MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 11, 2024

Danny Willett

Quick Quotes

Q. Tell us all about that.

DANNY WILLETT: It's unexpected, isn't it? No, practice has been good. Again, it was never an issue of whether or not the shoulder was strong enough, it was whether or not I could hit the shots I wanted to.

There was a couple there on 9 and 10 that weren't great, certain shots, certain winds still are a bit tricky. But for the most part then kept the ball under really good control and kept it in the areas that we know we can score from.

On a day like today when it's pumping like this, again, the greens are obviously soft, but they've still got plenty of speed in them.

I had no idea what to expect, so yeah, it's obviously always nice to come in having shot a decent score, and just give yourself that little bit of confidence inside and hopefully have a nice few more days.

Q. When did you actually make the decision you were definitely going to play?

DANNY WILLETT: Sunday. I played Sunday with a friend of mine, and I played all right. A lot of it was just getting used to the visuals again of the golf course. I'm back at home and you've got a driving range to hit it on to, it's not like it's in pain hitting it, it's more the shots you need to hit.

When you stand on 2 and you can't start it where you think you need to start it -- it's more that kind of stuff, getting the visuals right and getting comfortable with the golf course again, and on Sunday this place was unbelievable.

After the Augusta National Women's it was firm, it was fast, and I played all right, so I was like, you know what, there's a sniff.

We played 27, woke up the next day, no pain, no nothing, walked it, and that was kind of like, all right -- even if you play bad I think it's still worthwhile taking the risk and at least pegging it up and feed off people's energy around here and hopefully have a few good days.

Q. How do you feel now?

DANNY WILLETT: I feel all right. I think I might take the next six months off. No, it's completely unexpected. Sometimes that happens, whatever. You make a couple of birdies and your mind starts thinking, all right, I can do it. It was nice to keep chilled out.

Again, because it was playing tough, probably really made us concentrate that little bit more. Nice finish there and them last four holes to come back, and instead of posting an all right score of level-ish, which would, again, for me have been an amazing achievement, but to shoot 68, yeah, really happy.

Q. After the birdie on No. 1 --

DANNY WILLETT: In the fairway on No. 1 -- I've not done that for a while. It's a strangely daunting tee shot. It's pretty wide up there. Tiger is in the middle of the fairway.

It's pretty wide up there, but this place visually at time does that. Makes it look wide, but you still got to hit it the right side to make your second shot easy.

Yeah, two good great shots and a lovely putt there kind of settles the nerves a little bit. Just one of those days where we played clever, some pins that we've seen out there. We played certain shots where we don't need to hit it long like on 3.

A lot of guys hitting driver there and getting kind of a bit unstuck with where that flag is and we laid up like we done on 16 and spun it down to the flag and made birdie.

There's just things I think the experience around here on a day like today that can help. So yeah, all in all, it was a good day.

Q. When did it become clear that you were ahead of schedule?

DANNY WILLETT: January. Kind of in January we all sat down. I obviously couldn't lift anything for the first six, eight weeks, and then in January we kind of had a bit of a meeting -- I'd been out to London to see the guys, and it was getting to where I could do all right, somewhat swing a club properly, but the strength was there.

It was only a case of then -- now that we know we're not going to reinjure it, we really pressed on in January, and we had a really, really intense few months.

That's just one of those, isn't it? Someone gives you something to do, and this was always kind of there, apart from this week coming, I'm not playing for another seven weeks.

Q. Was there any benefit from being fit beforehand?

DANNY WILLETT: Yeah, so we did a lot of pre-stuff before the surgery so we were as strong as possible after the surgery, and that kind of means that you don't fall too far off.

But yeah, I had some great people around me, and we did some great work and put the hours in, and again, I could have shot 80 but it was still nice to have the ability to peg up and not be in pain was -- from where I was seven, eight, nine months ago and previous, to be able to play pain-free is a pretty nice thing.

Q. Talk about the finish here at 18. What a great finish.

DANNY WILLETT: It was good, yeah. Driver, 8-iron in. Again, that top tier, usually you never pitch on there to stop it, and then rolled in a nice 15-, 18-footer across the slope. It's one of those where a lot of good things went today, and hit some nice shots, holed some nice putts.

A couple of silly mistakes but didn't really compound the errors or do anything too silly. Means I can have a nice chilled out rest of the day.

Q. Do you see the similarities between 2016 in a way after you came in late after the birth of Zach, no expectation, and coming in this sort of way?

DANNY WILLETT: No. I think in terms of expectation, no one really knew. I didn't really know. I haven't been under the gun since Wentworth, under pressure, having to hit certain shots at certain times when there actually are consequences.

It's nice to come and prove that if you've done the work and you do the right things that you can hit the shots still when you need to.

Everything is just a building block. This was a completely neutral week. Whether I played or not I was still going to come here and enjoy being here. I might go out tomorrow and shoot 80, I don't know. But it's just the fact that we're here and pain-free, it's just a nice way to be.

Q. What were the kind of shots you were worried about being able to hit?

DANNY WILLETT: It's just the amount of reps. I've not been able to hit every single shot. Tiger talked about it when he came back about hitting a golf ball at least 1,000 times, whether that be putting, chipping, whatever.

It's just the ability to hit certain shots around here that -- it's a very complicated golf course if you get yourself out of position.

It was more the reps and me being a bit nervous, to be honest, about whether or not I'd just come here and mess around and hit the first tree in front of me every time because I've not practiced enough. It was more that actually, the nerves and the anxiety of are you in a place where you're not going to make a fool of yourself. It's actually turned out all right.

Q. Now that you've got the round in, a little bonus that you're not one of these players that has to come back and play more holes tomorrow?

DANNY WILLETT: Yeah, you always talk about draws and side of the draw. For a moment it looked like we were going to get a bit of a rubbishy side, but luckily it was actually thundering this morning, so no one could actually play in the bad weather.

We knew the wind was always going to be up this afternoon, so everyone is going to have to play in it for at least a little bit. But by the same token, because the greens are soft, they're going to obviously spike up a little bit and they're still firm, they're still fast, they're still tricky. But yeah, I think with the shoulder, not having to play 27 definitely helps.