SHRINERS CHILDREN'S OPEN

October 18, 2024

JJ Spaun

TPC Summerlin

Quick Quotes

Q. JJ, 2-under 69 today. Assess your performance for us.

JJ SPAUN: Yeah, it was a tough day obviously condition-wise. A lot of adjustments with greens and speed and guessing the wind and stuff correctly.

So fortunately my ball striking was pretty solid. I think that's kind of a key to playing in these kind of blustery conditions, is hitting the ball solid. That's the only way you can really control your ball, and I did a really good job of that today.

Q. Been on the TOUR eight years now. Can you remember the last time you had to put up with wind like this?

JJ SPAUN: I can actually, yeah. It was here. I had the lead with three holes to go and the wind started blowing 40 like this and I finished double bogey, double bogey, and finished 9th.

I mean, I think that's kind of why my mindset here today was I wasn't so flustered given the conditions. I played in this before and obviously got the best of me that time. I just tried not to let it do that again to me today.

Q. How do you mentally strike a balance between accepting when the golf ball gets taken for a ride by the wind and also trying to shoot the lowest number possible without kind of selling the round up river mentally?

JJ SPAUN: Yeah, you definitely have to be kind of easy on yourself or like I guess compassionate. You don't want to get too frustrated because the ball just got gusted from a 30, 40 mile an hour gust dead right into a bunker and now you're dead trying get up and down.

It's happening to everyone, so I think you just got to do your best trying to play smart. It's almost like you're thinking more of your misses on days like this, especially with the wind being so high.

So, yeah, I just tried to roll with that mentality. Just tried to plug along throughout a long day. Ended up pretty good.

Q. What does a round like this do for your confidence going into a weekend where you'll get much more normal conditions?

JJ SPAUN: Yeah, you know, you have the toughest round -- you got toughest round out of the way, so hopefully, fingers crossed, never know what happens, but, yeah, looking forward to some nice greens at typical speed and less windy conditions.

Probably get a little bit more aggressive on some of the second shots and tee shots. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully I can keep it up.

Q. The winning total score at Shriners tends to be in the high teens to 20s. Just with the conditions today, do you see the final score like -- does the number that everybody has in their mind change after a day like today? If so, how much does that number change?

JJ SPAUN: You know, I don't really think about like the winning score in the past because obviously days like this can happen and can change everything. But I'm sure it'll be close to high teens, maybe someone will get to 20, especially if the conditions are really good tomorrow and Sunday.

But I think, granted, the wave I'm in, we were already almost three shots harder than the morning wave yesterday and we played in all this today and they're going to play maybe nine holes of it.

I don't know what the forecast is in the morning. You know, someone could run away with it in that wave if they get to play in a lot better conditions than we did.

Q. The wind helped you today a couple of times on the greens. Can you talk us through, I think it was No. 5?

JJ SPAUN: Yeah, well, No. 5 I had like a 10-footer and left it short. Then I went up to it and addressed the ball and the wind just gusted it like four inches. Didn't gust it in the hole, but it was weird because we didn't know what to do. I didn't mark it. Do I put it back? Do I play where it is?

Ended up playing where it ended up and tapping it in.

But then 7, same deal but it more online of a putt and looked like it was just going to be just short, and the last revolution kind of got assisted with the wind there.

So, yeah, a little bit of some luck there with the gust.