MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 6, 2023

Aldrich Potgieter

Quick Quotes

Q. Aldrich, talk about your day, your day at the Masters. Finally you get started.

Just those moments walking up to the 1st tee.

ALDRICH POTGIETER: It was an awesome day. I enjoyed it with Charl and Taylor.

Got off to a slow start. Made a birdie on 2, which was nice. Iron play wasn't my best today. I just kept hitting in the wrong spots all day, but we'll look at that tomorrow and look at some more pin placements tomorrow and hopefully that can get better.

Q. Obviously you learn as much as you can in these practice rounds, speed of the greens, how the shots are going to play out. What's something that you learned today that you'll take into tomorrow?

ALDRICH POTGIETER: Today with putting, I was a little bit cautious of the speed. They were a little bit slower than what I thought they would be and what the talk around the course will be, how quick they'll be.

Yeah, just some putts I just didn't have enough speed for it to go in. Once again, I'll do that tomorrow and make sure that that's on point.

Q. Obviously 13 didn't go the way you wanted it to. How did you bounce back from that just to get it in the house at a number that you can bounce back from and try to make the cut?

ALDRICH POTGIETER: Well, tomorrow's another day. We'll take it from there. I just tried to give myself opportunities on the next five holes, four holes. So I felt like I played pretty steady and then had a nice finish on 18 with a nice birdie there.

Q. How much fun are you having out here as an 18-year-old?

ALDRICH POTGIETER: Yeah, it's awesome. Crowds are awesome. It's so awesome because you can't see where the ball finishes, and five seconds later, you hear the roar. It's incredible. It's something different.

Q. Tell me how it went out there today.

ALDRICH POTGIETER: It was pretty slow. Iron play wasn't as great as I wanted it to be. So I missed in a few different spots that I probably shouldn't have been at.

It was a good steady day. Looking forward to tomorrow and then trying to just throw some darts tomorrow and play well.

Q. When did you first dream of ever playing here at Augusta?

ALDRICH POTGIETER: Probably when I understood everything about golf and understood all the history as well that's gone on behind the scenes, how this happens. Probably at the age of 8, 9, I really understood that I wanted to do this as a career.

Yeah, been looking forward to this every day since that day.

Q. Can you remember watching Charl win here? You were probably 9.

ALDRICH POTGIETER: Yeah, that's ages ago. My memory doesn't go back that far, but it's awesome to see the other South Africans doing good. I see he also didn't have too bad of a round. I saw Louis also struggling a little bit.

Tomorrow's another day, and hopefully some good comes out of it.

Q. How do you recoup for tomorrow?

ALDRICH POTGIETER: Have a good night's sleep, try and recover from today's round. Go out there like it's another golf day.

Q. Was that your parents at the Par 3 yesterday?

ALDRICH POTGIETER: My parents and my sister's here. Dad caddied, so that was awesome. That was awesome for him to experience -- be part of this tournament. For him it's just as special as it is for me.

Q. What do you think your future holds?

ALDRICH POTGIETER: It's tough to say. We'll see how tomorrow goes. Then I've got a few other events lined up for the rest of the year. So it will be awesome.

Q. What's it like to be able to call up Louis and Charl and some of the guidance they've given you?

ALDRICH POTGIETER: Me and Louis, I'm in his program in South Africa, so we've gotten quite close.

Then I just got to meet Charl a couple of days ago playing a practice round with him. He's awesome. He's a very professional, really professional guy. It's awesome. They've been so helpful to me at the course and showing me different lines and some secrets out there.

Q. The amateur experience here is so special. Are you taking it all in? What does it mean to be here?

ALDRICH POTGIETER: Yeah, I just want to have some fun this week and really enjoy it with my family as well. Being here at such a young age, I don't really have too much expectation for me to go out this week and do really good. But I've still got a few more years.

Hopefully I'll be back here a bit more. It's awesome trying to take everything in and trying to enjoy it.