U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 14, 2024

Garrett Engle

Hazeltine National Golf Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Did you feel like this match was never going to end?

GARRETT ENGLE: I kind of got that vibe on No. 1 with the extra holes.

Q. Like up-and-down?

GARRETT ENGLE: On 1, he got up-and-down from like 40 yards. He hit this pitch shot. You can't draw it up any better. Takes one hop, goes 60 feet from the pin, and rips back 40 yards to like a foot. And I actually hit my putt up to like 7 feet. He was in the driver's seat at that point, and I made that 7-footer.

At that point -- I was dead on 18 and somehow made par to extend it to extra holes. After hole 1, I was like this is probably going to go a long way. So just keep my wits about me and keep fighting.

Q. What else stands out about 5 and 6?

GARRETT ENGLE: Definitely 6, I hit it way right off the tee. It was in the middle of the fairway.

Q. You missed a shorty on 5?

GARRETT ENGLE: I did, yeah, misread a putt on 5.

Q. You were already pissed off?

GARRETT ENGLE: Pissed off, hit a bad tee shot on 6. Hit it in the greenside bunker right. If you know where that greenside bunker is right, I thought it was going to go in the water to be honest. I thought it was going to be on the downslope in the hazard for sure. I hit a super clippy bunker shot and caught the edge of the hole.

He tapped it in. I conceded par. Had about 15 feet and made it. I was like, all right, let's keep going now. Then I was able to close it out on 7. It was a grind for sure.

Q. Were you pleased with the chip you hit on 7? Obviously he hits it through into the bunker. You knew you just had to leave yourself an uphill putt from like 10 feet?

GARRETT ENGLE: For sure, for sure. My ball was sitting on a really downgrain portion of the rough, and it was actually kind of teed up. I really wanted to be conservative, because if I got underneath that at all, it's just going to come out and literally go off the front.

I knew the position and just tried to dump it out, and I did.

Q. You had such a good summer. Winner at Dogwood, runner-up at Porter Cup. What are you trying to prove to maybe yourself this week or to other people?

GARRETT ENGLE: I proved a lot to myself at Dogwood that I can do this. Now I kind of want to prove to everybody that I can do this at this stage.

My motto has kind of been fight. I've been behind the eight ball all week. I played the rest of the golf course, other than the last three holes in stroke play, like 6-over par or something like that, or 4-over par. Then at the end be able to fight and find a way through. Then 25 holes today fought and found a way through to the next. Survive and advance and keep fighting.

Q. Clipping these bunker shots and chips and stuff around the green, is that something that maybe when you were younger, your grip kept you from truly being amazing at that?

GARRETT ENGLE: It's been difficult. I don't think it's necessarily the grip, but I play with a pretty closed face. It's not necessarily because of the grip, but it's just difficult to get the club to sit right for it to open.

Once I was able to kind of convince myself that you can lay it flat like this, I've done a lot better with it the last year, and I've kind of unlocked the ability to hit shots, especially when I'm under pressure.

Q. That's just in the last year or so?

GARRETT ENGLE: That's been one of the big improvements as of late in my game.

Q. (Indiscernible)?

GARRETT ENGLE: Mostly playing and keep going out and hitting a bunch of extra shots. I'll practice on the course and just go out and throw it up in the air from a spot that you should never be, and it's helped out a lot.

Q. How much has Blaine meant to you just kind of instilling some confidence that maybe was lost? You're a top junior. You go to Oklahoma. You're only there a year. You're in the portal, and Blaine decides that he wants to roll with you in his first year as a head coach.

GARRETT ENGLE: Yeah, it was good. It was nice to see he believed in me, and it was nice to go there. At first it was kind of like embrace my creativity because I'm a very creative golfer, and I kind of lost some of that coming out of -- I broke my collar bone before I went to Oklahoma, and I kind of lost some of that creativity that I had.

Q. Left collarbone?

GARRETT ENGLE: Yeah, left collarbone. And Blaine kind of helped me find my creativity in golf and hit some crazy shots sometimes. Kind of started to build my confidence back up, and it was good to have him along the way of assessing where I'm at, like okay, I'm not where I want to be, but that's okay right now.

Here I am now. Hopefully I can continue to make a run. It's definitely helped out a lot.

Q. What's the best creative shot you hit today?

GARRETT ENGLE: Yeah, probably the bunker shot on 6 probably. Can you think of anything?

NICK ETHERTON: You hit one through the trees on 10.

GARRETT ENGLE: True. I hit one through like literally a 1 1/2 foot opening through the trees from the left rough, left forest, and I had to hit it.

Q. Isn't there OB somewhere around there?

GARRETT ENGLE: It was pretty close to OB. I had to hit it through a skinny gap, over the corner of the water, out of the rough, and I hit a perfect shot, and it just trickled over the green, halved the hole, and moved on.

Either that or the bunker shot on 6.

Q. Is that one of those shots that as a caddie you want to run over there and grab the club before he attempts it?

NICK ETHERTON: No, I just let him do it.

Q. You were leading in the match, though? So it was a risk you were willing to take, right?

GARRETT ENGLE: Yes, exactly.

Q. You mentioned the comfort under pressure. How much were you feeling that pressure kind of hole by hole as it went longer and longer?

GARRETT ENGLE: I felt pressure but not nerves, if that makes sense. I was in a great mental space, and I kind of, like I talked about with some other people, I just kind of was able -- I feel like I can will the ball into the hole. It was kind of comforting to have that.

I didn't feel nerves per se, but I definitely felt some pressure, like I knew how big the moment was. So for sure, I felt that.

Q. Is there a moment, whether it was from the season or in the last three days out here, where you kind of feel like, all right, I can lock in here, feel pressure and not feel nerves?

GARRETT ENGLE: It was definitely Dogwood when I won the final round. I was kind of not hitting it great, not hitting it how I wanted to in the beginning of the round, and then I kind of settled in and finished it off and ended up kind of running away with it.

That really proved to myself like, okay, I can do this. I've been good under pressure for a while, I've been comfortable, but that kind of proved to myself I can do it outside of a smaller setting, like I can do it on a bigger stage.

Q. You have the whole afternoon ahead of you. What are you going to do to rest up?

GARRETT ENGLE: I'm probably going to rest. I was planning on hitting a couple of balls because I'm kind of hitting it all over the place, but I think I'm just going to rest up. It's best to conserve my energy, and I'll get it going for tomorrow.