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THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 13, 2015

Nick Faldo

ST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND

THE MODERATOR: We'll get started. I'd very much like to welcome Sir Nick Faldo to the interview room. This will be I guess a week full of memories for you, 25 years after your win here at St. Andrews, and obviously you're playing in the Champion Golfers Challenge. How much are you looking forward to this week back at St. Andrews?

SIR NICK FALDO: It's great. I'm here to play, trying to be a golfer for a week. It's hard work. Fall out of the TV tower and try and be a golfer for as many days as possible, so that's my goal. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the Champions' Challenge on Wednesday. I've got the great Fanny Sunesson back in town, so she's going to be on the bag for a couple of holes with my little daughter Emma, and my son is on the bag for the rest of the week. Yeah, we're trying to gear up to play as best I can, which is tough, because I've got a sit down job like you guys for the last 10 years. It has its effects on your body.

Q. How would you describe the current state of your game?
SIR NICK FALDO: Yeah, even the rust is rusty. I had a decent session a couple of weeks ago at the Greenbrier, practised every morning, but then I've got TV in the afternoons, that sort of thing, and I was travelling last week, and then you bring it to here. Yeah, it's quite a shock to go and play, like yesterday we played in that left-to-right, 20 mile-an-hour wind. It's a real golf course. Yeah, it's rust, very delicate rust, so I've got to work very hard, as best I can, to feel good for Thursday.

Q. How would you compare the competition now to what it was 25 years ago?
SIR NICK FALDO: Slightly different. The competition? Well, when I was here 25 years ago, I was toying or rivaling with Greg. Greg was the world No. 1 at that time, and I deemed him to be the man to beat 25 years ago, and I was right. After two days we were both tied at 12-under. But yeah, now it's -- yes, I believe that the number has grown a little bit of guys who can win majors. I'm not sure what it's up to, but maybe there's as many as 20 -- maybe 20 guys you might say, yeah, they really have a chance. You wouldn't maybe be quite as surprised if you laid out your top 20 list. Where I think maybe back in our time, maybe the guys who were going to win a major was half that. You had your five or six major guys and then you had a few guys who could. Yeah, I think those numbers have definitely grown now.

Q. If you'd been coming here 25 years ago having won the U.S. Open, which you were very close to do and therefore in the same position as Jordan, how would you have prepared for it? Would you have been playing in the States, for example, or would you have been preparing specifically for links?
SIR NICK FALDO: Well, you can tell Jordan is happy with the way he's doing things because he has his own form right now. For a kid of 21 with his coach, they really do have a form of what they're going to -- this is why he handles things so well. So I don't think he's too worried about it. It's amazing, when you're that young, you'd say, one good night's sleep to get over jet lag and he'll probably be fine tomorrow morning, and especially coming off a win and shooting scores like that, yeah, if he believes that's the way to do it, then that's the way to do it. That's the way Jordan Spieth wants to do it, guess what, it's right.

Q. What do you think of his chances this week, and even further, should he get this week, the chances of winning a Grand Slam?
SIR NICK FALDO: Well, yeah, what he's doing is phenomenal. As I was saying, they work very well is one of the things I spotted a year ago, how well he works with his caddie Mike, and to hone, get the work, the golf ball as close to the hole as possible -- as I said, they've got their own little formula and great belief in what they're doing. And he's confident. Crumbs, so he's seeing the right shot, he's visualizing the shot, they've got their game plan, go and do it. I mean, and he keeps churning out good shots. When you're doing that, you just jump back on the saddle and ride again. That's what he's doing.

Q. Do you think he has a shot of winning?
SIR NICK FALDO: I think it's a shot, yeah. I think he has the know-how to find a way to get the golf ball close to the hole. I mean, you can hear it through television, can't you, how well they work, and that's what you have to do. You have to plot off -- it's exactly the same thing as Chambers Bay. You have to plot here your yardage, where you're going to land it, what you predict the bounce is going to be, the release, all sorts of things. So understand some slopes and that sort of thing. But they seem to be finding a way of doing that.

Q. If there's one thing you should do at St. Andrews or one thing you shouldn't --
SIR NICK FALDO: One thing you shouldn't do? Probably go for a dip in the ocean before you play. Could be a bill chilly. One thing you shouldn't do here? I never thought of it that way. What you should do? Well, there's millions of things. To play this golf course well?

Q. Yeah.
SIR NICK FALDO: Well, the most obvious thing is as I'm describing. You've got to plot the shots, you've got to understand the wind direction, where you're going to land it, where it's going to release, all sorts of things. All the downslopes, all the upslopes, you've got to take everything in.

Q. All the bunkers --
SIR NICK FALDO: Well, it's crucial more off the tee shots. There's a few around the greens, but you've got to hit it solid here. Okay, let's go back to hitting it really solid. I obviously managed to get pin high -- St. Andrews has a great way, if you miss a shot on a normal golf course, you finish 20, 25 feet. Here they finish 25 yards away, don't they. They find a way to -- and I think that's the skill. If you keep honing -- if you are in a 20- to 30-foot circle a week as much as possible, then that's the real key. That's the real key there.

Q. The changes that have been made on this golf course a couple of years ago, were you livid when you heard about it or did you look forward to the changes, and what do you think of it now that everything has been done?
SIR NICK FALDO: No, I think I'm quite happy with the changes being made. I really am. Some people wanted it to stay exactly the same, but I think there's so many opportunities out there. There is a championship hole location, but the greens are so vast and so many interesting areas, I think what they've tried to do is open up some new areas for new hole locations, and I think that's great. Fanny Sunesson is here and she brought the old yardage book from 1990 and they would put them in clusters, really. The 4th hole is basically over that second ridge, all on that ridge, and the 8th was very similar, and now not so much. Five years ago there would be front pins, back pins. There's a 40-yard difference of hole locations, which you've got to do that to the guys. If it goes really calm here, you've got to set the hole locations up really difficult, otherwise guys would birdie everything.

Q. Can you give us your thoughts on Rory McIlroy's injury and maybe what we'll be missing this week?
SIR NICK FALDO: Well, we're missing a great -- what we want is a showdown between Jordan and maybe Rickie Fowler, as well, as we're now building is this going to be the next big -- well, we've already got the big two. If you want to put Rickie in there, as well, but that's what we're missing. So that's a huge disappointment. Obviously Rory had a serious opportunity, the way he drives the golf ball, because as we know, the length these guys are hitting, it's obviously playing tough. It's playing a little tougher than I thought, but if it had been a little firmer, you know you'll get on the 5th hole in two. They're going to either drive 9 or 10 depending on the wind, they're going to drive 12. 14, they'll get there in two, and 18. So if you're driving the ball really well, you are there or very close to six holes under regulation. So he must be kicking himself, as long as he doesn't injure it. Hey, boys will be boys. They want to go and play, and he had a weird and wonderful accident. Hey, I wish him -- I hope he gets himself fully fit and strong. It's unfortunate with an injury like that, he's got to get himself 100 per cent fit before he can start the comeback. But not the sort of thing you'd expect to happen, but it's happened. So yeah, I feel for Rory.

Q. Did you ever do anything similar? Did you ever play football or any slightly dangerous sports in your prime the week before a major, two weeks before a major?
SIR NICK FALDO: No, the only other thing would be skiing, winter skiing, which I was too afraid of anyway. My balance was no good, so I fortunately got myself a very good camera, and I took pictures of the kids.

Q. I believe you had detailed notes from Gerald Micklem when you won here in 1990 and Jordan has only played one round here before this week. Can he in two-and-a-half days find out everything he needs to know?
SIR NICK FALDO: Well, we are acknowledging Jordan has got this great ability -- many people play practice rounds with him, one round, and the next day he'll be talking about the golf course and they'll have missed everything he's talking about, all the little subtle slopes. So he's obviously got a very high golfing IQ, and he takes a lot on board. Obviously that's how he works with his caddie. When you're playing really well, if your caddie tells you where to land it, he's going to probably land it there. That is what they're enjoying at the moment. That's what I notice on television, how many shots are pin high that he hits. That's obviously what they're trying to do, or in the right -- look where all his misses were at Augusta. That was really key. You know, anything he missed at Augusta, he didn't miss No. 8 way right, he missed it down -- he still had a straightforward pitch. That is equally important in this game of golf. When you look down a hole and you want to know if I'm going to miss this, you say to yourself, there's always a negative, right side is better than left. Well, maybe you fade it then, you don't hit a hook. Get me? And they seem to have very good course management. No, I think he'll be in there. I really do. He's playing too darned good when you're holing putts. When you keep saying the golf ball go in the hole, nice feeling.

Q. What's your views -- I know in the past week at the Scottish there was a lot of talk about the PGA's drug-testing policy with Scott Stallings' incident and some of the other cases where maybe we've heard reports but we don't actually find out what's going on with some golfers, with Dustin last year when he took time off. What's your thoughts on the policy, especially as we approach an Olympics where golf will have to be in tune --
SIR NICK FALDO: I'm the wrong person to be asking, really, to be honest. I think you should ask the commissioner or -- I'm not going to get involved in that.

THE MODERATOR: Sir Nick, thank you for joining us this afternoon, and best of luck this week.
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