SONY OPEN IN HAWAII

January 16, 2026

Nick Taylor

Waialae Country Club

Quick Quotes

THE MODERATOR: Nick, familiar story today. Feels like we've talked to a lot of guys who went low yesterday and today was tougher. Talk about the conditions out there today.

NICK TAYLOR: Yeah, the wind was strong and with some gusts. A lot of the holes were relatively crosswind, so it was tough to get the yardages correctly with -- sometimes it would hurt, sometimes it would help. Almost had to time your shots correctly and get a little bit of luck, too.

I felt like I hit it probably not as good off the tee today, but it was definitely difficult with the wind. Three or four I feel like were a couple yards off of being in the fairway; if not, they were just in bunkers and made it difficult to try to make birdies.

Everything was relatively sharp. Just got to keep trying to find fairways.

Q. Tied for the lead right now. How excited are you for the next two days?

NICK TAYLOR: Yeah, I always love coming back here. It's great to start off the year with some solid golf. You know, just because I've had a great history doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to play great, but it certainly helps and I'm excited to have a chance to win again.

Q. True to your MO, you were kind of lurking it seemed like, just from watching the scoreboard, then made a strong move down the stretch. I thought with 17 and 18 being birdie holes you might put some space between you and the rest. It makes for some dramatic stuff for at least tomorrow.

NICK TAYLOR: I feel like at least here the first two days it's very bunched. I don't know how many guys are within a couple shots the lead, but probably almost double digits.

Yeah, 17 was playing tricky with that back left pin.

18 I just need to hit a better tee shot to give myself an opportunity for birdie there.

Yeah, it was really nice to grab a couple birdies on 15 and 16 and finish the day under par. I thought anything under par would've been a nice day to happy to finish under par.

Q. You know how we talked on Wednesday about how you're trying to channel your positive, how well you do in playoffs in the earlier rounds. Looked like you did that yesterday. Did you feel like you did that for the most part today, too?

NICK TAYLOR: Yeah, a lot of it is trying to be as clear as possible and swing really freely out there. Today was difficult because conditions were much harder today, slightly different directions. It was really different golf course today compared to yesterday.

So there is still some opportunities, but like a lot of par-3s you're happy with pars. I played them even today, which is pretty solid.

Yeah, again, I think the weekend is going to be similar conditions to today. Par is going to be a decent score on a lot of holes, and try to take advantage of the par-5s, which I didn't do great job today.

With the windy conditions I'll take anything under par.