U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP 2024

June 13, 2024

Matthieu Pavon

Pinehurst Resort & C.C. (Course No. 2)

Flash Interview

THE MODERATOR: Matthieu Pavon, 3-under 67. Just an opening statement on your round.

MATTHIEU PAVON: Yeah, that was a very good round. We know it's a major this week. The golf course plays tough. You really have to manage your way around. You know you're going to make mistakes, but it's all about avoiding big numbers, and obviously I made my four best swings of the day on the par-5s and dropped two putts, so it gave me a nice two eagles. It gave me a little bit of freedom today.

Q. Talk us through the eagles on 5 and 10.

MATTHIEU PAVON: Yeah, it's funny because they pretty much come when you don't really expect them. We know how tough can be the course and even if you go in two for the par-5s you really have to put the ball in the right spot, and this is all I tried, and I kind of succeed. Dropped some very nice putts comes today, too, so really a good day.

Q. You won at Torrey Pines this year, a U.S. Open course. This is a very different golf course, of course, but what is it about these tough venues that brings out the best in you?

MATTHIEU PAVON: Yeah, I don't know. As I said, it's different. It's really different than Torrey for sure. I've been crushed by the few last golf courses. Like I played terrible at Quail Hollow. I played terrible at PGA. I played terrible at Memorial, too. These type of golf courses I'm not really -- not saying ready, but I used to play like slightly easier golf courses back in Europe, so I kind of have to adjust my game, adjust my thinking. Obviously when it's really, really tough like this week, at least you know that sometimes you have to take away some pressure and some expectations and play smart to the great spots and make one or two up-and-downs when you need them. This is what really changed compared to some of the last weeks.

Q. You won earlier this year. You played well at the Masters. You've had some good moments this year. What do you like about the way you're playing in general since the start of 2024, whether it's how you're hitting or what you're seeing out there, that kind of thing?

MATTHIEU PAVON: Yeah. My game this year is quite good overall. I had a few weeks down, but it happens in a year.

Yeah, you have stuff that you kind of have to adjust for the PGA TOUR. I wasn't, like, let's say fully prepared for this. Short game needs to be really tighter here. This is where I can see the biggest difference.

I practiced 15 days ago with my putting coach, who came to see me in Florida, and we had to adjust on some way to practice on the greens here. They are faster, slopier, grainier. Nothing that I really experienced before in Europe. We really tweaked the program we had together, and we just adjusted it, and it feels like today it really helped me, the work I achieved the last 15 days. It really helped me today to get good putting.

Q. Just to follow up on that, what were the adjustments you did make for putting with the slopier greens, the faster greens?

MATTHIEU PAVON: Yeah, it's not really technical. It's more about seeing breaks because when it's slower, when you have less break, the ball doesn't move as much as here. Here it's really -- it's steep, it's fast, it's grainy, so the ball moves quite a lot. You have a lot of curves on the green. It was all about understanding how much I have to aim away from the hole and how nice I have to adjust my pace to really putt in a way I wasn't used to which is like a dead-weight type of putting, like very at the last drop, and before I was more kind of aggressive. It was really something I had to adjust.

Q. When you made the bogey on 16, you came up to 17 tee, and I noticed you grabbed a tee to the right of the tee marker, put it in your mouth and chewed it and then used it. Is that something that you do typically?

MATTHIEU PAVON: No, no, it's just I grabbed -- when I'm waiting on the par-3, usually I don't use my tee pegs because they are brand new. I just take an old one and I just put it in my mouth. So it was nothing really special. It was nothing special at all.

Q. What was your confidence level coming into this week after having some bad results recently?

MATTHIEU PAVON: To be fair, it wasn't the highest so far this season. But new week, new opportunity. I felt like I'm still working on the right direction with my team, so it's just about all focus is on the process. You know you're going to have hard times and better days, and when I came here, I felt like around the greens it was really something that we've seen in Europe. Let's say you can putt a lot. You don't have to carry the ball. There is not like thick rough. This is like a linksey, let's say, type of golf course. It looked a little bit familiar, and this is probably why I enjoyed so much being out there today.

Q. Who is your putting coach?

MATTHIEU PAVON: My putting coach's name is Jon Karlsen. He has many guys on Tour, mostly DP Tour guys, and he's like the main putting coach for the Swedish amateur team.

Q. What were the clubs that you hit into the two par-5s that you made eagle?

MATTHIEU PAVON: I hit 4-iron down the 5th and 3-wood on 10.