MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 11, 2025

Corey Conners

Quick Quotes

Q. Great round out there today. Can you talk a bit about getting yourself into position here once again?

COREY CONNERS: Yeah, it was a good round. Got off to a pretty solid start today and was just kind of hanging on on the second nine. It was playing increasingly difficult as the day went on. Happy with a lot of the things that I did.

It was fairly stress free for the most part. Hit a lot of good tee balls and a lot of good iron shots to leave myself with some birdie chances. Sort of stress-free pars, which is always nice around here.

Q. It's not your first time in a position like this. What makes you more comfortable or feel more ready to do it this weekend than before?

COREY CONNERS: Yeah, I mean, I've learned a lot in my prior finishes here, just knowing -- kind of seeing what it takes. But yeah, I'll just have lots of trust in my game and sort of remember the good things that I've done out here and trust the game plan.

Q. What have you learned?

COREY CONNERS: I think there's some key holes that are important to take care of. I think patience is a really big key. You can get yourself in trouble pretty quickly here, so just being patient and being aggressive to your targets I think is a big key.

Q. There's not that many leaderboards out there, but when you see a leaderboard are you seeing where you're at at all?

COREY CONNERS: A little bit. There's a few out there that I was looking at. Obviously knew approximately where I stood. But there's a lot of golf left to be played. Was just trying to get the ball in the hole as quick as I could.

Q. In addition to knowing where you stood, do you notice who else is around you and does that matter to you going into tomorrow's round with so many big names there?

COREY CONNERS: You know, it is what it is. I'm excited to be in the mix, regardless of who's up there.

But yeah, got lots of trust in my game, so we'll just go out and play golf.

Q. You're at the midway point right now. You're in a position where you can win this thing. Can you talk about the desire to win a major and how you try to not get too caught up in that desire, which obviously you have?

COREY CONNERS: Yeah, never like to get too far ahead of myself, but it would be -- it's a big deal to win majors, especially the Masters Tournament. Probably the biggest golf tournament in the world. Remember where I was watching Mike win in 2003.

And it's an exciting opportunity, and just going to try and have fun, and we'll see what happens over the weekend.

Q. How much confidence is there in your short game right now compared to past majors?

COREY CONNERS: I'd say there's lots of confidence there. I had some nice up-and-downs through the first couple days, and it's been very helpful. Yeah, feels good. Hopefully trying not to get myself in too many crazy spots, but it's nice to know I can give myself a chance at saving things when I do.

Q. You talked about having a game plan for this place. About how close are you to perfectly executing on that game plan?

COREY CONNERS: Yeah, it was pretty good today. It just felt like I struck the ball a little bit better than I did yesterday. Just made things a little bit easier. Wasn't scrambling quite as much.

Yeah, would have liked to maybe be a little more aggressive on some putts, but overall happy with the round.

Q. As a hunter, are you more comfortable as a straight hunter or more of a hunter in the shadows?

COREY CONNERS: I don't know, I just try and enjoy whatever position I'm in, I guess. I'm in a nice spot through two days here, and we'll be trying to play some good golf over the weekend.

Q. How much harder was it playing today?

COREY CONNERS: I think quite a bit harder. The wind was definitely -- I'd say the direction was fairly consistent, but it was gusting around a little bit. So the wind velocity was up and down throughout the back nine depending on where you were on the golf course. It was a little bit tricky to judge. Some of the holes were playing quite tricky.

Q. Mike said on the anniversary of his win that it was about time another Canadian joined him at the Champions Dinner. Did you have any conversations with him about any such things?

COREY CONNERS: No, not really. I don't think he wants to put too much pressure on us. He's a great supporter of all of the Canadian players on the PGA TOUR, and yeah, chatted with him obviously in the practice round and then chatted with him briefly after the round yesterday.

He was focused on his game just as much as anything. But he was very complimentary of my round yesterday and how my game was looking.

Q. You mentioned you wished you were a little bit more aggressive on some birdie putts. How do you address that?

COREY CONNERS: I think just trying to have a little bit more freedom. I feel like I did have some putts, and with the wind blowing, didn't want to be knocking the putts too far by the hole coming in. Was a little protective. I feel like I can learn from that and just try and be a little freer going into the weekend.