THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 16, 2024

Doug Ghim

TPC Sawgrass

Quick Quotes

Q. When did "better than most" enter your mind?

DOUG GHIM: It was actually funny that you asked that because Shane told me that -- it seems like you have the better-than-most shot coming up. It seemed like ours was a little harder because it was in the rough and it was a chip and it was not a great lie. But man, it looked better on TV than it did in person.

Q. The celebration, were you channeling Tiger at all?

DOUG GHIM: No, it was more of just -- it was a mixture of a lot of things. Obviously it's pretty sick to see it in real time and watch it go in. It kind of came out just how I hoped it would. It was also part relief that I didn't have a par putt coming back.

There was a lot of different emotions, but obviously needed a good round today to have any chance. Obviously would probably need some help. But just glad to give myself the best chance I felt like I could going into today.

Q. You've had a little bit of success out here, played pretty well in 2022. What do you like about this course as it matches up to your game?

DOUG GHIM: I just like the fact that it doesn't really feel like there's a bias towards anybody. I feel like you just -- if you hit it straight, it benefits you. If you hit it long, it benefits you. If you putt it well, it benefits you. If you're good around the greens. I just feel like it's very demanding. I feel like there are other places in the world where distance is always a thing, and I feel like here -- obviously when you look at the list of champions, there's plenty of different types of players, and I feel like when I step on the first tee, I have every much of a chance as everybody else.

Q. You played the Junior PLAYERS three times?

DOUG GHIM: Yes.

Q. Is there anything about that experience those three years that prepared you for --

DOUG GHIM: For sure. I remember playing in it. Obviously it was in a different time of year, so it wasn't overseeded. It was Bermuda. It's kind of like it was in May when they used to play it in May.

The funny thing was as a junior golfer I hated it here. I wasn't very good off the tee.

Q. But you kept coming back?

DOUG GHIM: Yeah, the Bermuda greens coming from Chicago is a difficult thing to get adjusted to. Obviously it being overseeded is a little bit different than Bermuda this week, so obviously it's more like bent where I'm used to. But for the most part, I've become a better driver of the ball, hopefully obviously since that was more than 10 years ago.

It was a fun experience as a junior golfer, but it's nothing close to what it's like this week.

Q. You said the lie on 17 was not great?

DOUG GHIM: Yeah, so there's a little bit of rough on the back, and obviously with the pin being there yesterday, there's a lot of traffic. A lot of people have stood. A lot of the rough was kind of burnt out and pressed away from where the hole was today. My ball had just nestled just in the area where all the grass was away, and so there was a bit of a tuft of grass behind it. There was a couple options. I pulled out putter because I didn't want to have to chip it. Then I tried to pull out a pitching wedge and see if I liked that, to try to get in trundling. I took my chances with a 56, just had a good feeling about it, and I figured worst case try to make the putt from above the ridge. Obviously it seems like it's holeable from history. Just came out perfect and just got over the ridge, and the rest was history.

Q. Was the wind getting tricky on the tee at that point?

DOUG GHIM: For sure. For most of the day it was about a southwest wind, and then it kind of flipped. It was hard to trust, obviously, because it did a 180 pretty much at the snap of a finger. Then when you get on that tee with all the stands, it's really hard to feel because certain flags on one grandstand do one thing, and then the flags on the other side do another. It gets a bit confusing.

You kind of have to play the percentages. I feel like that's what we did. We could have hit a gap wedge and I feel like there were visions of that spinning off the green like we've seen earlier in the week. Went with a percentage play, and obviously didn't come out exactly the way we planned, but a 2 is a 2.

Q. I think you're seven behind Wyndham; does that change your mentality going into tomorrow if you're eight, nine shots behind? How do you assess going into Sunday?

DOUG GHIM: Obviously I can't play defense. I can't do anything about what Wyndham or Xander or any of those players do. Again, it's a golf course that anything can happen. I think the first year I was here, both Lee Westwood and Bryson hit it in the water on 4 tee. I think Bryson topped one -- just weird things can happen. Obviously Wyndham is a great player. All those players are great players. Chances are, something amazing for me is going to have to happen tomorrow, and I'll just play the best round that I can.

I've seen it happen before, and obviously there's a lot of golf to be played today. I'll be an interested spectator to see what I've got to do tomorrow.