SONY OPEN IN HAWAII

January 16, 2026

Sahith Theegala

Waialae Country Club

Quick Quotes

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THE MODERATOR: Sahith, 66. Nice finish there to probably make the cut. Just get some comments on that.

SAHITH THEEGALA: Yeah, it was a pretty wild week. Bogeyed the first three today. What did I shoot, a 3-over to drop 6-over? Definitely super bummed about that.

I just felt like my game felt so good coming into this. Not that I'm trying to compare to what I was a year and a half ago, but it really felt like I was there and my body felt better even than it did then and my game was definitely trending in the right way in the offseason.

So everything went wrong. Today I was definitely -- I didn't play as well as yesterday which sounds crazy, but I probably had an eight- or nine-shot difference on the greens, so that always helps. I dropped in a couple 30-, 40-footers there to really get the momentum going.

Yeah, I definitely felt the nerves down the stretch there. I knew I needed probably one more to get in, and it's so windy out there; the small putts are scary. Yeah, it was good to get the nerves going again. It's been a while.

So, yeah, hopefully I make it. And, yeah, this round is definitely -- regardless of what happens, it's definitely a round that I'm going to look back on and use as a confidence boost for the start of this year.

Q. Talk a little bit about that front nine. Three bogeys to start.

SAHITH THEEGALA: Yeah.

Q. Just one par on the front nine, but just to fight back from that.

SAHITH THEEGALA: Yeah, again, my game felt good. I'm hitting driver so good and ball striking is close. Short my game feels like it's where it needs to be.

So even after I made my third bogey I wasn't really thinking about the cut at that point. I was just thinking about putting good swings, getting good tournament reps, things that I can look back on in the coming weeks to be like, hey, I can hit those shots under some pressure and in tournaments.

Definitely found a lot of that. Hit some really, really good iron shots on the par-3s. They were playing really tough today. Again, rolled in a couple long ones.

Yeah, I'm more of a -- not my best friend on the course sometimes, and Carl is always reminding me to stay in it and that you never know. It's a crazy game. You just never know when it could click.

He gave me some encouragement for sure on 4, 5, 6, 7, through there. Missed a short one on 8 and dropped back to 4-over or whatever it was. I could tell he was still fully in it. I feel like when he's like that I lock in as well and we go through our full process. Really happy how it ended up for sure.

Q. The lead is 9-under, so that's a small gap. Comment just on the next two days.

SAHITH THEEGALA: Yeah, that's the beauty of this place. I said it before, it's a place that stands the test of time for sure. The weather definitely helps, but just such a cool-designed golf course. Ton of doglegs. Requires so much discipline, something that I still don't know if I fully have.

Yeah, it's a course that you can go low even in windy conditions like this. You know, some of the downwind holes end up playing a lot easier and you definitely need to take advantage of that and hang just hang on on the into-the-wind and the crosswind holes. Yeah, if I have another kind of spurt like I did today tomorrow you never know.

That's the beauty of the PGA TOUR and why making a cut is such a sweat and so nervous. You know you're just another round of golf or two rounds from being -- having a great finish, and you just never know what that's going to do for your entire season.