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KITCHENAID SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 23, 2019

Jeff Maggert

Rochester, New York

Q. All things considered, how was your day out there today?
JEFF MAGGERT: You know, I played pretty well, obviously. I thought anything under par would be a good score today. The golf course played pretty tough this morning. It was very firm. The rain softened things up a little bit. I didn't get to take advantage of that. I think might see some good scores today if the wind doesn't blow too hard.

Just happy where I'm at. I bogeyed the last hole, didn't have a good drive there, and I didn't have much of a chance for the fairway rough there. But I did everything pretty good. I drove the ball pretty well all day. I think I just missed two fairways. Made a few putts here and there and just kept the ball in play. Played -- tried to play smart golf. Hit a lot of greens today. And just it was a good day. Good start.

Q. Colin Montgomerie mentioned earlier this course, the setup, will favor the straight drivers, and he mentioned you specifically as a guy who can keep it in the fairway, you know, you obviously fared well from there.
JEFF MAGGERT: Well, this is a -- it's just an old classic golf course. It's tough. You've got to drive the ball on the fairway. You've got to hit good iron shots, and you have to do it all day long. If you're driving it in the rough or even if you're driving it in the fairway and not hitting good, solid iron shots, you're going to struggle.

And that's just what I did today. I drove the ball well. Left myself with a lot of short to mid irons to the greens. Kept the ball under the hole. Gave myself a lot of opportunities to make birdies.

Q. As you can see, the flags are starting to flap. To you think that -- how was the conditions right now as compared to when you got out?
JEFF MAGGERT: Well, we played early this morning. There wasn't much wind to speak of until maybe a little later in the round. But this is probably the hardest it's blown all day. I don't know what the forecast is. That will be a little bit more challenging. But I think the rainfall that came down, the greens are going to be much more receptive than they were this morning.

I think if you get after it this afternoon, 3-, 4-, 5-unders, probably might see one of those.

Q. Relatively short delay, but through the years, have you approached the way weather impacts around or impacts a tournament differently than -- maybe you handle it differently than you did years ago?
JEFF MAGGERT: Well, this game, it's about patience. And when you get in these delays, you've just got to be prepared when you get back out there, go through your warmup routine again.

I had basically a 25-foot putt that I had to deal with when I got back on the course, so I spent some extra time over here on the putting green preparing for that, just trying to get the pace down so when I got back onto the golf course, it would be more kind of back into my routine.

And with just one hole to play, I was just trying to hit the ball on the fairway on 18. That's a tough hole if you're in the rough. And I just pulled it a little left in the heavy rough, and I got it down in front of the green in a pretty good spot and chipped it up probably 10 feet but missed the putt.

Q. You talked about a game of patience. Were you always that way?
JEFF MAGGERT: Well, you have to be. You know, this game -- it's the old cliche, one shot at a time, one moment at a time. And if you get too far ahead of yourself or you're worrying about stuff that happened earlier in your round, it's just not productive. So you stay to focused on the process and what you're doing to try to hit good shots and hit good drives on this golf course.

This is probably -- of my five years on the Champions Tour, this is definitely one of the toughest courses that we've played. A couple Senior U.S. Open courses were tough, but I would say think definitely ranks in the top two or three of the toughest that we play on the Champions Tour.

Q. Jeff, there was talk yesterday that level par might be something that everybody's going to shoot for. When you see yourself getting to 2-under and Ken Tanigawa -- pardon me if I get his name wrong -- at 5-under right now, what do you make of how this course right now is playing?
JEFF MAGGERT: I think it all depends on what the weather is going to do. If we get more rainfall, I think you're going to see quite a few scores under par. There's not going to be 5-, 6-, 7-unders shot, but I think you'll see a lot of 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-under shot if the conditions soften up.

So today was a good start for me. Obviously the way the course played in practice rounds, I just thought anything under par would be a good start. So 2-under is a good start. Just need to keep doing what I'm doing and try to play patient golf and keep driving it in the fairway.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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