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BARBASOL CHAMPIONSHIP

July 20, 2018

Troy Merritt

Nicholasville, Kentucky

Q. Good playing yesterday and today. Totally different conditions today. A little cooler; had to wait around a little bit because of the weather. How was the course?
TROY MERRITT: Course held up just fine. We had a little bit of a downpour there before we got playing today, but didn't affect the course at all. Had a slightly different wind direction. It kept bouncing around out there, so that was probably the toughest part of the day, just trying to make sure we had the right wind direction. When we weren't quite sure, we had to play safe.

We had a lot more lengthy birdie putts today than we did yesterday, but all this all pretty solid day.

Q. Driver yesterday was pretty impressive, especially coming down the stretch. Did you really think that drive at No. 8 was going to end up there? Would you have hit it if it would've?
TROY MERRITT: No, you know, the only reason I hit the driver is because my miss is right with. I though, Oh, I got plenty of room in that right rough right there to still wedge it on there.

Get down there and it's 45 yards from the front of the green. Yeah, I wouldn't have hit driver. I didn't hit driver today just because of that.

Q. Well, that's the thing I wanted to talk to you about. This golf course is new to everybody. You think you're making some smart plays; you get up there and you go, Wow, that probably wasn't a great decision, and you get away with it. Have you had any that have gone the other way where you thought you were okay and it turned out, wow, that wasn't a very smart play?
TROY MERRITT: You know, on 8 today. I decided to hit 3-wood. Hit it down the left side. We thought it was in the fairway on the left side; it was right in the middle of the bunker.

No, we took a couple different lines today with the breeze being a little different. Like on 2, hit it right over to the corner instead of laying out to the right. You got to miss that one left; right is not good.

Then on 10 I hit it about 50 yards further right today, and we had about 65 yards to the back pin. So, I mean, just had to be a little more aggressive on some of these shots with the wind direction.

Couple more rounds under our belt and getting a little more comfortable off the tees.

Q. I don't think anybody else wants you to get anymore comfortable after the first two rounds. Keep it going, buddy.
TROY MERRITT: I appreciate it. Thank you.

Q. Just talk about the round today.
TROY MERRITT: Yeah, I got off to a great start going birdie-birdie to start. Was hitting the driver well; driver got just a little bit sideways towards the middle of the round. We hit a couple less fairways.

But I hit a lot of greens again. I think I hit 14 greens, and putted on two of the ones I missed again. You know, we were just two poor three-putts and a missed 10-footer away on 11 from shooting another 64.

All in all, a pretty good day of golf.

Q. Two days in, do you have a magic number that you're shooting for leading into the weekend?
TROY MERRITT: Just hoping to start the next round. That's about all I'm thinking about. Hopefully these guys can get a lot of golf in today. If they don't finish, hopefully they can get it done tomorrow.

We just have to see what the weather does. We can't get ahead of ourselves. There is no sense really in setting a number when you don't know exactly what the weather is going to do.

Just best I can do is try to stay ahead of whoever is behind me.

Q. What was the biggest concern with the weather today?
TROY MERRITT: Just we got off to a slow start with the delays. Moved up tee times hour 20 minutes, and we ended up teeing off about 20 minutes later than what we were supposed to anyway.

Just didn't know if the next round of storms was going to build. It's just always a little bit tough out there to keep a rhythm when you know you could be pulled off the course at any time. We had some dark clouds roll in from time to time; heard some thunder on the 7th tee.

So just to try to put that to the back of your mind is the toughest thing on a day like today.

Q. Did you get a sense earlier in the week that this course was going to set up to your game like it has?
TROY MERRITT: You know, you like to think that most courses are going to set up to your game, that's for sure. On the TOUR most don't for me.

I like this one, especially off the tee. There is more left-to-right holes off the tee. I like to work a fade. The ones that work right to left I can get away with playing a fade back into the fairway. They're wide enough and soft enough right now to where I can do that.

I really enjoy the green complexes. There is a lot going on, but if you get in the right quadrant you can make birdies. We've done that for two days now.

Q. You have to feel good that you got the round in.
TROY MERRITT: Yeah, yeah, I mean, you don't know what's going to happen this afternoon. Obviously the rain will roll in at some point. You don't know when that will. Supposed to rain pretty hard tonight I think and maybe into tomorrow morning.

Just don't know when we're going to peg it again, but it's nice to have two rounds under our belt, that's for sure.

Q. Just curious, on the early rounds, is it good to have a guy like Hunter who is not right next to you but he's right there close? Is it good to play with a guy that's pushing you like that in the early rounds?
TROY MERRITT: I mean, it's always nice to play with a guy that's making birdies, especially if you're keeping up or maybe doing slightly better, just because we want to see good golf, too. We're golf fans. We want to see guys play well because it's going to make us play well.

Hunter hit the ball very well. He made some that nice putts. He's sitting at, what 10-under for two rounds? Nothing to scoff at there either. He's playing good golf, and I'm sure he will play good golf this weekend.

Q. I read some comments from you yesterday that Saturday/Sunday has sort of been, I don't know if hump is the right word for you, but is that something going into the weekend you see as...
TROY MERRITT: No, you have to put it out of your mind. If you're going to think about that you've had some poor weekends, might have another poor weekend.

This is different. We're going to sit up, if not on top of the leaderboard near the top. We're just got to maintain focus; just work on one shot at a time. Pound that through your head over and over and over. It gets very repetitive and boring, but that's what you have to do when you're near the top.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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