TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 27, 2026

Ryan Gerard

East Lake Golf Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Nice round today, 5-under 65. Tell us what was working for you out there.

RYAN GERARD: Just kind of got off to a weird slow start. Ball was going a little bit further than I thought, so did a good job of adjusting, just making some quality swings. I rolled in a couple of kind of those 6- to 10-footers.

Hit a lot of good shots, hit a lot of good putts. Kind of bummed I left one out there at the last, but a solid day. Three more good ones hopefully coming soon.

Q. First time here at East Lake. What have you learned about the course over the past couple of days?

RYAN GERARD: I think the course is gettable, but you have to be kind of on the right side of the hole. There's one side of every hole besides 15 that you can kind of hit it over there and be okay with. The greens have a lot of these subtleties to them.

So just really being particular with where you're picking your targets coming into the green and making sure you're keeping it in the proper spot, whether that's below the hole, above the hole, using the slopes. If you don't, you're kind of going to have a long day.

Did a good job of picking good targets and executing shots to those targets. So yeah, solid overall.

Q. The approach and the chip on 3, can you walk us through those?

RYAN GERARD: A little frustrated. Kind of tugged the tee shot just in the rough. It was sitting down just enough where I couldn't get -- I couldn't carry that little swale short of the green and feel like it was going to stay anywhere near that hole.

So I just kind of tried to hit it right up against the little backstop that we had over there and left it just short, didn't really get a bounce. It's a little softer than practice rounds with all the rain the last day or so.

That chip, it was over this kind of little knob. I thought about putting it, but I thought if I just took the knob out of play, as long as I had good contact, it would kind of just work its way down there. It's kind of a bonus for it to go in.

Q. Strategic little layup with a wedge in hand?

RYAN GERARD: Yeah, it wasn't necessarily a full layup, but it was definitely a layup from 108 yards, whatever we had, aiming 40 feet away from the pin. Just kind of hit it where I knew it would be okay even if it didn't come out great. Yeah, I was lucky enough to put a good kind of roll on that chip, and it ended up in a good spot.

Q. Presidents Cup on your mind at all?

RYAN GERARD: It's hard not to be a little bit, but that's not the main focus. I think I just have to play good golf and kind of see how it shakes out.

There's a lot of guys who have been playing really good golf coming in. If you want to be in contention for a spot or kind of be on the top of mind, go out there and execute good golf shots, put together some good scores, and kind of show that you have the ability to do that, and we'll let the chips fall wherever they are after this week, and we'll leave it up to them.