BARRACUDA CHAMPIONSHIP

July 18, 2024

Ben Silverman

Tahoe Mountain Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Great round. Leader in the clubhouse. Start off with some comments about your round today.

BEN SILVERMAN: Well, today started off just awesome because it's my oldest son's birthday today. Got to have a FaceTime with my wife and kids and talk about he had an awesome birthday breakfast and he was telling me about his birthday cards and some stuff they got for him.

Just started off great with that.

Q. Yeah, I'm sure that put you in a great mood going out on the course.

BEN SILVERMAN: Yeah.

Q. This format is obviously a little bit different. Do you have any other experience outside of Barracuda Championship with the Stableford format?

BEN SILVERMAN: No. I think the only time I've ever played it was for this event, and I played it twice when it was over at Montrose. This is my first time playing here.

This place is gorgeous. Really like this golf course. You try to put the points out of your head and just focus on making birdies and adding up your score normal.

You get rewarded for birdies and the points kind of take care of themselves. That's how you try to do it.

Q. So doesn't really change how you go out in the morning and play?

BEN SILVERMAN: I was just trying to think of it as a regular tournament, kind of low scoring. Goal is to get to 20-under or something at the end of the week and add up the points later.

Q. What parts of your game were working well for you today?

BEN SILVERMAN: Everything was good. Yeah, hit a lot of fairways, a lot of great iron shots were caddie and I, Kop, we had I think the elevation dialed in really well, we were able to pick some numbers that kind of freed me up and hit some really close shots. Made some good putts. It was all kind of working nicely.

Q. Is this the normal conditions you're used to here? Feels a little extra hot.

BEN SILVERMAN: I mean, although if you were here at 6:00 a.m. you wouldn't say that. It was like 50 or 45 this morning. It's warm, dry. The course is going to get firm as the week goes on, which is going to be cool.

So it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out.

Q. This is your third start here in Tahoe. Is this a city you you like coming to?

BEN SILVERMAN: I love it. Spent summers as a kid going to Vancouver British Columbia where my mom was from and love being around the mountains any time I get a chance.