Q. Taylor, where were you when you found out? Were you already in Mexico?

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: Yeah, I was. I played a couple pro‑ams and they told me Tuesday that Luke's back was bad and that I would have a possibility. But he played the pro‑am and I'm like ‑‑ well, I already had my flight booked back to Vegas and everything. Last night they called me and told me I had a 7:36 tee time.

Q. Which is good, bad for Luke, obviously you don't wish that on him but you took advantage of it today. You really need to take advantage of this week, don't you?

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: Oh, yeah, yeah. Golf's been up and down for the last two or three years, so it was nice to have a good round today. But you never know in this game, you could have one hot week and you're back in the mix for a long stretch.

Q. What does this afternoon look like for you? Kind of just take us through the mind of OK, you just played a good round of golf, everybody knows you're a great putter. Do you go work on something now?

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: I don't know. I was actually pretty nervous for today's round because obviously a lot of people that I know here had expectations and I felt like it was terrible preparation. I didn't feel really ready to play a PGA Tour event at all. Maybe I should stop practicing, I don't know.

Q. That would be an unusual approach, but hey, if it works, it works. I have a college question for you. UNLV question, not football, not basketball. How is my former PGA Tour Live colleague Andres Gonzalez doing as the new golf coach, and how many times has he hit you up to bring the team somewhere as a booster?

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: He's great, I love Dre. It will be cool to see how he turns that program around over the last like couple years and hopefully get some more recruiting and stuff like that. I think he'll do great. He's a different personality of coaches that we've had at UNLV and I love his personality. He's very light hearted, almost like a Chris Reilly.

Q. Yeah. Well, if Dre doesn't get them fired up to go play golf, nobody can right?

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: That's true. And he's got Ryan Moore backing him a little bit so he's got a good foundation to do some great things.

Q. Last man here in the field with Luke Donald out and you're in, tell me the process. You were here on site and when you found out?

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: Yeah, I was here on site. Did the Monday, was playing fine but had one bad hole. It was actually a pretty tough golf course over there in the wind. I stayed here, did a couple pro‑ams and they told me Tuesday that Luke, his back was hurting and might get a sponsor invite.

I was hoping to get a sponsor invite into this event but those are pretty tough to get, but they said I was the next man up, so it was really cool. I stayed here. I had a flight booked to Vegas and they told me last night I had a tee time tomorrow.

Q. Opening round 65, what did you like about your round today?

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: It didn't feel ‑‑ my iron game hasn't felt great for a while, but I have developed a tee shot that is very ‑‑ well, it was really good today. Like a teed low driver that doesn't go too far. I haven't been hitting my irons or my 3‑wood that great over the last like couple months, but I've been driving it better. Today that tee shot was like a teed low driver was perfect for a lot of these holes, into the wind, and my least favorite wind is left to right and into and it was ‑‑ it helped a little bit. At least kept it in play.

Q. Any shots or birdies stick out from your round in particular?

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: I think the iron shot into 9. Anytime I can make like a birdie with a long iron, it takes a lot of luck. But it was nice to hit one close on 9, that was probably the best birdie of the day for me.

Q. When you don't know you're in the field until Wednesday, how nice is it that you're very familiar with this course?

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: Oh, yeah, yeah, it helps a lot being here before and just kind of knowing the property. Ken Jowdy and Diamante host me like I'm a king here, which is like so nice. Like it's such a cool experience to be able to come down and stay in a house and drive a golf cart to a golf tournament.

Q. What's the season been like and how nice is it to have this start for this week?

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: The season's been up and down. It was weird, on Korn Ferry it started off awful but I had three top‑10s. And then I felt like I was playing really good at the ‑‑ or really solid towards the end of the season and I finished like 20th to 30th it seemed like every week. You just don't get much out of those 20th to 30th places out here on Tour. You've got to finish top‑5 to get some points.

So I haven't really done much in the last three years even though I've been working my butt off trying to get better. But that's all of us. We're all here doing the same thing. We go through our runs and kind of try to improve every day.

Q. And off the course, new dad. What's it like kind of balancing golfing and that life?

TAYLOR MONTGOMERY: Oh, yeah, it's been great. Not as much sleep the last two months, but I feel like I've done a pretty good job of changing diapers and doing all that stuff. I thought it would be a lot harder than it actually has been so far. But she's been sleeping pretty good. She's starting to move to an extra hour of sleep, so that's really clutch.