Media Center Interviews

April 1, 2023

Third Round Interview with Chris Kirk

Q. Chris, nice round, 69 with a couple eagles. If we can get some comments on your play.

CHRIS KIRK: Sure, thank you. Yeah, I felt like I played pretty solid all day. Was a really, really tricky wind direction, I thought. It was starting out at northeast and then getting over towards east. With the way the majority of this golf course runs north and south, so when you have that, an east wind or a west wind, there were tons of times where you knew it was off the right or you knew it was off the left, but it could have been hurting a little bit, it could have been helping a little bit. Just made it really, really difficult to get distance control right.

I felt like I hit a ton of good shots and not too many of them ended up that great, but anytime you make a couple eagles like that definitely boosted the round a ton. I got very lucky on the second hole, hit a great second shot with a 5-wood, but for it to end up 10 feet like that, it definitely had to get a good break and landed nice and soft on the green. Then made one of my best swings of the day on 17 to hit it in the middle of the green and had a 50-foot double breaker and always nice to see those go in.

Q. What club and yardage was that shot on 17?

CHRIS KIRK: Seventeen, I hit driver. We had roughly 292, I think it was 290 or 292 to the front, somewhere around 330 hole. So it was just, for me it felt like just a perfect comfortable number, that 290 is about what my driver's going to fly, so I didn't feel like I had to smash it or anything. It was a few yards away from ending up really close off the tee but just stopped at the top of that hill. You could give me a thousand more tries and I couldn't get it to stop on top of that hill ever again. Ended up in a good spot and hit a great putt, but definitely fortunate for one to go in from that range.

Q. Currently four back, still a few holes left out there, but what's your mindset going into the final round as you try to get win No. 2 this year?

CHRIS KIRK: Yeah, just to stay aggressive. I feel like my swing's in a good place. I've driven it better the last few days than I have in the last three or four weeks, so that's felt good. Yeah, just stay aggressive and try to hoop some putts really.