THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 16, 2024

Maverick McNealy

TPC Sawgrass

Quick Quotes

Q. Another solid day today and a couple unique chip-ins in the middle of the round. How would you assess how you're feeling about the day?

MAVERICK McNEALY: I would say it was the short game Olympics today, and if it was the short game Olympics, I probably won gold. It was a really scrappy day. Front nine was really hard to get a bead on the wind, because it was kind of coming from every direction, and even some good shots were missing the greens. But held it in there really well with some good up-and-downs, took advantage of some of the reachable holes, and then started hitting it all over the place on the back nine. I'm about to head to the range and hit a bucket of balls and just get my tempo and timing and rhythm figured out.

Head got going pretty quick there on the back nine with all sorts of crazy stuff happening, but really proud of how I for the most part, except for 16, I kept it in play, kept it in front of me and gave myself a chance every hole.

Q. On the 14th in particular just the esthetic of the way the shot went in was so cool. Can you talk us through that third shot and how you were playing that?

MAVERICK McNEALY: Well, I knew from my stats guy, Hunter Stewart, he said, out of position, play short of that flag. So I knew anywhere in that short fairway was going to be okay. The pitch shot just came out perfect. It landed it right where I wanted it. It took a firmer hop than I was expecting but just firm enough to go straight in the hole, so that was a good little bonus there.

Q. You mentioned the tempo and timing going a little out of sorts middle of the round. Do you have to have any mental reset with yourself to kind of accept imperfect with what's going to happen the rest of the day, and how does that go when you are honest with yourself about that mid-round?

MAVERICK McNEALY: Well, the first thing is figure out where you can play from. Like I said, there's really only one shot where I didn't do that today and that was the third shot on 16. Walking to 17, I kind of tried to master my rhythm and tempo and walk slowly to that tee or what felt like slowly to me. Then focused on making a good kind of 80 percent effort one-to-one gap wedge. It was a perfect 117 shot for that gap wedge. It came out nice and that kind of settled things down again.