THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 13, 2022

Will Zalatoris

TPC Sawgrass

Quick Quotes

Q. Completed the second round. Just some comments. A strong finish on that incoming nine.

WILL ZALATORIS: Yeah, like I said, super fortunate to be in the wave that I was in. I kind of got off to a little bit of a rough start today, but just wasn't hitting any fairways and was hitting it pretty short, so that's not really a good combo.

Yeah, it was nice to make a couple putts going in and kind of nice momentum for this afternoon's round.

Q. What was it like starting out this morning? How cold was it, and what was the warmup like?

WILL ZALATORIS: I'm kind of used to it living in Dallas. We'll play in stuff like this. I just kind of had a tough time turning a little bit and was just leaking everything out right and compounded a couple errors out early.

Like I said, after that, it was just trying to keep the ball in front of you. Thankfully, once I got through the tough stretch of 16, 17, and 18 at even par, I thought I was actually playing some decent golf.

Honestly, I had two really unfortunate drives on 1 and 4 and ended up making birdie on 4, just being a yard off the fairway and had the ball about a foot below my feet. But making 40-footers like that obviously kind of cancels out any unfortunate bounces. Yeah, overall really solid today.

Q. How glad were you to play 17 today as opposed to last night?

WILL ZALATORIS: I think I saw J.T. hit 6-iron, and there's a rumor going around he might have actually hit 5. I hit a chip 9 today, so I think that kind of tells you how happy I was playing it this morning.

Q. How much more comfortable are you starting to feel with this golf course?

WILL ZALATORIS: I love this place. I had a decent finish last year. You just can't fake it around here. You've got to hit decent golf shots. The beauty of this place is that, if you miss in the right spots, you can kind of get away with it. But at the same time, miss in the wrong spots, you're going to be really lucky to make par.

So the shots that I was missing early, I was missing them in absolutely terrible spots, but after that, mistakes that I made were just right in front of me.

Q. How do you think the golf course is playing today compared to Thursday?

WILL ZALATORIS: Thursday was the easiest we're ever going to see this place. No wind, ball in hand, soft greens. Greens are probably a foot and a half slower than we're used to seeing it here. The wind is still picking up. It's not like this is that easy. It's just easier than what it was yesterday.

We're going to play the ball down this afternoon, which really shouldn't be too much of an issue. I thought the course was drying out really nicely. The greens are still really soft. The beauty of that is if we're coming in there with some long irons into the wind, we can stick them as opposed to just hoping they stay on the green.

Q. What have you been up to since you were playing on Thursday? How did you kill the time between rounds?

WILL ZALATORIS: I watched a lot of TV, a lot of shows, and tried to make sure all of my meals were outside the room, just so I could get out. It's pretty crazy, some guys had two days off in the middle of the tournament let alone a big event like this. Needless to say, the last two weeks have been weird.

Q. Watch anything good?

WILL ZALATORIS: Just a couple of reruns of "Two and a Half Men" and a couple of shows that Caitlin and I have been catching up on.