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THE 145TH OPEN

July 17, 2016

Padraig Harrington

Troon, South Ayrshire, Scotland

Q. What happened out there?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Oh, Alex's ball moved. It was a pretty straightforward ruling, but nothing's straightforward these days. So it moved as he was marking it, which means he should replace it and play it from where it is, but, wow, do we have to get officials. It's pretty straightforward, but there you go.

Q. Do you get disappointed when (Inaudible).
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I do if I did something wrong. I did everything I could coming into this to get it right. I did everything I could during the week, so I have no regrets whatsoever. If I panicked on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and took myself out the game Thursday morning, I'd be disappointed.

To be honest, it's been a long time since I've played a major that I would have a regret that I didn't get my preparation right. I did this week. I can't second-guess that.

Q. How difficult was it during the week?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Obviously most of the week we seemed to get the wrong side of the weather, which doesn't help. I think if the championship was only played on the back nine, I would have done rather nicely. I don't know. I might have been under par for the back nine this week.

Q. What are the two events (inaudible)?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, as I said, I didn't score very well for a lot of this week, so that's usually my strong point to stay patient and that. Hit the ball well. Did a lot of things good. Mentally I was a lot better. So, yeah, I've been positive about my game for a while now, so this week could have been -- it would be hard to be 12-under par. I'm certainly not saying that. But a few under par wouldn't have been taken, a break here or there.

Q. What happened on the two par-5s on the front nine?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I hit it decent enough drive to the bunker on the first one. Hacked out. Didn't hit a good second shot. Didn't hit a good chip, six. The next one I hit a good drive. I had it go and hit it bad -- hit my second shot straight but hit it in the bunker. Played a great bunker shot, but left into the next bunker, tendered out of that and three-putt, and very easy 7. Yeah, I was on the down slope behind the face. I wouldn't mind, I hit a great third shot, bunker shot, to get it to the green from that bunker, I wouldn't think too many players would do from the lie. It was a pitching wedge. I hit it 35 yards over quite a steep face, which it came out a little left of me and went into the other bunker, which I wasn't expecting.

So, yeah, look, I hit three shots close in the first six holes for birdie and then those two holes. So I left an awful lot of shots. Certainly on the par-5s, I could have played them level par and made a couple of the putts and all of a sudden I've got a great start. Clearly that wasn't the case.

Q. Four weeks in a row now. Your schedule, the PGA and a week off?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: No, I'm playing Travelers. I always play Travelers. I like it up there. Yeah, no, the game is very good. It's okay to play a lot of tournaments at the moment because I've nothing to fix, so it was mainly mental stuff. Maybe this week trying to get a bit of pitching practise on a different sort of turf going into Baltusrol and that. That's really where the next two weeks or well, next week I'll do a bit of work on my pitching and everything else is pretty strong.

Q. How long will it be before you see a major winner in (Inaudible).
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I don't know about a regular basis, because I don't think anybody can win regularly at this stage. There are so many good players, but it will happen.

Q. In your lifetime?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, well, I believe I'm going to do it. Yeah, look, Phil ain't slowing down in terms of his physical ability to hit the golf ball. I'm not slowing down. So as long as we don't have those barriers people perceived to have years ago. Phil doesn't think he's old at 47. There's not a chance he does. Whereas guys that --

Q. (Inaudible).
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: There you go. Where guys were retiring at 32 and 34 just before I started playing golf, and it's not like that at all. More and more guys are fit and strong, coming up to their 50th.

Q. Are you able to take the stress of traveling?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Oh, look, you have to do things different, yeah. Yeah, when you finish a round of golf, sometimes going back to your hotel or house and sitting down for the evening is a nice thing, yeah. You can't hit as many balls, for sure. But that's not necessarily good or bad. That can work in your favour at times. You might be able to play as many tournaments.

Travel is lovely now. Never have a problem. The front of the bus is never so bad (laughter).

Q. Jordan Spieth now is beginning to feel that there are undue pressures and expectations on him. He won two majors last year, and he's had a tough year. Have you ever felt that when you've had your big years?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I think everybody who wins majors, everybody who has a little purple patch trying to live up to what they perceive they did and what the public thinks they did, which isn't always -- it's far from the truth many times. There are very few players who have won majors that have actually played better afterwards. Really, it is definitely a milestone to be carried. I think it takes somebody who is destined.

If you have it in your head you're going to win 18 majors, it's easier to keep winning after you've won one. If you have in your head one is a good thing, it's very hard to win a second one. It's very hard to win a third.

I think for any player, you just have to go through all the guys that have won majors. Very few of them have played the best golf afterwards. Most of them were playing their best golf just before they won and then the expectation might be different in Jordan's case, it might be different in Rory's case because maybe when they started off they believed they were going to win many majors. Whereas I certainly started off, I was just trying to keep my card. To win a tournament was great.

I had a good head on me to realise to talk always in the plural when it came to majors but certainly deep down inside me three was my ceiling. Even though I'm trying to break that. Hard thing to do though.

Q. So for Spieth who is beginning to think --
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Nobody knows what his --

Q. (Inaudible).
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Well, some would say I haven't. It takes a long time. Yeah, maybe now I'm only starting to get to grips with it. I certainly played my best golf in 2009, 2010. 2011 I was very good. It was only sort of a little bit later that I started struggling a little bit on the greens.

Look, I would say I was very aware and very good and I still found it hard. So I would hope in Jordan's case that his major ceiling if it's more than he's won at the moment, well, that's a good thing because he'll probably get to whatever you believe. Whatever deep down inside you think you should achieve, you'll probably end up hitting that mark.

Q. (Inaudible) what is your take on the venue?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Great golf course, it really is. I think it's a great course because it does give you some opportunities to make some birdies. There is some excitement on it. It doesn't feel -- it's a tough course yet it doesn't feel like that. It feels like a nice golf course to go and play, which is a good sign. As I said, opportunity to make birdies is always a good thing on a golf course.

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