JOHN DEERE CLASSIC

July 8, 2021

Dylan Frittelli

TPC Deere Run

Quick Quotes

Q. I know this week it was important to get a good start. Five birdies, two bogeys, 3-under. Where do you assess where you're at after 18 holes of defending for the first time?

DYLAN FRITTELLI: I like the five birdies, but the two bogeys weren't great. As bogeys go, they weren't very good, but made one bogey the whole week last week, so that upped my tally already. No, it was a good round. I've not been playing too well recently, so 3-under par on a tricky first day -- I don't think the course is playing tough but the conditions are a little tricky, so I was proud of that round.

Q. Can you expand on the conditions because we've been through a heat wave and tons of rain and today was just weird. It feels like fall.

DYLAN FRITTELLI: Yeah, strange, we started warming up on the range, it was like spitting, as we say in South Africa. It was a light rain, and I thought I was going to get super wet practicing for an hour beforehand, but it kind of blew off towards the tee time. Still pretty cool when we teed off, probably 68, 65 degrees, so it was a little tricky in the beginning there trying to figure out how far the ball is going. But no, warmed up nicely through the turn and then it became a bit windy the last three, four holes I played. I think it's picked up to probably 10, 12 miles an hour now. If it stays there maybe even trickier in the afternoon for the guys.

Q. When you hear on the tee, "defending champion," was that pretty cool or was that something you didn't focus on?

DYLAN FRITTELLI: No, I heard it. I didn't know what they were going to say when they introduced me because I was playing with a three-time champion in Steve Stricker, so I'm just a little miniature version of what he is. No, it was cool to hear that, and then I heard "three times" and I was like, okay, that's a nice little reminder to stay humble. Yeah, I mean, it's great seeing friends and people that I met last time. It's pretty cool. Two years later it's kind of strange, but I do enjoy it.

Q. I spoke to you a couple months ago and you talked about your distance gains. Can you expand a little bit on what your equipment is? Is it a longer shaft? How much longer?

DYLAN FRITTELLI: I've got a Callaway Epic driver, it's a Tour model Triple Diamond head. I think it's like 9.5 degrees with a 46-inch shaft. I don't actually know the name of the shaft. It's a Diamana I think an XV series, the white version of the Diamana XV.

Yeah, I'm actually trying to hit it shorter this week to be honest. My caddie was working on trying to get me to take an easier approach with the driver and hit it flatter and get some bounce and roll because the fairways are pretty firm this week, so I've tried that and it's worked pretty well. You get to go look at the stats and see where my driving distance stacks up at the end of the day.

I don't know, it's nothing major that's changed since November of last year, so I've had this setup for quite a while now.

Q. Your speed training, when did you start, can you explain that a little bit?

DYLAN FRITTELLI: Speed training, basically July last year, I looked at my trainer and I said why am I not hitting it any longer? I've been doing all these power workouts, strength workouts in the gym, and I'm getting stronger for sure because I can see my PRs moving up in each exercise. I then figured out that he said to me you actually want to hit it further? I didn't realize that. Yeah, so we switched that up had a little more speed in the workout, so instead of just power and strength, trying to lift heavy and lots of reps, went down to fewer reps and lighter weight. That's basically just the theory on the conditioning side.

Q. You've talked about an analytic you rely on; can you expand on that a little bit for us?

DYLAN FRITTELLI: Yeah, it's a well-known stat. They just kind of averaged out the guys' driving brackets, 290 to 300 and 300 to 310 and 310 and above and just their average income, and it's pretty clear that once you jump above that 290 category and into the 300s, the average income goes way up.