SONY OPEN IN HAWAII

January 13, 2022

Tyler Duncan

Waialae Country Club

Press Conference

Q. Great opening round. Take us through the day and what went well for you.

TYLER DUNCAN: It was nice getting off to a bunker save and a nice 6-footer to kind of start this season off. That's always a little bit of a confidence booster to be able to do that and then made a couple birdies and just stayed patient and they just kind of added up.

Q. If you bogeyed the first hole, would it have been the end of the year for you or what?

TYLER DUNCAN: No but you just never know. It's nice to be able to do that put a lot of work in my putting and hit a nice putt in the middle. It's always a bit of relief and gives you confidence moving forward.

Q. Did you look at the scores and think to yourself, oh, geez, here we go?

TYLER DUNCAN: I did. I saw that, and I played there in 2020, and I did not see 34-under out there. The conditions were obviously different when I was there. But it's just hard to imagine shooting 34-under on any golf course.

Q. Have you had to wrap your head around the fact that it feels like scores are coming down each year?

TYLER DUNCAN: They are. I think everyone is just getting better and with the technology and resources available, everyone is taking advantage of it and figuring out what they need to do to get better. No one's afraid to put in the work, I don't think, so once we figure out what it is we need to get better, we have that drive and motivation to put in the work and go figure it out.

Q. There's been some low scores here in the past. Obviously not 34-under how but is the course shaping up and where do you see the tournament playing out?

TYLER DUNCAN: It's obviously a little bit softer, the greens, than they have been in the past. But they are much firmer than they were when I played nine holes Monday afternoon. As the week goes on I see those firming up. The rough is much longer than usual here, so it's just even more of a premium on driving.

Yeah, I think it will shape up to be a good finish.

Q. And this is obviously your best round here but how did you feel coming in and how did you feel about going low day one at a place I don't think you've done that much before.

TYLER DUNCAN: Yeah, so I feel like in the past, this has been a course that's been a good fit and I haven't really played well.

But I put in a lot of work in December and worked really hard on the areas that I needed to, and played with a lot of my buddies back home and played a lot of golf and felt like my prep was really good, and it's nice to just see it kind of payoff.

Q. So you don't take much time off during the holidays?

TYLER DUNCAN: I have seven weeks off total, so I took the first two weeks off and then slowly kind of got back into it and played probably three or four days a week in the morning with the boys. It was a good little off-season.