U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP 2020

September 17, 2020

Will Zalatoris

Winged Foot Golf Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Tell us about your round. Let's start with the hole-in-one.

WILL ZALATORIS: Yeah, 167, and I flushed a 9-iron, just was trying to play it about eight feet right and drew it with the wind, and when I got up there I thought it was going to be a couple feet and ended up disappearing. Yeah, nice surprise, and I owe a lot of cocktails now.

Q. So you didn't see the ball go in?

WILL ZALATORIS: Not really. I mean, I just looked down, but once I looked up and saw there was only one ball up there, then I knew that it went in, and two people up there on the green started screaming, so it was pretty cool.

Q. Back nine you came back with two more birdies; tell us about this little stretch.

WILL ZALATORIS: Yeah, I made a couple mistakes on 11 and 12 and then hit a 6-iron on 13 to about two feet. Yeah, I mean, 17 I knocked another one to like a foot and 18 I hit to about three feet and made birdie. It was a good ball-striking day to put it mildly.

Q. What's your approach for tomorrow?

WILL ZALATORIS: Just same thing. Just keep -- you get out of place, get back in the fairway, save bogey at worst, don't put yourself in position where 6 is in play, and just keep plotting along, have some fun.

Q. First time at Winged Foot?

WILL ZALATORIS: First time at Winged Foot.

Q. And?

WILL ZALATORIS: It's incredible. The thing that's so good about it is it's hard but it's exceptionally fair. Some Opens like when I played at Shinnecock, it seemed like if you missed a shot by 15 feet, you'd be 35 yards off the green. Out here, you're just dealing with six-inch rough. But the difference obviously being that instead of being 35 yards away you're only a couple yards off the edge of the green. It's a fun experience, and obviously a heck of a golf course.