MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 12, 2024

Jose Maria Olazabal

Quick Quotes

Q. José María, 35 holes were great, and there was one that kind of caught you.

JOSÉ MARÍA OLAZÁBAL: Yeah, I paid dearly, I have to say. Yes, just a pity. I played really good golf today. It was just a shame that I put a bad swing on 12. As simple as that. It cost me dearly. I made a triple there.

I still kept on fighting, but I think I'm going to be just a little shy of making the cut.

I have to say that -- I can say I'm proud of the way I played today and the way I handled myself on the golf course.

Q. You've played around here enough to know that these kind of conditions are probably very difficult conditions for anybody. Can you talk about how hard it is to play out there?

JOSÉ MARÍA OLAZÁBAL: Well, I don't think it gets any tougher than this, to be honest. This golf course with this amount of wind, even though the greens are a little bit softer, I mean, you really don't know where the wind is coming from, what the wind is doing. Some of the times you are guessing how the ball is going to react up in the air.

Around the greens it's very difficult to control the distance, the pace on the greens. From 1 to 10, I would give it an 11.

Q. When you come here, obviously you're hoping to make the cut. You want to make the cut. How hard is it to leave here knowing that you only got two rounds in?

JOSÉ MARÍA OLAZÁBAL: I can live with it. I know that the chances are very slim for us to make the cut playing in these conditions and especially with these young players that hit the ball so far.

But you know, as I said before, I leave the grounds with head held high. I played really good golf two days. It's true that I made a couple of bad mistakes that cost me dearly, but apart from that, when I came here early in the week, I would have never imagined I would be able to play the level of golf I played today.

Q. Talk about Lorenzo, how that relationship came about.

JOSÉ MARÍA OLAZÁBAL: Well, we were playing a charity pro-am in Greece, and actually he told me he would love to caddie for me for a few weeks because he's playing the Challenge Tour but he doesn't have a good category for it, so he knew he wouldn't be able to play until May, and well, I said to him, well, listen, I'm going to play four tournaments before that. If you're happy to do so, let's do it.

On top of it, he wanted to be here at Augusta. He's never been here at Augusta. Well, I think he got a good taste of what Augusta is about.

Q. How good is it for him to have that experience with you?

JOSÉ MARÍA OLAZÁBAL: Well, you should ask him that. I think he's seen things, seen also the driving range. He spent some time watching some of the top players hitting balls, how they hit the shots and how they control the ball flight and all that. I think he learned quite a bit.