Q. Doug, good playing, 7-under 65. What was working so well for you out there today?
DOUG GHIM: Yeah, I just didn't make any bad mistakes like I did yesterday. I hit one in the hazard off of the tee on 12 and actually lost the ball on a par-3 for the first time this season on 2. Felt like I made just as many birdies as I did yesterday. I think I made an eagle yesterday actually, but made less mistakes. And I got lucky with a couple really good numbers that ended up to some really short birdie putts.
Q. Got hot obviously on the back nine today. What were two or three of those shots that were some of the highlights of the day?
DOUG GHIM: Yeah, really didn't make much today even though I played so well. I had like -- I hit a 7-iron to like about two to three feet on 11, which really kind of got the ball rolling. Then I hit it to three or four feet on 12, hit it to like six feet on 13, and then chipped it up to about a foot on 14. So that whole stretch -- and I also had a four- or five-footer for birdie on 15.
Honestly, the amount of feet of putts I made was probably less than 20 feet in a stretch of four holes, which obviously is a blessing. You don't get that very often out here.
So yeah, it was a pretty easy back nine. I think 18 was actually the hardest birdie I had to make on the back nine given that I had like a 70-footer for eagle and it was a tough one. Ended up having about a nine-footer for birdie.
Q. We're seeing some probably record-setting driving, fairways hit kind of numbers from the field. Could you explain how different this golf course is off the tee compared to what you usually see?
DOUG GHIM: Yeah. I mean, I feel like the fairways are wide because of how difficult the greens are to approach. Some of them are quite easy, like 2 is a big bowl, but for the most part, most of these greens, there's so many slopes, there's so much slope and you're hitting long irons in, at least on the front nine, like holes like 8 where there's not many places to miss it.
So it kind of seems like the way that the course was designed was that you're going to hit in the fairway. If you pick the right side of the fairway to hit it on, give yourself the best angle, be aggressive so you can have shorter in.
Yeah, like the fairways are probably the widest I've seen, especially on the PGA TOUR. I wonder if Tiger knew that there was going to be a tournament out here if he would have narrowed it up. At the same time, I mean, I would say it saves everyone at least a shot a day because everyone hits a tee ball not the way that they would like to and it's in the fairway and you've got a shot to hit it to the middle of the green and make par.
When you see the low scores, it's not that the course is super easy. You might get a couple of lucky breaks that might have missed the fairway in a normal tournament, but at the end of the day you still have to hit really good shots to put up the scores guys are putting up.
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