MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 10, 2025

Jose Luis Ballester

Quick Quotes

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Q. What was your first Masters round like? How did you enjoy it?

JOSE LUIS BALLESTER: I loved it. Didn't start well. Got really tough really early. A couple unlucky breaks at the beginning, but I tried to stay positive with a smile on my face. I think I did a good job with that.

I wouldn't say that I got rewarded but I started playing much better towards the end. It's true that I didn't really make anything, which kind of sucks, but happy with how I competed, happy with how I played.

We had a fantastic group, and I thought that the pressure didn't really hit me that much, which is something that I'm proud.

I remember when I played first my first major two years ago at The Open, I was shaking on the first tee, and today I felt really comfortable. Starting to see the progress, and hopefully tomorrow I'll make a couple more putts.

Q. At 13 there was an issue. Did you have an emergency? Obviously they cheered. Can you tell us what happened there?

JOSE LUIS BALLESTER: Well, I completely forgot that we had those restrooms to the left of the tee box --

Q. On the 13th tee?

JOSE LUIS BALLESTER: Correct, and then I'm like, I really need to pee. Didn't really know where to go, and since JT had an issue on the green, I'm like, I'm just going to sneak here in the river and probably people would not see me that much, and then they clapped for me.

Probably one of the claps that I really got today real loud, so that was kind of funny.

Q. Were you concerned that there might be any blowback from that at all? Obviously they did see you, right?

JOSE LUIS BALLESTER: They saw me. They saw me. It was not embarrassing at all for me. If I had to do it again, I would do it again.

Q. You knew that after winning the U.S. Amateur you'd be in one of the marquee pairings today. When did it hit you that, oh, my gosh, I'm really playing with the defending champion and this is big?

JOSE LUIS BALLESTER: Yeah, I feel like you never really know how to prepare. You can meditate, visualize, put yourself in hard situations, but at the end of the day you've got to figure it out, right, especially being the first time here at Augusta with such a nice pairing like I had.

I knew for sure I was going to have Scottie, and when I saw Tuesday I had JT, I was like, oh, my God, this is getting serious.

Yeah, just tried to get loose warming up, tried to be myself, listen to music, tried to stay focused. And again, as I said before, really happy with how to manage the nerves on the first tee box and how to play the first few holes. Although I made a couple mistakes and got really unlucky on 5. Yeah, I think I kept doing that, and I was not intimidated at all by the pairing that I had.

Q. Any random conversations on the way down some of the fairways with them sharing some knowledge or --

JOSE LUIS BALLESTER: Not really. I talked to Scottie a little bit just to chat. I'm like, okay, now that I have this VIP pass to play with these two, better to get to know them a little bit. But nothing special.