HILTON GRAND VACATIONS TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS

January 30, 2026

John Smoltz

Lake Nona Golf & Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. All right, great playing. We have John Smoltz in the interview room with us. John, looks like you're in solo third place. Great day on the course. Tell us about your round today.

JOHN SMOLTZ: Yeah, that's first two rounds have not been my best ball striking, but I'm finding ways to get it up and down. Made some long putts. Chipped in for eagle. It's been ugly, but I'll take it. It's going to get ugly the next two days, so maybe that matched it out.

I'm dealing with really, really sore back and trying to find a way to swing around it, which is sometimes good and sometimes not so good.

Q. Which hole did you chip in?

JOHN SMOLTZ: No. 11. It was just on the collar. It was just really bladed it to putt with it because I just had to get it moving. It went in, and that kind of jump started the round a little bit. I was 2-over going into that.

Pars are really good out here in our format, so you got to make sure you stay way from the big number. So far so good for that.

It's going to be about as challenging -- it's already challenging for me right now I'm being honest because of my back, but it's going to be really interesting the next couple days.

Q. Anything you do to prepare for the cold?

JOHN SMOLTZ: You know, the biggest thing is layer up. Usually when you layer up you can take a layer or two off. We will not be taking anything off on Sunday.

Really comes down to tomorrow, you cannot afford to hit a bad shot. The wind that's expected to be here is going to take a bad shot and really make it worse.

So, again, pars will be really, really good this weekend.

Q. Talk about the two guys up there with, Mardy Fish and Aaron Hicks.

JOHN SMOLTZ: Yeah, they're young, strong, and bomb it. I always try to win, but I'm always realistic with my game right now. I need a lot of things to happen, and that means they can't play great.

But they're two great golfers. We started the pro tour and they're one of the two best golfers on our tour.

I just love playing with them, but I got get not caught up in how far they hit it because they just bomb it.

Q. Just a little bit about your golf game. Been playing much lately?

JOHN SMOLTZ: You know, coming into this I had not been playing. We had some family stuff to deal with. Typically I play a lot, but weather of course in Georgia has not been great.

But leading into this tournament normally I would be revved up. I just got to limit how many balls I hit because of my back unfortunately. Because of this tournament few years ago I got my hips replaced because walking four days just wore me out, so that's great. Now just got to fix my back.