THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY NATIONWIDE

June 5, 2021

Collin Morikawa

Muirfield Village

Quick Quotes

Q. You saw one hole-in-one earlier today. You should have seen a second one from yourself. What did you see on the 4th tee there?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: I want to go see the replay right now. It looked pretty good from my end. It landed a lot closer than I thought, but I don't know speed-wise how hard it was going in because it was about a foot away from the hole. So that would have been really cool, but what are you going to do?

Q. How did you feel about your play today, third round play?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: It was really solid. The couple bogeys I had today were just kind of poor bogeys. But it's going to happen out here, especially if you're missing the fairways. And overall, I was hitting some really quality shots. I stuck to my game and stuck to the game plan. Out here with these soft greens you can get a little aggressive with wedges and put yourself in bad spots, but I thought it played pretty smart and I got to do that tomorrow even though I'm six back.

Q. What do you think about that being six back and having played with Jon the first two rounds just how well he's playing out here?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Jon's a great player. It's going to be really tough to catch him, especially with only 18 left and being six, maybe seven back, I don't know. But I got to go out there and do my best and hopefully make a charge through the front nine. I've showed that I can put up low scores. But he's taking advantage of the holes he can and tomorrow if he's out of position he could definitely go and try and make pars. So for the most part I just got to go out and just start from hole 1 and not get ahead of myself because if I do, I'm going to blink, nine holes are going to be by and it's never going to be in sight again.

Q. Is there a strategy to chasing in general for you when you're that far behind?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Not really. I got to have luck on my side tomorrow. I got to have him give a couple shots back to me early on. I got to take advantage of some holes, some good shots that I hit. I did that last year at the workday when I was I think three back with JT and I was even with him through a handful of holes. Six shots is a lot different. But I got to have luck on my side and if I don't, go out there and play the best I can and see what happens.

Q. How do you play more aggressively? You're kind of saying you can't, but you kind of do have to, don't you, a little bit?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Not really. For me, aggressive, if you're giving yourself -- I don't know what aggressive means. Because aggressive, does that mean you go at the pin and give yourself 3-footers or do you give yourself 15-footers and 10-footers by playing smart. To me, that's what I need to do. I need to keep hitting my 10-, 15-footers and just hopefully the putter gets really hot and I start making everything. It feels good setting up to it, so that's all I can do. Keep hitting the shots I am and if we get a little closer, take advantage of those.

Q. Is this a day you just tip your cap to Jon because you're eight birdies, 66 and you lose ground. You can't beat yourself up over that, right?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, you can't do anything about it. Jon's playing some great golf. I saw it this morning. I saw it yesterday. And sometimes you just hit a wall like that, but we got 18 more and I'm not giving up yet.

Q. The rough. What's that like, been like this week here?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: It's not great. You got to have luck on your side. I've seen some guys, I've had some good breaks where you hit the rough and you're able to get it out and move forward. Certain holes you can get away with better than others, but it's definitely up. It's some of the longest rough we have seen on TOUR, I've seen on TOUR, and it's definitely good prep for the U.S. Open in a couple weeks.

Q. How close that to U.S. Open rough?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, out here I think it's spotty enough to where you get lucky, but in some of the bad spots it's really bad. U.S. Open, I don't know if we get as spotty of rough. I feel like they love to keep it nice and lush. But you never know. But it's great prep to see some balls in the rough and really get practice out of that.

Q. He kind of asked you this, but are you paying any attention to the scoreboard at all on a Saturday? Are you aware of what Jon is doing out there?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: Yeah, I'm always paying attention where I'm at and what other guys are doing, but it not going to affect how I'm going to play, it's not going to make me play more aggressive. But tomorrow I know I'm going to be six back, I got to shoot a number and I got to have him kind of fall back towards me and that's all I can do. But everything's in my control for what I can do and hit my shots, so it's all I can focus on.

Q. Are you looking at the scoreboard going, another one, another one, another one, another birdie for him?

COLLIN MORIKAWA: No, no, no. I was trying to make my birdies myself. I can't control what he does. He's playing great golf and props to him for making a lot of birdies today, especially coming down that stretch, but what are you going to do?