What they said: Baird

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Editor's note: Transcripts courtesy of ASAP Sports.

Q. You obviously had a chance there. You're only a couple back. Just talk about the day.

BRINY BAIRD: Yeah, I played solid all day, hit a lot of good shots, got off to the kind of start you want to get off to, made a couple birdies early in the first seven holes. I birdied I think 3 and 7. Just kept telling myself be patient, be patient. Even holes where you're hitting sand wedge in, which there's a couple of those, par-5, and even 12, that you just know that pars are still good. And if you can just sneak the occasional birdie in there, I kept telling myself 4 was going to be a great number and a realistic number for me. To say get it in at 6 I think was asking for an awful lot. So I kept thinking that and just made a couple bogeys coming in.

Q. Your birthday, do you think, hey, this could be magical?

BRINY BAIRD: Believe it or not, I did. I kept telling myself, hang in there, hang in there. Maybe this is destiny to win THE PLAYERS Championship as your first tournament on your birthday would almost be poetic.

I gave it pretty much everything I had out there. I'm pretty tired.

Q. Explain the conditions in just the past four days.

BRINY BAIRD: Unbelievable. I don't care who wins this tournament, the wind won. I think it's kicked everybody's butts. I think it's hard for people to understand that are watching outside how difficult the golf course is playing. Every aspect is playing -- to hit a fairway, to hit a green and to make a putt -- putting on these greens right now, they're so firm and so fast that it's unbelievable that someone right now is at 6-under par.