MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 11, 2024

Erik Van Rooyen

Quick Quotes

Q. Could you tell us about your 9th hole experience?

ERIK VAN ROOYEN: Yeah, I found myself in an unfortunate position just over the green. As you guys can tell, the wind is up, and it's swirling just a little bit through these trees.

According to our calculations, it was a perfect stock 7-iron, though it actually ended up sort of two or three yards below the hole.

I think the wind must have just turned, instead of being slightly in off the right, it was probably straight off the right, and it went long, and I couldn't believe it.

There's another one on 14 on the back nine that went a bit long that I was a bit baffled by. Hell of a putt on 9. Alex looks at me, and he goes, "what a stupid game."

Yeah, that's what happened there.

My coach Sean Foley told me today that acceptance is going to be so key. The person that's going to try and control every aspect of this game out there is probably going to struggle because you're going to hit great shots and make great swings, and it's not going to end up the way you thought, and that happened on 9, happened on 14, happened on 15 with me. That's golf.

Q. Following you around, it felt like the wind really started picking up the 8th green.

ERIK VAN ROOYEN: Yes, sir. Right sort of through the turn it started picking up. 12 was again one that was really strange. Supposed to be a bit in off the left. I've watched this tournament how many times as a kid, and you hear about how it swells. It's only my third time playing, and I definitely experienced it there. It wasn't supposed to go that long.

Yeah, I'm really happy with shooting under par. Obviously a pity making a few bogeys on the back, but that's okay.

Q. When you get to 4-under, it's a big deal, and you're leader in the clubhouse. That's a strong par on 18.

ERIK VAN ROOYEN: Absolutely. That's a really, really difficult putt. I don't know if there's a good place to leave your ball on that green.

Underneath the slope, you see what happened with Jake Knapp there, so hard to judge that speed being downwind and up the hill, and mine, everything just runs away from you. It's like that and you're putting it off the green. Just really tricky.

Q. Overall --

ERIK VAN ROOYEN: Overall I played fantastic. I made one poor swing, and that was on 17. The rest of it was fantastic golf. Like I said, the one on 14 went a bit long. Pity about sort of three-putting there.

The one on 15, I tried to hit it past five the hole with my lob wedge there and really thought I hit it great, and it didn't end up that way. Really only one bad swing, and happy with how I played.

Q. Do you think going off early might play to your advantage going forward?

ERIK VAN ROOYEN: I have no idea how it's going to turn out, especially tomorrow morning. I haven't really looked at the forecast. There's a lot of guys that will probably not finish today.

Early in the week I was a bit bummed seeing the weather and I'm going to have to play in the rain, so now that I played in sunshine, it was great.

I don't know. Hopefully it kind of turns out my way. But it doesn't matter.

Q. Did you look at the scoreboards?

ERIK VAN ROOYEN: You can't really miss them, can you? I saw them all over the place. Yeah, it's cool to see your name up there, and hopefully we can continue that.