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THE 145TH OPEN

July 17, 2016

Steve Stricker

Troon, South Ayrshire, Scotland

STEVE STRICKER: I love the way I chopped up 17. But all in all, I played great all week. Hit the ball nicely. Scrambled when I had to. Played good through a lot of tough conditions. So it was a great week.

Q. (Inaudible).
STEVE STRICKER: No, no, it wasn't at all. I was just trying to finish as high as I could. Just to keep plugging away and whatever happens, happens kind of thing. I got FedExCup points I was looking at, and World Ranking points. There's a lot on the line for me today to do well. So it's good. A lot of good things came about it. Like I said, I'm a little disappointed the way I chopped up 17, but all in all if you would have told me heading into the week I'd have a legitimate chance to finish in the top 5, I don't know if I would have believed you. So it was good.

Q. That also gets you back here next year.
STEVE STRICKER: Yeah.

Q. (Inaudible).
STEVE STRICKER: Maybe. Yeah, it's a lot of spinoffs. That's the great thing about playing golf out here professionally. There are a lot of carrots dangling. When you're playing well, you're rewarded and you get to do some pretty cool things. If that's the case, getting back to Augusta is pretty cool. So, yeah, we'll see after it all shakes out. But I'm excited to go home.

Q. (Inaudible) you'd like to cut down on your schedule?
STEVE STRICKER: Yeah, but that's part of the reason I think I'm still playing well. I've cut down. I'm still really excited to come out and play. I enjoyed my two weeks over here a lot. Scottish Open last week was really fun, and hanging with Phil last week made the week go by really quick. It was good for my game. Getting over here and experiencing all that weather, so it was a good decision to come over.

Q. (Inaudible).
STEVE STRICKER: Yeah, no kidding. He's got a lot of game, and he's still got the belief that he can play and he shows it. I've played some practise rounds with him and he still hits it long and he still hits it good. I think what him and Andrew Getson are doing are really good. He's excited about it.

So it doesn't surprise me. He's putting -- probably having one of the better putting years of his career, I would imagine. Statistically I think he's right up there in all of that. So it's good to see him playing well. We need him on the Ryder Cup. We need him playing well and bringing his confidence into that team room.

Q. Have you guys ever talked about (Inaudible).
STEVE STRICKER: No. We may have brought it up, but he totally believed that he's going to make the team, and he is now with this, I would imagine. So, you know, he just has a lot of confidence and believes that he's going to be there and be on that team one way or the other.

He showed last year how important he is to these teams. When he was a captain's pick last year for the Presidents Cup, he came over and did some great things in the team room and played great. He played great for the Presidents Cup last year. So he's a good guy to have in that team room.

Q. Do you still have realistic ambitions of winning a major?
STEVE STRICKER: You can always dream, can't you? Realistically, I don't know. But I still think that I have potential maybe one time to get in there. Maybe this was it, who knows? But we were so far back we weren't even in contention to win the thing.

But it's nice to get the juices flowing and feel the pressure and try to perform down the stretch. It was fun.

Q. (Inaudible).
STEVE STRICKER: Yeah, I think just you're older, you've learned a lot along the way. If you keep in pretty good shape, keep your body in shape. I guess what I'm doing keeps me motivated to play. I'm not playing as much, but every time I come out I'm really excited to be playing, and that was my goal is not to get stale with it later in my career, and that's what I've done. I'm really excited to play in every event that I go to.

So I think it's just managing your own situation and seeing what's right for you, and this is what's right for me I feel like. I'm starting to finally feel better. I had back surgery a couple years ago, and I feel like I'm back swinging at it aggressively again, where I had been missing that for a little bit of time.

Q. (Inaudible).
STEVE STRICKER: Yeah, well, we've got a college -- my daughter goes to college this year and there is an orientation, a parent orientation thing. But maybe she'll let me go and play it (laughing).

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