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ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL PRESENTED BY MASTERCARD

March 8, 2019

Eddie Pepperell

Orlando, Florida

Q. 4-under. In contention. What are your thoughts right now?
EDDIE PEPPERELL: Oh, this is the thought. Look at this? You're going to love this. I bought these in Austin last week. I put them on today. Best round of the year. Probably a decade for me.

Q. That's Jack.
EDDIE PEPPERELL: I know. Keep it quiet. But he was better, right? I heard that. Yeah, I don't know. Could be that, because I didn't expect that. I've been playing bad and kind of had a couple of views of my swing in bed last night and thought what am I going to do today and kind of went with that. I mean particularly on my front nine, I played really good, particularly with my irons. And then it was tough coming in. I didn't feel great with my swing, but that's a good round from where, A, I haven't been playing well and, B, I can still feel, it didn't feel easy. So, yeah, it's nice.

Q. So if you played like that in those socks here what about at Muirfield Village?
EDDIE PEPPERELL: Well I'm not playing that week so I'll have these on and my feet up on the sofa.

Q. Can you explain simply what the swing thoughts were that worked so well?
EDDIE PEPPERELL: You haven't got enough words to write I'm afraid. I divided it down to a hip feel, a left arm feel and a right arm feel and I was going off all three of those things, trying to do it all at the same time and then I'm trying to get back, I actually started working with an old coach this week I'm going to start working with two coaches moving forward because I feel like the one I worked with last year obviously has been valuable for me, but Mike, my old coach, I think is also very valuable to me. So, yeah, I've seen Mike this week and he's been great and I'm kind of trying to get back to some old feels because my iron play went on feeling that is particularly strong and that was what it was today and I know I can score, shoot good scores, like they come to me when my iron play has been good but as of late my iron play has been so bad the game felt so tough.

Q. What's Mike's last name?
EDDIE PEPPERELL: Walker.

Q. How do you know him?
EDDIE PEPPERELL: I've had somewhat of a funny relationship with Mike. It's only the fourth time I've gone back to him, so he asked me to describe it, I said, like a crack addiction. The highs are very high, but there's some tough lows in there as well too. Not that I know what crack addiction feels like, of course, but yeah, and Simon's there in the background as well. So I'm quite excited for that this year. And I'm putting better. My putting's been great for two days. So far my putts felt pretty good. The greens are so so pure. From inside 10 feet all you got to do is just start the ball on line, which I can't say has been the same for some of the events I've played over the last year or two, so, yeah, at least that feels good.

Q. Have you felt the need to do anything different that you now that you're going to be playing the Masters, like in the spring? Have you changed up any kind of routine or schedule or thought about doing anything differently because you know you have to peak for that?
EDDIE PEPPERELL: Well I would say no, but everything I've just described to you is full of changes and God knows what, so I don't know what to say. On the face of it, no, not really, I don't think anything's changed. My expectations of myself haven't really changed. No, my schedule is divided now between the U.S. and Europe, which is great as long as I'm a top-50 player. The schedule I've got this year is fantastic and I'm really excited for it. So it's nice to have some events leading up to the Masters, this one, next week and the Match Play. It will be a nice amount of golf I need to play before the Masters to try and just iron early season stuff out which tends to historically cripple me.

Q. Where do you live here when you're in the States?
EDDIE PEPPERELL: Just move around. I spent the week off last week in Austin with my girlfriend and that's it. That's the only week I'm going to stay, I'm going to now commute back and forth. In between Mexico and this we decided to stay.

Q. Have you been to Augusta before?
EDDIE PEPPERELL: No, no, I'm playing in Sunday.

Q. Why Austin? What about it?
EDDIE PEPPERELL: Well, we heard it's really cool. My girlfriend's not coming to the Match Play and we used her place, it was great. We loved it. Food is brilliant, I'm really looking forward to going back, actually.

Q. You've built a community short of sharing yourself with social media. Before all that Arnold kind of built his community here. Is there a sense you get being here like that legacy he left? Is it sort of different than you thought?
EDDIE PEPPERELL: Certainly better than my legacy I'll leave, I think. I mean it's amazing. Every time I come to America it amazes me whether it's colleges and how, how, it amazes me how, there's a lot of tradition over here, the college and the relationship that the young people have coming out of college and continue to have with the college, things like that amaze me, because I'm, whether it's because I'm British, I don't know, but I just feel, I find that sort of stuff quite amazing because I don't feel that, I don't feel that sense of affinity towards anything. I kind of love it because it's very different to what I'm like and it's just great. I came on to the putting green yesterday and there was one flag in the putting green right in the middle and I started to putt to it setting up a drill and I took the flag out thinking, well I can take the flag out, which I can. But I had Phil Kenyon come up to me and say, Eddie, that's Arnie's flag, that's, that has to stay in every year in his memory. And so I'm like, I think he's winding me up, because I know what it feels like, we have that kind of relationship. And so I made him go and take the flag out and put it -- no, I made him go put the flag back in because I had to ask Charles Howell, I said, Charles, can you just tell me something, should that flag be in? Is it in memory of Arnie? And he said no, no, he's messing with you. So, yeah, that is a tradition that doesn't exist. But I wasn't surprised that it might have existed which maybe goes to his legacy.

Q. You're done work by noon. You shot 68. What does that do for your spirits on Friday?
EDDIE PEPPERELL: Me and my girlfriend are off to Harry Potter World. We were supposed to do it Wednesday and we didn't. So we're going to go this afternoon.

Q. You mentioned college. Would you ever have considered at some point in your career of coming over here and playing college?
EDDIE PEPPERELL: I didn't because, A, I have no interest in any sort of the education, I left school when I was 16. So, no, I didn't. I had a couple of offers but I decided not to. But, yeah, just the way the affinity that players have in future years with the college, I couldn't wait to leave school.

Q. What's the biggest school you had. The biggest offer.
EDDIE PEPPERELL: Sorry?

Q. What was the most notable school you had offering you?
EDDIE PEPPERELL: I think from memory North Carolina. I heard they're really weird up there.

Q. They have a good basketball team.
EDDIE PEPPERELL: That was a joke. I haven't heard anything about them. I think that was it, from memory. I was -- that was a long time ago.

Q. What was your best shot this morning?
EDDIE PEPPERELL: Best shot this morning? I hit, it would have definitely been with an iron.

Q. Anything spectacular about your three birdies at the end, 16, 17, 18?
EDDIE PEPPERELL: 17 I hit a good 5-iron into 10 feet. And 18 I hit a close wedge. A couple of long 3-woods out there. I have got a long Mizuno 3-wood that got out there a long way. I got a nice really strong Mizuno 3-wood which I hit a couple of really long ones. I love hitting 3-woods anyway. That's the key club for me this weekend. If I keep -- I don't, I can't seem to hit my irons totally now the way I've hit them today, if I can find a bit of feeling with my 3-wood and go out and hit that well this weekend I can go out and shoot two really consistent scores, that would be the key for me this weekend.

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