Travelers Championship

Friday, August 5, 2016

Russell Henley

Quick Quotes

Q. You had one of the better rounds today, shot 5-under 65. Just talk about what was going right for you out there.
RUSSELL HENLEY: Everything felt pretty good. I got off to a good start, birdied my second hole, and made a nice par save on 16. I started on the back. Which kind of kept the momentum going. I felt good about everything these last two weeks. I actually just changed to the newest Nike ball and I really love it, and I really feel like that's making a big difference in my short game and my wedges. Yeah, everything felt good. I kept the ball in front of me and made a couple putts.

Q. The winds kind of were picking up there this afternoon. How did that affect you?
RUSSELL HENLEY: Well, the new ball is really helping me a lot. I felt like I was able to flight it and control the distance. I felt like we -- I don't think we picked the wrong club all day, so I think we're just making good decisions, and I was hitting them in the right spots.

Q. What's the plan for the weekend tied for the lead?
RUSSELL HENLEY: Just keep having fun. I got to this point, I guess, through just picking targets and just playing golf, not thinking very much. Hopefully I can just keep doing that and have a good weekend.

Q. Overall thoughts where you stand through a couple rounds?
RUSSELL HENLEY: Yeah, I feel great about my game. I felt like I played really well last week at the PGA and didn't get quite as much out of it as I've gotten these last two days. I feel like I'm confident with every part of my game, and I feel like I'm enjoying myself out there and not being too hard on myself, and I think that's why I'm playing some good golf.

Q. We're used to seeing double-digit scores by this time in this tournament. Were you surprised when you looked up and 7 is at the top of the leaderboard at this point?
RUSSELL HENLEY: I didn't necessarily know it was at the top. Tried not to pay attention to that. I just know this is my first year playing here, and it got pretty windy this afternoon and got a little bit tricky on the greens and picking the right clubs going into the greens. It was just a little bit tricky. I think with no wind, the scores would have been more double digits by now, but I think the wind just tricked it up just a little bit.

Q. You were saying your ball actually helped you. How does the ball take a couple strokes off?
RUSSELL HENLEY: Well, I feel very confident in the ball that I just changed to. It's softer, and the flight of it is a little bit lower with my longer clubs, so off the tee I feel like I'm hitting it a little lower and keeping it in front of me, and with my wedges I feel like I'm able to control the distance really well. I don't know, I just really like it.

Q. Do you think playing this tournament for the first time, advantage at all, disadvantage?
RUSSELL HENLEY: I think it's probably both. They did redo some of the course. I'm not sure exactly what that was, but some people were talking about it. I'm just trying to go with my first instinct out there and just play the course and how I see it. I'm not basing it off anything that happened really in the past, so I guess maybe that could be an advantage.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
Rev #1 by #166 at 2016-08-05 22:50:00 GMT

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