Alex Noren’s maturity at this point in his career

The Swedish is second at the PGA Championship after the third round

Right. Alex Norren’s with us now at the 107th PJ Championship. We’ll jump right into questions starting here with Juan. So, Alex, yes, tell us about the feeling of being in the top of the leaderboard on a Saturday on a major. No. Yeah, it feels good. Um, I I got it together. I I kind of uh struggled a little bit in the wind with the with the iron shots, I thought, and and kind of kind of maybe overthought some of the shots. uh but saved myself with some great bunker shots and and the putting was better today and then uh finally hit some really good ones 17 18 and paid off. Yeah. Do both of you on 13. Uh Alex, couple months ago you’re far away from the game coaching your daughter’s softball team. Uh, in that moment, did you think contending in a major or anything like this form was in your near future? Well, yeah. The the only thing I said that probably to you, too. It was a lot easier to have this break when I’m uh 42 than when I was younger. And uh I as soon as I kind of could play, I thought I was in sort of the same form as I was in before I got injured. Um but I’m I’m still extremely, you know, not surprised, but I’m I’m fortunate to to be in this position this early. Yeah. Alex, just can you kind of take us through what those injuries were and just kind of what you’ve been battling? It was just one injury. I think uh PJ2 got it wrong just in the start and then it kind of went everybody thought it was two injuries, but it was just the my uh tendon in my hamstring on the sitbone. So, um it it’s a it’s a bad injury, but you can still live quite normal life cuz you have three other two other tendons that kind of support it. But I couldn’t swing a club. I can’t I couldn’t jump or run. Uh I could walk, you know, kind of slow slowly and and live a normal life like he just said. I could coach my coach my kids, spend a lot of time with the family. So, um it’s been a it’s been quite nice. Uh why do you say bad the injury was bad? Like what did you hear? And was it one particular like did it happen in a moment or did it? Yeah. So well it the the bad part of it is that it takes a long time to heal. Um and it was 90% torn. Um so I had that 10% left to kind of make it heal back. So I didn’t have to have surgery. So if if it was fully torn, I would I would not play right now. So um uh so that was lucky but also bad you know in the same same time. Mike 12 please. Alex do you ultimately think that the time off has now like when you look back on these three rounds do you feel like you’re fresher in some ways mentally physically? Do you think that’s contributed to how well you’ve played? Uh yeah, maybe I got some good perspective, you know, like spending that much time kind of in the middle of a career like um hopefully I’ll play a lot longer, but uh to kind of have that time to to see the family a lot. Uh it was it it’s it’s been nice you know otherwise it kind of you know how it is you guys travel a lot so it’s it’s it’s it was really nice to have that because first I had the three months of kind of offseason and then the four months involuntary so um it gave some good perspective and yeah but then uh I you know I obviously wish I would have played more golf leading up to this than I have. Yeah. Um, just wanted to ask you about the the finish here. So much is made of how difficult it is, but you make two birdies down the stretch, especially at 18. How like going into that stretch of holes, what was the mindset today? And how do you feel about the execution? Yeah, but like I said, I didn’t have my best iron game and wedge game maybe leading up to those. I I saved myself a lot with good bunker game, but then on on 17 and on 18, I hit two of the best shots this week. And that’s why you need to get close to those holes. You just need to have the right sort of perfect landing spots, perfect, you know, kind of flight on the ball so you get that little bounce up. on 18, for example, if I would have carried that a little bit further in the flat, I wouldn’t have, you know, I would have been 30 feet past the hole. So, uh, you got to just hit the right shot with the right height yardage in iron on that on 18. I hit an eight iron. It was 160 m. So, that’s one, what is that? 1878. Thank you. Thanks for your time, Alex. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry. Right. Right. Thank you.