MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 7, 2023

Gary Woodland

Quick Quotes

Q. How would you characterize your round?

GARY WOODLAND: Frustrating because I played a lot better than the score. Hit a bad putt on 13 and a bad chip on 15, two par-5s that you'd like to take advantage of.

Outside of that, you make birdies there, you shoot a couple under. Happy with the birdie on 17 to get it back to level for the day.

Obviously Brooks played unbelievable. It was impressive to watch. Weather coming in, should be in a good position heading into the weekend.

Q. What have you seen out of Brooks the last two days?

GARY WOODLAND: Everything. He drove it well, hit his irons well, chipped it well, and putted it well. It was a clinic for 36 holes. I played with him -- we were in the final group at Bellerive on Saturday, and it was the same thing. Just in control of his game.

Q. Is it a mental thing too? Obviously what he can do physically, but mentally he seems like he's in a good place too.

GARY WOODLAND: No doubt. Brooks and I always got along. We talked a lot and had a nice conversation. Obviously winning last week probably gave him a little boost as well, but he played beautifully.

The golf course was a little receptive this morning, so he took advantage of that. But it was impressive to see.

Q. There's a lot of stirring controversy about what happened yesterday. You saw what happened yesterday. From your standpoint, could you give us what your thoughts are?

GARY WOODLAND: At the end of the day, Brooks hit his shot on 15. I asked Butchy if he saw what he hit. He said no. Luckily for us because Brooks ended up hitting 5-iron. I hit 5-iron. I asked Butchy what the club was, and he said it's a choked-up perfect 5.

I hit my shot. When we were walking down, I asked Brooks what he hit, and he said 5. If I would have known that, I probably would have hit 6-iron, and I would have hit 6-iron in the middle of the water. Luckily for me, I didn't know what he hit. That's the end of it.

Q. Are you surprised the life this has taken on?

GARY WOODLAND: Not much. They told us inside it was taking a big life. At the end of the day, I didn't hear anything or I didn't see anything. My caddie didn't hear anything or see anything either.

Q. How common a practice is that would you say, caddies exchanging information in terms of club selection?

GARY WOODLAND: Usually the caddies are telling the media or TV guys. The TV guys, the boom guys are out every hole, and they're usually telling them, so it's easy to pick it up from there. I don't know if there was a boom guy or not. I have no idea.

Q. Are you saying Augusta didn't talk with you guys?

GARY WOODLAND: They did. They talked to us when we got done. They told us it was getting to be a big deal. That's why they brought us in and showed us all the angles. At the end of the day, Butchy didn't see anything or hear anything. That's where we left it.

Q. What's your thought on that rule, that somebody can --

GARY WOODLAND: I get it. You're out here -- I don't think anybody is trying to get an advantage from anybody at the end of the day. We're all trying to beat each other. It was an unfortunate situation. Like I said, I didn't see anything, didn't hear anything. Lucky for me, I didn't because I would have hit 6-iron if I'd have known he hit 5-iron.

Q. The actual rule itself doesn't really seem like it's -- everybody is hitting different clubs at different distances.

GARY WOODLAND: For sure.

Q. Is that a necessary rule in your opinion?

GARY WOODLAND: Everybody's different. Brooks and I, we hit it the same distance. For us, D.J., there's a bunch of guys that we can club off each other pretty easy on par-3s. You're walking with his bag. When he's 15 yards behind me and we hit it the same distance, I ended up hitting the same club. I wouldn't have hit the same club if I knew he hit 5-iron.

Q. You won your major during his dominant window there. Just in retrospect, can you recall how difficult it was to beat him in majors in that window of time?

GARY WOODLAND: Yeah, at the end of the day, I'm getting back to that form, and it looks like he's getting back into form. I played beautifully that day. Fortunately going into that day on Sunday, I had a four-shot lead over him. I knew if I shot a couple under, it would be hard for him to shoot 6-, 7-under on a Sunday of a major.

So he played beautifully. It seemed like, if he was not winning, he was in the top five of every major there for a couple of years. He's definitely back in that form right now.

Q. Do you remember what he said at Bethpage, whittled down the field, saying there were only a couple of players that could beat him. That certain swagger, does he have that back?

GARY WOODLAND: I don't think Brooks has ever lacked confidence. It shows in his game. He plays aggressive. He plays super quick, which just shows you how confident he is. There's no question to anything he's doing, which is awesome to see.

Q. Could you tell on the 1st tee on Thursday before he hit the shot that he was locked in?

GARY WOODLAND: Like I said, we're always pretty good buddies, so we were pretty cordial talking quite a bit out there. I hadn't played with him since probably the last time he was locked in, and it looked very similar to that.

Q. There was a lot of kind of speculation from the LIV guys coming in here, because of the format, the no cuts, the shorter fields, that maybe these guys might not be that sharp coming in here, as maybe the guys on the TOUR that play more.

GARY WOODLAND: I think you look at the history of Brooks, he's always lived for these moments. So I don't -- he's very similar to Tiger in that standpoint, that the other tournaments never seem to bring out the best in him, where the majors did, and it was no different here this week.

Q. (No microphone)?

GARY WOODLAND: I mean, at the end of the day, he drives it long, and he hits it straight. That's a huge deal. He's putting it well again. I think sometimes the putter has been up and down, and the putter looked amazing. He hit a lot of 6-, 7-footers today that just go dead center for par. You've got a lot of break out there.

It was impressive to see. His iron play was a joke. He couldn't have missed many greens. It was really impressive.

Q. One more just quickly. With the weather coming in and him being where he is --

GARY WOODLAND: It's going to be tough.

Q. What is the advantage?

GARY WOODLAND: It's a huge advantage. We knew going in, before we started today, we had to take advantage of what we got. Huge break with the weather for sure.