it close to the hole and made some nice putts, and the back was a little bit more scrambling.

Q. Not a ton of guys in front of you and the leader but obviously a decent separation in shots. How do you handle that mentally when maybe one guy's way out there but you're still T-5 or whatever it is?

JT POSTON: Yeah, Wyndham's obviously playing great golf. I'm sure he'll keep that going this weekend. Got to feel like we got to make a lot of birdies and kind of keep the pedal down. Anything can happen on this golf course. There's still some big numbers lurking. There's still some tough shots that you have to step up and hit.

As far as tomorrow goes, not going to try and change too much, just try and keep playing well and hopefully finish one of these rounds off and kind of see where we are Sunday.

Q. There's been some chatter about the 17th hole, sort of the rim of I guess it would be like the rough around the green there. Have you noticed any difference this year with that?

JT POSTON: I feel like it's always kind of been that way. If there wasn't any rough there, as soft as the greens are and as fast as they have them, it would be backed up pretty good there, I feel like. A lot of golf balls would end up in the water, especially yesterday. I mean, even, you know, you could make the argument you got to control your spin and I agree and I think guys try to do a pretty good job of that, but they're just so soft, it's kind of hard to keep it from coming backwards once it goes.

Q. Other than 17 is there another shot that makes you nervous?

JT POSTON: There's a bunch. People don't talk about how hard 18 is, and especially with the wind today, it's in off the left, so it's easy to hit it over there right and right's not good. You just kind of have to step up and hit a really good tee ball there.