PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 14, 2026

Alex Smalley

Aronimink Golf Club

Flash Quotes

THE MODERATOR: Alex Smalley is with us now at the 108th PGA Championship. Alex, quite the start for you today. How would you summarize your opening round?

ALEX SMALLEY: It's hard to complain with three birdies in the first five holes. Definitely kind of gets you to ease into the round a little bit.

Just tried to give myself as many birdie looks as I could and was able to do that for the most part on the first few holes and hit some good putts that were able to go in.

Definitely a dream start, if you would call it that. Then just try and hold on for dear life for a few holes after that.

Q. Alex, I guess it's a good habit, these 67s in the first round of the PGA Championship, did the same thing last year. Do you take something from last year at Quail Hollow into the next three days?

ALEX SMALLEY: Yeah, I mean, I think the circumstances are a little different. I had played Quail Hollow for the Wells Fargo before the PGA last year, so I was fairly familiar with the golf course. I had played a tournament there before the PGA.

This one was brand new for me. I had never seen it before I had arrived on property earlier this week.

But yeah, it's a big golf tournament, and I just try to think of it as any other standard golf tournament, just trying to prepare the same way I normally would for any other week throughout the year.

I would certainly look back on last year and how I felt, kind of being up near the top of the leaderboard after Thursday and close to the top on Friday.

Q. And what was going through your head on the 6th tee, after starting like that? And what is the impulse to try to keep that momentum going?

ALEX SMALLEY: On what tee box did you say?

Q. 6 tee box.

ALEX SMALLEY: On 6? Try to hit the fairway. I don't think my strategy really changed a whole lot, even after the first five holes. I still tried to hit as many fairways as I could. I tried to play smart, tried to hit it to the widest spot of the fairway. Didn't try to rip driver everywhere on every single hole.

But I knew 7 -- you know, 7 and 8 were difficult holes. I know 10 was a difficult hole. So I had some tricky ones coming up.

But like I said, I was -- after that start, I hate to say it, but you -- you know, you still want to push forward a little bit, but you know the golf course is playing tricky, so there's definitely a few holes where you're kind of just playing for par even when you walk up to the tee box. You're still trying to hit the best shot you possibly can, but maybe my targets got a little further away from the hole after the start. But yeah, I mean, I just tried to hit the fairways as much as I could, hit the greens, and try to get a decent look at birdie on those holes after that.

Q. I think in general, how hard do you try to stay away from the rough here? Both close to the fairways or on the greens, and how much is that the key here this week?

ALEX SMALLEY: Yeah, the rough is tricky. It's a very thick blade of grass. So you can certainly get some bad lies in places, but there's a few holes where it's a little spotty -- sorry. Got something stuck in my throat here.

Yeah, I feel like I did a good job of hitting the greens and being smart with where I was trying to leave it on the greens. I don't really think I was in the rough around the greens a whole lot today.

Then, some of the tee shots where I did miss the fairway, I felt like I missed it on the correct side. So I had a good angle into where the pin was. That was the case on No. 7. I'm not really sure how you're supposed to hold that fairway with the way it slopes towards the rough. It's a very difficult fairway to hit.

I hit a couple tee shots where I just kind of had to punch out. 10 and 15 was kind of behind the 8 ball right off the tee shot. For the most part, I felt like I was good off the tee and then with my targets going into the greens.