The Best Things We Heard During the Marathon Day of Masters Press Conferences

Masters Tuesday featured its usual run of press conferences from golf’s biggest names. Here are some of our favorite quotes from the day.

McIlroy was all smiles at his Tuesday press conference. | Benjamin Gilbert/Augusta National

Before the Masters Tournament officially begins, there’s a whole lot of yapping. 

On Tuesday, in particular, there’s a gauntlet of press conferences from golf’s biggest names, entertaining questions from the press. And, of course, the topics range widely, from golf shots, juicy stories from past Masters, controversies and, this year, Tiger Woods. 

Here are the most notable quotes from several hours of golfers at the microphone: 

“For me it’s a continual learning process. For me from a nerding-out perspective, it’s really about the wind this year for me.” —Bryson DeChambeau, on how he prepares to play individual holes at Augusta.

“I think I already have [compromised]. We’ve already told them many times. I just don’t know, so I think this is not the week to be talking about this, this being the first major of the year and how important this is for the game of golf in general and for all of us. We keep talking to them, and we keep trying to negotiate. I have given in quite a bit in a few things, which I think I made—I talked about on my last press conference. We’re going to work it out. It’s going to work out. As of now, the DP World Tour is doing what they need to do and following the channels they need to follow, but I’m confident this will be sorted out before I tee it up in September.” —Jon Rahm, on his tiff with the DP World Tour.

“I’d say watching my daughter grow up. I think Poppy, like she’s a mini Erica. It’s like living with two
of them, which is great a lot of the time. She is the most unbelievably polite and respectful and well-behaved little girl, and I really love that she started to get into the game a lot more, and it all stemmed from the putt last year at the Par 3. So she made sure that I brought her putter up this year so she could hit the putt with her putter and not mine. Yeah, that’s been amazing to—and as well, just to see her grow up to have her travel the world to see different places, to give her a life that I could only dream about when I was that age, that’s been the coolest thing.” —Rory McIlroy, on what brought him joy off the course in the past year.

“I don’t really know how to use Instagram (laughs). So any posts or anything like that, I feel like those things can be a great tool to be able to share certain things about my life, but when it comes to my kids, I want them to have as simple of a life as they can and be able to grow and develop like normal kids the same way I did.

“There's no reason that my kids need to be on TV or on my Instagram or whatever it is. I feel like my kids need to have a normal upbringing or as normal as I can, and we'll go from there.

“Bennett is still 2, so the hard parenting hasn't really started yet. It's more bargaining at this point.” —Scottie Scheffler, on the tightness of his family and inner circle.

“Talk to somebody. We live in a world, as men and especially as an athlete, that you put your head
down and you fight through it. I’ve done it my whole life. This is honestly one battle that I'm not able to do on my own. I tried, and it wasn't working.

“And talking has helped me so much. I had a big battle Friday of Houston. I got hypervigilant on the 9th hole, and I battled the last 10 holes thinking people were trying to kill me. I have security with me. The Tour’s been amazing. But I talked to Tour security that night and I told them what I was going through, and every time I looked up on the weekend, my security team was behind me. Any time I got startled on the weekend, I turned around—last year I didn’t talk to Tour security. I fought this on my own. It was awful. Turning around and knowing that I’m safe, having somebody there with me, it’s the only reason why I won like two weeks ago.

“To talk to somebody. You don't have to fight this on your own.” —Gary Woodland, on the advice he’d give to anyone facing similar struggles.

Woodland became emotional during his Tuesday press conference. | Benjamin Gilbert/Augusta National

“It’s really been kind of a long march back up, and to finally be for the first time in my career a top-10 player in the world is pretty cool, never mind top 5. Yeah, it’s where I want to be. I feel like the golf I’ve played over the last year has really been good proof of that.” —Cam Young, on being the third-ranked player in the world. 

“This place means a lot to me as a professional and as a golfer. This place signifies so much for me in my golf journey, and that’s something I'd love to be able to share with my kids. We’ll see how that goes as they age. Right now I just—if ’'m wearing it near him, I’m just hoping he doesn't ruin it or anything like that. (laughs) Throw up on it. Who knows?” —Scheffler, on what it would mean to someday win a jacket in front of his kids.

“Mo claims he’s beat me, but like it’s a very debatable one. I don’t think he can claim it, but he does. They played pretty well. It was funny how—again, like you forget these things. I’m teeing it up at Augusta with no pressure or anything. Like I was just happy to be playing. I could have shot 150 and not really cared. It was just a joy to be out there. But watching them, they’re really nervous about playing. Like I said, it’s funny watching that experience. —Tommy Fleetwood on his sons’s golf game. 

“No, no, not yet. Honestly, it’s amazing watching them. Some of the things that just come naturally to a kid. The clubs are heavy for them, so they’re kind of forced to use their whole body, and you see the big weight shift into the right, and then they kind of take a step with the left and do a lot of the things that we probably wish we could do. They make a pretty athletic move at it. So no, no pause, but we’ll see, maybe it will show up at some point.” —Young, on his kids pausing at the top of their golf swing, as he does.

“There’s a lot of players in this field that were very close to [Tiger Woods], and I haven’t had the time to talk to them. Quite frankly, I don’t know if this will be the week to do so. They have enough going on this week with the Masters and a friend needing some help that I don't know if it's the right time. So I haven’t had any conversations with anyone about it. All I can hope is that he gets the help that he can get and he can come back in a better position after that. I mean, he is arguably the king of comebacks. If there's somebody that has the mental strength to come back from an issue like that, it will be him. Confident that he has enough people in Florida, enough golfers for sure supporting him on that as well.” —Rahm, on Tiger Woods. 

“Personally, I always prefer [hard golf courses]. I think something that I spoke about with my coaches this year is that I've always been a conservative player probably, in the right way, I would say. I’m probably going to try to hit a 7-iron to the middle of the green or 5 or 6 right of the flag or whatever pretty much every week. I think that's changed now I've been better with my irons and had better strategy. —Matt Fitzpatrick, on wanting course setups to be as difficult as possible. 

“People keep asking me why didn't you go more Irish? And I said, because I want to enjoy the dinner as well.” —McIlroy, on his Champions Dinner menu.

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