Q. Stuart, 9-under after the two rounds and 3-under today. Nice birdie at 18, nice to have a 6-footer. Tell us about this round.
STUART APPLEBY: Different, very different golf course. The rough was still very long but wet in the morning so you really wanted to avoid that, sort of made getting any yardage out of it.
Drove it pretty good. Played pretty good. The course is a good test. Got to realize here, Tommy yesterday, made a lot of birdies. I don’t know how you do that without driving very well.
It’s tough enough out here where you really need to think about positioning your ball under the hole. There’s little slopes kicking off the edges of the greens. Good solid play. Something I haven’t been able to say at all for a long time. Nice to be playing on the weekend. It’s been a long time.
Q. 25 putts yesterday, 26 today. I know you threw in some bombs yesterday. How about the putter today?
STUART APPLEBY: Today is pretty good. Trying to get more comfortable with it. My aim has been ordinary of late. When your aim is ordinary you screw it up. I feel like I can get some quality rolls going today. It felt pretty good. Didn’t make any bombs but rolled the ball nice and scared the hole as much as I could.
And, again, like I said, solid golf, something I haven’t done in awhile. If I can just stay focused and in the moment, get a run through from now on and just go crazy for another month, it will be great.
Q. You referred you haven’t been playing well coming into this week. Are you surprised how well you’ve played and what kind emotions do you have when you struggle and all of a sudden lights go on?
STUART APPLEBY: I guess that’s the only thing that keeps you going. Really playing bad for one week and hopefully you get out of that funk.
Back in Akron a couple weeks ago I was bottom of the leaderboard — bottom of the board, not leaderboard. Some shots I hit that were like impressive, they felt like the guy that when I play well that was the sort of swings and shots I made.
I just tried the longer putter and it didn’t really feel ultimately great but I knew there were some problems there. Yeah, I think it can sometimes be — certainly culminates a lot of frustration, you start to get some answers and that’s what I’m trying to find.
I felt like that week in Akron I started to hit a couple sweet shots and on the range, started to feel like it. That’s the beautiful part of the game.
When you do play well and have successful tournaments, those feelings are still there when you do get it right, it lets you know you’re on the right track.
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