KITCHENAID SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 25, 2024

Jason Caron

Quick Quotes

Harbor Shores

Q. PGA of America golf professional Jason Caron with us now at the 84th KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship. Jason, 7-under overall after three rounds. How you feeling about your round today?

JASON CARON: Obviously great. You know, hit the ball pretty nice today. I think I drove it the best I have in the three days, which I still think that's the most important thing when I play golf, is if I drive it good I can set myself up a little bit easier instead of hitting out of the rough, which I'm not this good at.

I drove it good; putted the ball well. Really happy pretty much for how I stand.

Q. Do the competitive juices get right back flowing in you?

JASON CARON: Yeah. Listen, I love playing golf, especially competitive golf. You want to be somewhat near the lead if you can when playing an event, but I have a job and some things are a lot different. I got a family.

So this is just an added bonus coming out and playing with these greats, and to be able to compete and be where I am on the leaderboard is pretty fun.

Q. And you're out there playing today and we see an eagle pop up at 7. Take us through that.

JASON CARON: Yeah, so I didn't hit my best drive but went dead straight. I had like what -- did we have? Like 173, but it plays uphill. We thought, once it gets over the dunes it's probably even heavier wind. So I don't carry a 5-iron anymore. I carry another head cover, which is a 5-hybrid, and my brother, who is caddieing for me, Nate, was like, look, it's just a nice one. You don't need to murder it.

Hit the shot and got it going a little left, but not bad. I mean, on a normal hole, right, if you could see it flat it would be a good shot. But I guess it hit in the rough and kicked down, and then all my family and friends were there jumping up and down and rooting for it to go, go, go, and I guess at last turned and went in.

Q. You're not seeing it; you're just getting their reactions.

JASON CARON: Yeah, I got reactions. Yeah, so pretty neat.

Q. That hole owed you from yesterday.

JASON CARON: Yeah, it did. Yesterday hit probably the best drive I hit maybe the whole week. Because that's a tough kind of hole for not only driving, but your second shot, and I smoked it and it was just right of the bunker.

Get up there and it was just in the rough by about a foot, but the grass is lying against me. It was only a pitching wedge, but obviously I'm not strong enough I guess to rip it out there.

Just came up short and kind of plugged in the junk, and couple shots later you make it six.

Q. And what do you like about this golf course?

JASON CARON: What I like about it? I mean, everything. The golf course is in great shape. Green speeds aren't crazy fast. I'm good friends and Brett Quigley and I asked him preparing for this, we're not really in Long Island; we got speedy greens yet. The weather has been kind of iffy.

He said, they're not going to be crazy, but they're going to be really good. And they are. Like a perfect speed.

I feel like it doesn't scare me at all with the speed of the greens. But the layout is solid. I'm just trying to pick targets, trying to play a little bit more instinctive golf instead of thinking about how to bring the club back straight or whatever it has to be to hit the ball where it needs to go.

Q. Can you talk maybe about if you experience any mental pressure going into a round how do you cope with that?

JASON CARON: It's interesting, I think we put it on ourselves mostly. I was pretty nervous the first two days. I think mostly it's because you have those I would say a little bit of that negative thought, how am I going to play, have I prepped enough.

I think that like today I was so relieved that yesterday was over -- and we finished in the dark -- and so I was like really relieved. My body was really kind of tired this morning.

I just said, we're just going to have fun. That's all I can do really, and see what happens.

But did I tell myself, it would be nice to double your score. So if I'm 3-under can I get to 6? I got one better, so that's even nicer.

Q. Yeah. Can you talk about how you're feeling going into the final tomorrow and maybe the last time you'll play here?

JASON CARON: Yeah, listen, I'm going to try to do the same thing I did today: just have fun. This is like a family trip for us, so it's more about being with them. We'll see what happens. Tomorrow, it's tomorrow.

Q. Take us a little bit through the -- it's been a dream week. You got so many people here; you're great. You guys have a rented house or how did you do it?

JASON CARON: Yeah, so, which is kind of nice for this event, is that we qualified in October, and I actually got in as an alternate so I was even more excited that I got through that.

So I just reached out to the PGA. They helped me with getting in touch with someone that I think she works at Whirlpool or KitchenAid, one of the two I guess or under the same umbrella.

She got right back to me. Sure enough, we rented the place. I got my mom and dad here. My brother is caddieing for me, and my wife and two little girls, too. It's been awesome. I got a cousin that came out and another good friend, so it's really cool.

Q. Do you let yourself tomorrow start the day thinking about winning this thing?

JASON CARON: I hope not actually because I think then I probably won't sleep that well. I just want to go have fun. Again, I'm trying to look at my kids as much as possible just to say, hey, that's what this is really about truly, and not thinking what I could do or what this would do for me.

Really I like my job. I don't really want to be doing this every week to be honest. I tried a long time ago and it was great, I loved it, but things have changed. I kind of like what I do now. Mill River has been amazing to me and my family. So, yeah.

Q. I think you are tied as the low club pro with Tim Schmidt. Know him, any experience with him?

JASON CARON: I don't, I don't. The club pros, you know, if they're not in our section really -- we don't get to play with everybody too often unless it's a big event for the PGA of America or some stuff in Florida. Offhand I don't know him.

Q. As we saw you in the top 10 and all that, we started doing some casual digging at past results and history of PGA pros here, and that led us to '93 when Tom Wargo, PGA professional won this thing. Curious if you knew of that or...

JASON CARON: I didn't. No, I didn't. Listen, I know there's a couple guys that were PGA members. I know Dana Quigley won on this about 15 times and some other guys, too. Someone won the U.S. Open maybe as well.

Listen, this stuff could happen. Even if I won I don't know if I would play that much to be honest. Because, again, I like kind of -- I want to see my kids grow up. This is just bonus. That's all I'm really thinking about is that it's a nice experience for our family and whatever comes with it comes with it.