A look at some of the quotes from the top players after the second round of the 2018 PGA Championship at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, where Gary Woodland leads with a two-day score of 10-under par (64-66).
Players featured include Woodland, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, and Jordan Spieth.
GARY WOODLAND
So, Gary, let’s start out, you and Kevin are kind of doing something that’s not often seen on a Friday morning at a Major championship. Are you feeding off each other, drafting off each other? It’s a pretty nice dynamic out there.
WOODLAND: Yeah, it was nice. Kis played beautifully today. He drove the ball unbelievable, and he gets that putter rolling quite often. It was nice to feed off that energy. The crowds have been massive, which is awesome. So it’s good to have that energy out there as well.
I probably didn’t play as well as I did yesterday top to bottom, but the iron game really kept me in it today. I didn’t — I got a little wayward with a couple of drives and hit a lot of good putts that didn’t go in. So I can live with that.
1 WOODLAND – 64-66 (-10)
BROOKS KOEPKA
What would it mean to you to cap it off with a win here?
KOEPKA: Yeah, it would be special. Any time you can win two Majors in a year, that’s pretty unique, pretty special. And especially where I started the season.
Playing missing the Masters and only being able to play three this year is quite disappointing, but trying to make the most of it.
3 KOEPKA – 68-63 (-9)
DUSTIN JOHNSON
Are you able to carry momentum in from Firestone?
JOHNSON: Yeah, I feel like since, even at the Open Championship, certainly at the Open Championship, even the U.S. Open, I feel like I’ve been swinging the club well and so, yeah, it carries over, for sure. Even the British Open this year I felt like I hit it plenty good enough to be in contention after two days, I just putted really poorly.
I feel like I’m starting to roll the putter really well, seeing the lines good. And I’m definitely swinging well. And just I was a little off on the front and then turned it around on the back nine and I made a bunch of birdies.
T5 D JOHNSON – 67-66 (-7)
JORDAN SPIETH
What do you make of this place after two days and what do you think it will take on the weekend for you and everybody?
SPIETH: A little frustrated at this place in general. I think that it’s tough to come to — it’s tough to come to a venue with bent grass greens and this kind of weather. This course is, would be phenomenal in, and probably is phenomenal, if it’s not playing so soft. And it’s not the rain that came on Tuesday, it was like that on Monday.
So you can just, you just fire in and you get away with more, like you don’t have to be as precise. That’s frustrating in a major championship because typically what it does is you don’t really have to be as precise on and around the greens. That’s frustrating to me because I feel like that’s an advantage that I have. So personally I would prefer more difficult and firmer faster conditions on the greens.
Having said that, I would have shot a much higher score yesterday, given you got to be in the fairways in order to hold greens where they need to be. So I’m not saying that my score would be any better, I’m just saying what you would like to see in a major championship.
It is what it is. I still, I really like the golf course, it’s just, you just can’t, you can’t possibly have firm, fast bent grass greens with this climate.
T23 SPIETH – 71-66 (-3)