Q. Kramer, great playing through 36 holes, bogey free. What's been working well out there for you today, or over the two days?

KRAMER HICKOK: Yeah, really, everything's been really well. Haven't missed a fairway with the driver, I don't think, and then irons have been spot on. So I just feel like I'm really in control of all facets of the game. I missed a couple putts coming in late, but putter's been pretty hot. Everything's been pretty sharp. Just feel like I'm making it as easy as possible for myself. I don't know if the wind's going to kick up at all later this week, but if it does, this course will start to show its teeth. But right now it's laid down and it's playing about as easy as it can play.

Q. Can you just talk us through some of the birdies you made?

KRAMER HICKOK: Yeah. Really, I feel like I've taken advantage of all the par 5s. Like I was saying earlier, it's like there's holes out here where I feel you have to take advantage of the holes whether you have wedges in your hand and there's holes where you're sort of playing away from pins.

I think Tiger's done a really good job of just kind of obviously you're playing different angles, which he talked about, and I'm definitely sort of trying to play that way to where certain pin locations, like we're not even looking at them, right, and then there's other ones you're firing at. You've got to take your medicine and just play smart a lot of times.

Then these par 5s are pretty gettable so you try and get after those and then take care of the wedge holes as well. There's holes that if the wind kicks up, they'll play pretty tough. Like 15, those back left pins that are coming up this week, and then 16's going to be tough, and I think 14, 14 can be tough if you miss the fairway. To me, like starts with getting the ball in playoff the tee and then from there you're sort of in position to be able to play more aggressively.

Q. You came very close to winning a playoff in Hartford. Did you think you would still be searching for that first win at this point?

KRAMER HICKOK: It's tough to say. You know, at the time I was really confident and playing really well, and then I sort of went through like a two-year drought. Was still working really, really hard, I just don't think I was doing the right things. I felt like, you know, I had a second there and a third a couple months later, I felt like I was just catching lightning in a bottle, like it had to be perfect.

The state of my game now, it feels like it's like work, work, work, work and you don't see any results, right? That's kind of how I felt. It's like you keep working, keep working, you don't see any results, and then finally it's like boom, looks like overnight success. That's sort of what I feel like's going on now. It's like I've been working really hard on the right things the last two years and I'm finally starting to see the results starting to come through, not only here these last two days, but at home I've been seeing it a bunch. It's nice to see that. Mentally, it frees you up in knowing that you're playing good golf. It's just about staying patient and just letting the results happen instead of trying to force them to happen.

Q. Last thing, I think you mentioned in the radio interview that you came in on Saturday to get more familiar with the golf course?

KRAMER HICKOK: Yeah.

Q. What led to that decision?

KRAMER HICKOK: Yeah. One of my sponsors, Discovery, has this golf course called Chileno Bay at El Dorado 30 minutes away, so we've been out there since Friday just practicing, and then we came over here and played on Saturday and really just spent as much time around this place as possible. Really, we were the only ones out here so we could spend six, seven hours out here sort of getting to know the place. It's a new golf course for all of us so I kind of feel like it's an even playing field where some of the guys with a lot more experience don't have a lot more of the knowledge, everyone's starting at the same spot, so I just really wanted to get a jump start on that.

I'm really familiar with these Paspalum greens, sort of played a bunch on these and I really like them, so I feel comfortable on them. I was thinking this place was going to blow a lot harder. I think it does in the spring, it will blow up to 40 miles an hour. Occasionally now you can get 20- to 30-mile-an-hour days, but the wind's died down. I thought this place was going to play a lot harder than it has. It hasn't really shown its teeth yet, but I know it's possible.