Q.  How did you find it out there?

STEWART CINK:  Well, it was nice out there.  The wind was a little bit less than it was last two days, so the course felt a little bit more manageable and you could control your ball.  I had a really good run of golf out there.  I didn’t start that well and I didn’t finish well at all, but in between though it was really nice.  I’ll just try to capitalise on some of that and clean up the mistakes I made that were mostly just poor shots.  They were well thought out, they were just badly executed.  You can fix execution.

Q.  How did your caddie do today?

STEWART CINK:  My caddie was awesome today.  It’s the first time she’s caddied for me in a really long time and she’s really good about like focusing and getting me like locked in and dialing up the intensity out there.  She’s a ‑‑ it’s actually quite a good asset having her caddie.

Q.  Being at an advantage given that she knows you so well, I would assume?

STEWART CINK:  I would say it can be.  And it’s also, with your wife, you know, I can tell her ‑‑ I can share anything with her.  Might hold back from a caddie if you’ve got a regular caddie working for you.  She’ll ask questions, she’s not afraid to ask. 

It was nice out there, a lot of fun.  She’s doing a great job.  It’s not easy for her or any caddie, any guest caddie to jump into this little dance that we do out there that it seems so routine for us, but there’s a lot going on out there when you’re in between the ropes, and she did great.

Q.  What was the most pertinent question she asked you today?

STEWART CINK:  Mostly after every shot I didn’t hit exactly as I said I was going to, she said like, What happened there?  That was very pertinent.

Q.  Did you have an answer for her? 

STEWART CINK:  Nope.  I usually don’t, I just usually say, Hey, we can get ready all we want and I can tell you exactly what I plan to do and I can try to execute it and sometimes I won’t.” Most of the time I do, sometimes I won’t.

Q.  Adam talked about the grain around the greens and also on the greens themselves.  How did you find that?  Is there anything that compares in the States that you play sort of semi regularly that would be similar to this?

STEWART CINK:  Yeah, basically anything in south Texas or Florida or Louisiana or Georgia is like this, and that’s where I live, I live in Georgia.  So this is common kind of grass for us at home and it’s something that we’re not unaccustomed to.  The grain is significant, but we’ve seen enough golf balls roll and bounce across it that you can kind of predict what it’s going to do.

Q.  Did you see enough from your game ‑‑ obviously a couple dropped ones late, but did you see enough from your game that you can have a good one tomorrow and make a bit of a charge?

STEWART CINK:  Definitely.  And I didn’t just see it from today.  I know I have the kind of game that can compete around this course, I know I can.  I love this kind of place and it’s the kind of course that really gets your attention on your second shots because of the way the greens are.  That’s kind of my bread and butter of my whole career is approaching the greens and making the right decisions.  I mostly did that good today, but I got myself into a few little messes and binds out there, especially at the end I was a little sloppy with a few approaches.  Hopefully we can clean those up and keep moving forward.

Q.  Min Woo Lee is sort of one of our exciting players coming through.  What did you make of his round and the way he bounced back after a couple bogeys?

STEWART CINK:  Yeah, that was impressive to see a young player tidy himself up and move in the right direction.  But no surprise, I could see from the first shot that the guy’s got an amazing swing and plenty of power.  I think the sky’s the limit for him.  Just looks like he’s got all the tools.  And he’s young, so I think it would be exciting to be Min Woo Lee.

Q.  Early start tomorrow, who’s in charge of the alarm, the player or the caddie?

STEWART CINK:  The player is in charge of the player’s alarm.  I don’t know what time the caddie’s going to wake up tomorrow and start getting ready, so the player won’t get up that early, I know that.

WADE ORMSBY:  Yeah, it’s always nice to get that one out of the way this afternoon in the wind.  Played fantastic for the first 10 holes and got quite windy there at the end so lost a couple of saves there on 16 and 17, but overall I’m pretty happy.

Q.  Pretty comfortable with your round as a package to take you into tomorrow’s round? 

WADE ORMSBY:  Yeah, I feel pretty good out there.  Ball‑striking feels well under control.  Overall I feel pretty good.  Could have made a few more putts early, but I just couldn’t get the feel of the greens.  It wasn’t that I was misreading them or hitting bad putts, just couldn’t quite get the feel of them.  All good, I’m happy with the round in the afternoon.

Q.  Did you play New South Wales?

WADE ORMSBY:  No, I didn’t.  The Aussie Open.

Q.  Is that the only one you’ve played in the last month or so?

WADE ORMSBY:  Exactly.  My last event I played on the European Tour was Turkey.  I just missed Nedbank, so about three weeks off there, then the Aussie Open and another week off.  So it’s been a little bit stop‑start, but nice to have some time at home.

Q.  Have you just spent it with the family or have you been working on anything?

WADE ORMSBY:  Always, always trying to prepare for golf tournaments.  Had a couple little breaks in there, but overall the same preparation week and a half, 10 days before an event, so all good.

Q.  February 5th, I don’t know ‑‑ a year on the bike as well or has Rummy got you ‑‑

WADE ORMSBY:  No, Rummy’s ‑‑

(Simultaneous speaking.)

WADE ORMSBY:  Always riding and stay fit.  You can always do more.  There’s a lot of guys coming now that are fit and fast and strong, so at 39 I’ve got to do everything I can to try and keep up with them.  I drove it quite good today, so it must be helping.

Q.  Have you changed anything in your sort of exercise regime?  What’s your go‑to?  What do you like to do?

WADE ORMSBY:  Every time, half an hour cardio and half an hour weights.  Pretty old‑school type things, but I guess you can do some golf specific stuff.  Everyone’s targeting different parts of the body whether insufficient or whatever.  I just like going to the gym, think it keeps the mind fresh more than anything, that’s the main thing.

Q.  Do you think you guys fared pretty well with the wind this afternoon?  It’s been blowing all week, I guess.

WADE ORMSBY:  Yeah, exactly.  Like I played a real early practice round on Tuesday and even by 8:00, 9:00 it was blowing really hard.  So it’s not like it’s just been an afternoon wind, it’s just been windy in general. 

That little stretch, kind of 11, 12, 13, 14, in through there, that’s where the guts of the golf course is and that’s largely into the wind or off the side.  So you’ve just got to play that stretch really well into the wind, and then some of the par 5s are downwind so you can take advantage of them.

Q.  You had some errors there but you recovered well.  How do you wrap up your day?

ADAM SCOTT:  I played good today.  Unfortunately, I really mis‑hit that driver at 13 and it cost me two.  Other than that, it was pretty stress free.  I was very happy with it.  It wasn’t that easy out there.  I seemed to get a lot of in‑between numbers and you have to kind of ‑‑ when it’s windy here, you kind of have to be a little bit careful because you don’t want to be chipping short‑side around here, the grain is just too much to deal with.  So I was pretty stress free.  I wish I could have that swing on 13 over again, but all in all I feel good about my round.

Q.  Putting give you confidence?  You holed a couple of long ones.

ADAM SCOTT:  Yeah, I’m putting good.  I mean, look, it’s not easy.  The course is in good shape, but there’s so much grain around these greens that once you’re out past 30 feet, even inside 30 feet, it’s very hard controlling speed, putting through different grain patches.  It’s just the way it is.  So you’re going to have to be patient and just try and hit as good a putt as you can and I hit a few good ones and made a few.

Q.  That stretch where you make (inaudible) I think you made eagle ‑‑

ADAM SCOTT:  Yeah, I needed to have a good finish.  It was a day today where not playing well, you could be over par quite easily and leave yourself a lot of work to do to get into the tournament.  A round like I ended up at 2 under leaves me in a great spot with hopefully light winds tomorrow morning to come out.

Q.   

ADAM SCOTT:  It’s a good spot.  I mean, I kind of have to be careful.  Like I said, it’s very different than Royal Melbourne or the Australian Golf Club.  It’s just not fun missing the greens by a little bit and dealing with grain on chips and putts, so you really have to be a little bit careful.  There’s no reason to go attacking this afternoon when the wind’s up and making silly errors, and I didn’t really make too many, I just made a bad swing.

Q.  Cam Smith said he felt a little bit fatigued today.  Were you worried about that or did you do anything different to make sure you were nice and fresh?

ADAM SCOTT:  Just been doing not a lot the last few days.  Yeah, look, I think it’s always hard coming off the back of something very emotionally charged like last week.  Even though we didn’t win, there was a lot going into it for four days.  There were times out there I just reminded myself to really focus in and play hard because it was a little bit tricky out there.  Some soft golf would not have been good this afternoon.  So I’m in a good spot to kind of take advantage of some good golf in the morning.

Q.  You mentioned yesterday the need to win tournaments, win trophies.  How do you balance your patience around here?

ADAM SCOTT:  Well, you just have to ‑‑ it’s just managing your game.  You know, you have to play at a high standard to win tournaments.  This week here, you know, it’s going to be somewhere between 10 and 20 under depending on the wind again.  So you just set your plan and you just chip away at it.  You can’t afford too many errors, you know.  So hopefully tomorrow I can have a pretty clean card and work my way up to kind of that pace that’s going to be needed to be in the hunt on the Sunday.

Q.  Talking about Min Woo, obviously he dropped a couple early, but four back.  What were your impressions about how he handled that?

ADAM SCOTT:  Well, that’s what I liked most about.  I mean, he’s got a pretty swing and hits it one way, but it was good to see him kind of compose himself.  He hung in there for a few holes after his poor start and then he composed himself and got on a bit of a roll there nicely.  That’s good qualities to see out there because, like I said, it was easy for it to really get away from you today if you just were a little bit off.

Q.  You were playing with two major winners.

MIN WOO LEE:  Yeah, I didn’t start too good.  It was rookie pro out there early on and then I brought it back.  It was really nice, they were awesome guys, it was all up fun.

Q.  Were you daunted at all playing with these guys?

MIN WOO LEE:  No.  Golf is a weird sport, you go do your own thing and you can’t really focus on other people.  Yeah, no, a little bit.  It’s pretty special to get that opportunity early on in pro careers like that.  I’ll just be grateful and take the opportunity.

Q.  What rookie error is it that you alluded to?

MIN WOO LEE:  Just a bit rushed early on, didn’t hole many putts, didn’t hit good shots.  But I’m a bit of a fighter, so it was nice to start off bad and then come off good.

Q.  What helped you sort of turn momentum?

MIN WOO LEE:  I holed a putt early on on the par 3 and then I holed another like 10‑footer on the hole after and made those two really good putts.  It could have been 3 over pretty easy, but I brought it back to 1 under and I think those were the changing points.

Q.  How important is this week in terms of European Tour category? 

MIN WOO LEE:  It’s massive.  I know you’ve got to start off pretty well and this is the first tournament, one of the first tournaments, so it will be nice to have a good result.

Q.  Any comment on the birdie, when you got the birdies sort of coming off the card?

MIN WOO LEE:  I hit a lot of good shots today, some got rewarded, some didn’t get rewarded, but I felt like I played pretty good and I’m pretty proud of the way I finished.

Q.  The up‑and‑down on 17 and even 18 ‑‑

MIN WOO LEE:  Yeah, those last three were nice.  I holed, nearly holed 17, nearly holed 18, was pretty nice.  Yeah, it was nice to finish those last three holes strong.

Q.  Are they the kind of shots that you say as opposed to the ones you make, the difference in a round like that?

MIN WOO LEE:  Yeah, I think early on I didn’t really take the opportunities because there’s a big crowd and I’m not really used to it, but yeah, it’s pretty special.  It’s massive.  Finishing the round 1 under or 2 under instead of finishing at 4 under, which is really nice.  Yeah, I know, it was pretty calm this morning, so hopefully tomorrow morning you can go out there and shoot a low score.

Q.  Must be pretty excited about that?

TRAVIS SMYTH:  Yeah, it was great.  Played solid, which you just have to around this place, otherwise it will just eat you up.  Yeah, played very good tee to green and putted well and 4 under.

Q.  How did you feel after the second, bogeying that?  Did that get into your head?

TRAVIS SMYTH:  Yeah, second hole of the day, teed off at 7:00, so still a bit tired.  But it’s a tough par 3, just missed like a five‑footer, whatever.  Just got on with it, yeah.

Q.  You must be pretty happy with your recent form?

TRAVIS SMYTH:  Yeah, yeah.  This is my seventh week in a row and I never played this much golf in my life and I just keep another solid round.  Yeah, just keep hanging in there and one last push before the new year.

Q.  How’s your body handling that increased workload?

TRAVIS SMYTH:  I’m fine.  I’m young, I don’t have any injuries, so I’m pretty sweet, yeah.

Q.  Do you find, Trav, that a couple years out here now mentally you’re a bit more patient and you can play seven weeks in a row and not get caught up in I guess the highs and lows that can come in a tournament?

TRAVIS SMYTH:  Yeah, I feel like since turning pro and even in my amateur days, too, I’ve gone through streaks where I’ve played really well and I’ve gone through streaks where I’ve played poorly.  My first year as a pro I kind of got down a little bit because I’m a pro now, I wanted to earn money and I got down on myself a little bit, but in hindsight I probably shouldn’t have because most of my career’s been that way anyway.  So I’ve kind of accepted that this year got off to a slow start, but as of late started playing better and this is my hot patch.

Q.  Do you attribute that to I guess the practice you’ve been doing and the way you’ve changed your practice?

TRAVIS SMYTH:  Yeah, for sure, 100 percent.  Middle of the year sat down and done a day of work with Dave Alred, who’s had a lot of success with a lot of high quality players.  Not that I’ve had much practice time because I’m playing so much, but, you know, practice rounds leading up to golf tournaments, stuff like that.  I definitely think, yeah, slight little change in my practice habits and it’s slowly paying off.

Q.  What specifically did he identify?

TRAVIS SMYTH:  Just mainly practicing with a bit more purpose, a bit more pressure as well.  Setting drills like anyone else would do, but having PBs and writing down every single drill that I do and my score and then try and better it and better it each time.

Q.  When you walk away from the New South Wales Open, what’s the mix of emotions?  A great week, but ‑‑

TRAVIS SMYTH:  Yeah, it was kind of weird, I flew to Mauritius actually because I was so tired and that was such a big week.  The turnaround was so quick and my mind was already on Mauritius before I could even really digest it, but I played well.  In the end I was probably lucky to even be in a playoff because of Younger doubling the last hole.  Yeah, get so close to winning.  And especially the New South Wales Open, it means so much to me being from New South Wales and going through their program.  Yeah, it sucked, but played well.  My (inaudible) I got back was the more angry I get after a nonwin, so I’m fine.  Still playing good golf and a win’s not far away.

Q.  Is the early part of 2020, do you get Singapore and Hong Kong?

TRAVIS SMYTH:  Yeah.

Q.  You don’t get much of a break after this?

TRAVIS SMYTH:  Not really, no.  I’ll have two weeks, straight to the Hong Kong Open, which is now just Asian Tour at (indiscernible) and then Singapore Open, week off, Victorian Open and then like three weeks off.  Yeah, pretty constant all the way through which kind of suction.

Q.  Is this an opportunity to play your way into some European status in the next six, eight weeks?

TRAVIS SMYTH:  Yeah, I paid for my affiliate membership so hopefully I can do some damage in the events that I get and maybe sneak a few invites as well.  And just yeah, hopefully at the end of the year I can play on the European Tour.  End of next year or even end of this week, end of this week.

Q.  How do you find Royal Pines?  I know you played it the last couple years.

TRAVIS SMYTH:  It’s a tough course.  I think it definitely favors the longer hitters.  The type of grass on the greens up here, it’s down grain spots on the greens so if you can come in with wedges and 9‑irons as opposed to 8s and 7s, it’s much more of an advantage to the longer hitters.  But you’ve got to golf your ball around here.  There’s so much water hazards everywhere.  As soon as you go in the rough, you’ve got to play defensive golf a little bit because it’s hard to control.  It’s not easy holing putts, too, and chipping is tough as well.  It’s a good test of golf, for sure.

Q.  You’ve got a great record at Sanctuary Cove.  

TRAVIS SMYTH:  Love it, yeah.  It’s great.  It’s by the beach where I kind of feel at home.  I’m from Wollongong and living in Sydney now by the beach, so I love it, it’s great

Q.  Tough going out there, mate.  How would you reflect on the round?

CAMERON SMITH:  I don’t know, really.  I was just kind of a bit flat all day, couldn’t really get any momentum going.  Hit a few good shots earlier in the round and didn’t hole many putts, and then the run started to come there towards the end.  Just one of those days.  In the end, probably 2 over isn’t that bad.

Q.  Confident that you can recover?

CAMERON SMITH:  Yeah.

Q.  You seemed a bit flat.

CAMERON SMITH:  Yeah, I’m just tired, I think.  Just a long couple weeks and, I mean, it was ‑‑ I mean, it’s as easy as it’s going to get out there this morning, so it was pretty disappointing to shoot what I shot.  By the same token, like I said, I was 4 over at one point and had a couple birdies to get it back, so I got something to look forward to at least for tomorrow.

Q.  Grant said he didn’t sense anything in this morning in the warm‑up that you were flat or anything, he said you hit like you normally do.

CAMERON SMITH:  I actually felt all right this morning.  I think once I got going, that’s when I started to kind of struggle.  Usually it’s the other way around, usually I kind of start slow on the range and then once I get into it, it’s fine.  I don’t know, just used up maybe a little bit too much energy, you know, trying to make those putts early in the round and trying to get something going and then just a couple poor swings, you know, on the back nine.  I didn’t really know where it was going.  It was just one of those kind of days where a par was a good score.

Q.  How hard was it to steady there after the couple of holes?

CAMERON SMITH:  Yeah, I just had no idea, to be honest.  I really got no excuse or anything like that, it was just ‑‑ it is what it is.

Q.  Will you spend some time on the range now?

CAMERON SMITH:  I don’t feel like I have enough energy to go to the range, so I think I’m going to go have a nap and then, I don’t know, maybe run around the beaches with the kids we’re staying with and stuff.  That’s probably going to entail the afternoon.  Not much.

Q.  What time did you set the alarm for this morning?

CAMERON SMITH:  3:00.

Q.  3:00 a.m., so your preparations are a couple hours worth just getting your body stretched out?

CAMERON SMITH:  Yeah.  So I woke up at 3:00 and I pressed the snooze a couple times, it’s hard to get up that early.  Yeah, we left the house at 4:00 and got here shortly after.  Yeah, started going through the normal routine.

Q.  On the second hole, the par 3 where you went long left, what club did you hit off the tee there?

CAMERON SMITH:  Yeah, that was a 6‑iron.  Probably ‑‑ I mean, I had those ‑‑ it was just like almost like a weak body swing, I couldn’t get my body through the ball, my arms were taking over.  I had that long left miss all day and it was just kind of frustrating, and that’s when it all kind of fell apart.

Q.  You sort of bumped into the bank and came back.

CAMERON SMITH:  Yeah.  I thought ‑‑ I actually got a pretty good lie down there and I thought that it was going to come out a bit different.  I didn’t really necessarily hit a bad shot, it’s just tough down there and it didn’t come off.

Q.  What did you hit on the next hole, your backswing with the branches?  That didn’t slow you off, did it?

CAMERON SMITH:  Yeah, I didn’t think I was going to hit the branches there on my backswing.  Kind of got me by surprise and threw me off a little bit, but actually got ‑‑ I hit the tree and actually got quite lucky that it went that way and not the other way.

Q.  Do you put yourself in the hands of Jack this afternoon, get him to administer positivities now?

CAMERON SMITH:  Yeah, I guess so.  Yeah, I don’t think we’ll be doing much this afternoon.  I think it would just be all fun and games, I’m sure, trying to forget about the round today and come out tomorrow with a fresh mind.

Q.  Dave, start with you.  You haven’t played a lot of golf the last couple years, but when you do, you play it pretty well, or when you make a week in, you make the most of it.  What’s been happening the last couple years?

DAVID SMAIL:  I sort of played okay at the start of the year, I finished second at the PGA there, New Zealand PGA.  Tore my rotor cuff and that was at one of the Charles Tour events and I just sort of took a long time to come right.  And at the same time we planned a family holiday, so I was away for six weeks in Europe, just put the clubs away.  Then I just got them out and thought I would go back to Japan Tour school and give that a go, so that’s the only golf I played was two weeks ago.

Q.  How did you fare? 

DAVID SMAIL:  I got through the first stage and missed in the final, so Senior Tour next year.  I’m 50 in May.

Q.  Okay, right.  Where?  In Europe? 

DAVID SMAIL:  I’ll play Japan to start with.

Q.  Normal Japan Golf Tour? 

DAVID SMAIL:  No, I’ll play Japan Senior Tour.  They have about 18 events and pretty good prize money, so I’ll play there for a year and see what happens.  If I’m playing all right, I might go to America.

Q.  Obviously got a great record up there, so I guess that past history there gets you automatic starts and you can play as many events as you want? 

DAVID SMAIL:  Yeah, I get straight in.  I don’t have to go to the Senior Tour school again.  It’s nice.

Q.  So when you came back from your shoulder injury, expectations?  Were you sort of keen to get ‑‑

DAVID SMAIL:  Very low.

Q.  Were you kind of keen to get back into it? 

DAVID SMAIL:  I worked really hard trying to do a lot of practice.  And yeah, but it’s a little bit different when you haven’t been playing, you sort of lose just a little tiny itch and probably had enough rounds to get back into it more and start to feel like I belong again here.

Q.  What about these young blokes?  There’s a group of them coming out of New Zealand.  I mean Foxy’s a bit older than a few of them, but ‑‑

DAVID SMAIL:  Yeah, there’s some great talent coming through.  Nick played great today, just had an unfortunate finish, but Denzel’s playing fantastic golf as well.  Those two guys are just killing it, killing it off the tee.  They’ve got a hundred yards, I can’t even see them down the fairway really, I’m about a hundred yards behind them at times.  It’s not much fun, that part.

Q.  For you, Nick, the group of you to come through, you and Denzell went to college together, and how old is Ryan?

NICK VOKE:  Ruffles?

Q.  No, Chisnall. 

NICK VOKE:  Oh, Chizzy.  He’s the same age, 24, 25.

Q.  Do you guys play much together?  Did you all come through together?

NICK VOKE:  Yeah, we have.  I’ll probably throw Luke Toomey in that mix as well.  We played the Eisenhower together in maybe 2016 or ’15 and it’s kind of cool to see different development pathways coming together and playing well at big events like this.

Q.  You have status on the Korn Ferry Tour?

NICK VOKE:  Yeah. 

Q.  How does I guess reaching the top 40 affect that?

NICK VOKE:  Yeah, it’s all up in the air.  You just kind of go off like past years and who was the last player in that field.  So just doing some quick math, we might get one or two out of the first eight, and then from the events eight to 16, I have a chance of getting in a few.  So we’ll be ready for when the opportunity comes and we’ll strike then and kind of re‑rank up through the system and away we go.

Q.  You guys are all pretty ‑‑ what’s that group for you guys?  Do you keep in touch with each other? 

NICK VOKE:  We do, we do.  We use Snapchat because you can kind of see some pretty faces in that system.  Yeah, like Dan Hillier, Tooms, Chiz, there’s a few of us that kind of came up through that New Zealand rank and it a just pretty cool to be able to go to the opposite side of the world and be able to represent the country somewhere.  We kind of came together, we went to Abu Dhabi for the Nomura Cup, keep in contact, wish each other the best and have a bit of banter back and forth when it needs to be.

Q.  Does it provide motivation when you see the other guys doing well?

NICK VOKE:  It does, it does.  Like I was very fortunate when I went through my run in China, I stayed with Luke Toomey the whole time and he kind of knew the ropes and knew what to do and what not to do in China.  It’s a little different over there. 

So kind of learning off those guys and feeding off each other.  I think he was impressed at the run that I went on over there, now he’s gone on a similar tear winning two Charles Tour events back to back.  It’s really cool to see us progressing up through the ranks.  Big events like this, we’ll get a massive Airbnb and like ‑‑ 

Q.  Is that what you’re doing this week?

NICK VOKE:  Yeah, with Denzell.  We’re playing some good cool (indiscernible) at night.  So the Queenstown pro‑am’s coming up January the 3rd to 5th I believe and we’re looking at a six person Airbnb, so it will be fun.

BRETT RANKIN:  It was 12 months ago I needed a good week here just to keep my card.  So end up having to go to Q‑School a couple weeks after this event last year and just been doing a lot of work with Richard Woodhouse and things have just come together.  I’m just in a good space technically.  I feel like I can work the ball both ways at will at the moment, and I’m just starting to get the putter going again so it’s been a really consistent year.  I’m really happy with the year.  I won a couple four‑day events.  I won Darwin in the year as well.  It’s been a year of firsts and I’m definitely happy with where the game is at the moment, for sure.

Q.  I know we spoke about the value of winning the pro‑ams and the confidence that you get from that.  What about winning NT PGA and getting that on the resume?

BRETT RANKIN:  Yeah, winning NT PGA just sort of gives you that confidence you know you can do it, your best golf can win on this tour.  It’s a tough tour, there’s so many good players out here.  So you gain that confidence from winning multiple pro‑ams and you take that to the next level, you win a tour event, and the next you’re like, okay, I belong here.  You gain confidence just from doing that. 

It’s also just a bit of a stress relief, to be honest.  You question it, you think about it and you’re like, am I good enough to win, and you finally do it.  You sort of tick that box and you’re like, all right, let’s go to bigger and better things.

Q.  Yeah, have you thought that far ahead?  Did you look at any Q‑School this year?

BRETT RANKIN:  I did go to Europe and actually had my only poor week of the whole year at first stage, didn’t get through.  So the goal now is to try to have a really good week this week and if that can sort of punt me up in that top‑10 Order of Merit, that kind of opens the door for a few other Q‑schools later next year.  Kind of just want to focus on this week, get this week done and then see where I stand.  I’m might look to go to China or I don’t know, maybe go back to Asia, I don’t know yet.  I just want to go through this week and see where I stand.

Q.  Talk us through the round starting at 10, that’s the harder of the course.  How do you feel you got through that and then obviously you catch quite a bit of momentum?

BRETT RANKIN:  Yeah, definitely off to a good start.  I hit like a 9‑iron to about a foot on 11, so it was a little tap‑in there.  Just drove the ball really well on the back nine, so I gave myself plenty of looks.  Had like a three‑footer for birdie on 12, so all of a sudden I’m 2 under through three, feeling pretty comfortable.  I know my game’s good and I just sort of cruised along.  Then I got hot towards the back, or the front nine, our back nine today.  I missed a couple short ones out there, too, so it could have been really good, to be honest.  I’ll take 67.

Q.  How was 7 playing today and what did you hit in there?

BRETT RANKIN:  I hit driver, sand wedge into 7 today.  I hit a good drive down there to about nine and a half meters I think I had, then that makes that hole pretty easy with a wedge in instead of 6‑ or 7‑iron, because I was driving the ball really well.  Normally I would only hit 2‑iron, maybe 3‑wood off there, but I was driving so well.  Like stay aggressive, you’re driving it well, let’s take advantage of the opportunities.  I hit a really good drive down the last there, too.  I only hit 9‑iron into the last so it makes that hole easy, makes the rest of the golf course easy when you’re hitting short irons in.

Q.  Did you play short of 8?  Obviously a tricky pin there.

BRETT RANKIN:  Yeah, just 2‑iron off that tee, just put it in position, take the water out of play.  Actually hit a really nice shot in there to about 15 feet.  I saw the hole and it just dove off at the end and just lipped out.  It could have easily been 6 or 7 under.  It’s been a good day, I’m happy with the way it’s been.

Q.  Take me back to Q‑School again going there and having to do that again.  At that point do you ever kind of question what you’re doing and whether you’re, you know ‑‑

BRETT RANKIN:  You do.  I wasn’t really questioning at the end of last year because I knew I was playing well.  It was a weird situation, I was going back to Q‑School to improve my status to try to get in Vic Open and Perth and stuff like that, but I had a backup category so I was kind of, I finished top‑5, you have status, pretty good status.  If you don’t, you’re not worse off.  So I probably ‑‑ turns out I didn’t have to go. 

But yeah, I’ve sort of been in a situation where I was like I can only improve my status this week.  I’m not going to lose a card or don’t have a job next year.  I just knew I was playing well, it’s just a matter of time really.

Q.  And you managed to do that?  Did you improve ‑‑

BRETT RANKIN:  Yeah, so winning Darwin cemented my card for this year and next year, so I’m in a great situation.

Q.  Did you get Vic Open and stuff?

BRETT RANKIN:  Next year I will, yeah.  This year I didn’t.  I finished sixth at Q‑School so I missed by one spot.  I think I managed to keep my card on the Order of Merit by two spots or something like that.  It was a tough end to last year, but it’s all worked out for the good.