What they said: Sergio Garcia

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SERGIO GARCIA: I think the course did pretty well. It was a little wet but not too bad. The greens are good, rolling nice. Obviously the course is playing long, but other than that, it's pretty nice.

Q. Surprising given the weather conditions yesterday and how long it's now playing that 5-under is the number to beat right now after one round?

GARCIA: Surprising in which way? Too many or --

Q. No, too low.

GARCIA: No, I wouldn't say so. Obviously the course is long, but at the same time we know that we can pretty much stop the ball dead with every shot we hit. The fairways are easy to hit, the greens are easy to hit, so I don't think it's surprising. I would expect someone to just go out there and shoot like a 6- or 7-under par, but we'll see. It's still a long weekend.

Q. How are the greens playing?

GARCIA: They're playing good, a little slow, but really good.

Q. 36 holes of play tomorrow, does that factor into being physically fit, being able to surprise like that?

GARCIA: Obviously, yeah, the fitter you are, the more it's going to help you on a long day like we're going to have tomorrow. So looking forward to it. Hopefully I can continue my good play and put two solid rounds and have a good chance on Sunday.

Q. The people in St. Louis have waited a long time to get a big tournament like this. How are the crowds and galleries treating you?

GARCIA: Great, it's awesome. A lot of people out there. It was great to see. Very supportive. So we're looking forward to the weekend and seeing a lot of people out there.

Q. (Question regarding the Ryder Cup.)

GARCIA: Obviously I think we've been fortunate enough to find the right pairings and they've worked well, so why change them. Obviously for the Americans it's been a little bit the other way. They've been trying to find the right one for a while, and they've seemed to struggle a little bit in that. But I don't know what reason it is.

Obviously I think the European Tour when we play there, we hang around a lot more than maybe Americans might do on a weekly basis, and that probably makes it easier to partner someone with another guy.

Q. You all stay together; that's essentially the way it is?

GARCIA: Well, yeah, that's the way it is on the European Tour. We go out for dinner and we can go in groups or four or five different players. Obviously a lot of people stay in the same hotels and you see each other and you just hang around. Obviously when it comes down to team play, that makes it a little bit easier because it feels like throughout the year, you've been together quite often, so it doesn't feel different at home.

Q. You kind of joked the other day about being behind Vijay. Does it help at all to be playing alongside him the first couple rounds?

GARCIA: Well, we're not going to play together tomorrow because they're re-pairing. I think it's great. I've always said I love playing with a friend of mine, and Vijay is a friend of mine, great player. It's nice. Obviously I've got to play well and try to give myself a chance at the TOUR Championship. It's not going to be an easy test, but at least we'll try.

Q. Do you guys stay relaxed together, or is it still pretty intense as you go through?

GARCIA: I mean, obviously we're trying to play well and perform the best we can, but we stay relaxed.

Q. He's putted so well these last few weeks. He cooled down finally today, didn't he?

GARCIA: A little bit. Obviously he didn't hit the ball as well as he's been hitting it the last couple weeks, either. He had a couple loose shots here and there, a couple of pulls that obviously he didn't hit in the past few weeks. But it's one of those things that happens. It just comes and goes.

Transcript courtesy of ASAP Sports.