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U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 19, 2015

Henrik Stenson

UNIVERSITY PLACE, WASHINGTON

Q. I'm sure not the way you wanted to finish, it's probably not the round you were looking for. Are you disappointed right now or how do you feel?
HENRIK STENSON: Yeah, a little disappointed with some of the shots I hit. But it wasn't my best day. It was tough out there. The way we're playing this course in the afternoon compared to the morning, I don't know, it's borderline laughable at some of the greens and some of the pin positions, when we're actually almost better off plugged in a bunker than being on the top of a ridge, like on the 4th. And it's pretty much like putting on broccoli, as well. So I don't know what to say other than that, really. Obviously the way you play is going to affect in the scoring, but I'm sure many of my colleagues would kind of fall in on a few of those remarks.

Q. With those conditions in the afternoons, how do you think that's going to affect the leaders these last two days?
HENRIK STENSON: If you're doing any good in this championship you're playing late in the afternoon, and it's going to be more like we had today. So it's obviously good practice for the next couple of days. But I mean, I think it's one of them if you speak your mind, it's going to cost; it's just a question of how much it will cost me. I probably should leave it at the remarks that I just had.

Q. Not happy with this course, suffice it to say?
HENRIK STENSON: It is what it is. And I actually enjoyed the challenge yesterday. I enjoyed part of the challenge again today. Because the major championships is about a mental test and how well you can keep yourself in balance. I kind of lost my patience on the 8th more than anything, and hit a lovely shot into 9 and was putting down on something that looked like the surface of the moon and three-putted. But you've got to keep yourself under control and I think I've done that really well throughout -- except for one hole, really. But when you're out playing on a course like this, it wears down your concentration. And we were out almost six hours, which is a tad longer than a normal round of golf should take I think, even in Major Championship conditions. Yeah, of its kind, it's one of the finest, like I said yesterday.

Q. How much confidence do you have going forward?
HENRIK STENSON: Well, it depends on the distance, obviously, but as we can see you can't -- at least I was marking everything outside a foot, and you really want to take your time on it. So we were seeing a lot of short putts missed. It's really tricky on the greens. There's no two ways about it. And like I say, I don't know what it looks like on television, what I saw this morning, but I wouldn't say that that was pretty. I don't think the afternoon would look any better. It's just really tough to putt on that surface, and given some of the shots you get out there with the wind. It's a different golf course in the afternoons when it dries out more and the wind is blowing more, it's much, much tougher than it was yesterday in the morning. And then some of the holes played harder, as well, they're longer and so on. But I'd say in general with myself and my playing partners, half of the shots not even trying to play in the right direction of the pin, which on any normal golf course you do, you kind of wing it 20 yards, 30 yards right and left and hope it brings back in from the banks. I guess after a couple of days of that you feel it would be nice to aim for the pin once.

Q. The USGA, they always try to make a proper test of golf. But to straddle that line of being ultra tough but also fair. Have they lost it here at this point?
HENRIK STENSON: I don't think they have lost it. I don't think the setup of the course, it's more, like I said, the condition of it and the way it's playing when it gets really dried out, because it's such massive undulations, then it gets virtually impossible some of the shots you face, to get it anywhere close, and if you don't get it close then you're more or less going to three-putt. I don't think it's so much of that, but more so with the design of the course, I'd say, than how we play it.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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