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THE SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY ROLEX

July 20, 2016

Jean Van De Velde

Carnoustie, Scotland

Q. Have you been out on the course?
JEAN VAN DE VELDE: I played yesterday.

Q. The rough is quite severe this year, more severe than last time.
JEAN VAN DE VELDE: I don't know the last time but the rough is, yeah, on some places, it's quite patchy, very patchy, so you can get away with it. Or you can be really punished. It's going to be the luck of the draw. The course is immaculate, really. I've never played this golf course without it being perfect. The greens are amazing. The fairways are spotless. Everything is quite spectacular.

The consistency of the course; year-in, year-out, we play Dunhill Links every year, and I've played in a lot of them, and it's been amazing. You wonder how they can sustain. It's fantastic.

Q. How about you?
JEAN VAN DE VELDE: I'm okay. I'm good.

Q. Had much opportunity to play?
JEAN VAN DE VELDE: No. Work-in-progress, I would say. Since Monday evening after the French, because on Monday, we have two corporate days on the Monday after the French. So I went back to America. I played in that Champions Tour tournament. I was a wreck. I was completely exhausted, jet-lagged. My back was a wreck from standing up all the time.

But at least it was good to get back on the horse. Irrelevant of the score I shot, I played pretty good, very good for the front nine every time, but terribly for the back nine. Ran out of steam without a doubt. Out of practise, as well, having a scorecard in the back of my pocket where making a score has got nothing to do with playing pretty golf or good golf sometimes. You just have to make sure you miss on the right side and make a good decision, which is not what I did. But it was good in a certain way to get back to it and to see how far I am in terms of even handling the course itself.

Hitting-wise, I've been hitting balls for the last three months, 3 1/2 months, and not a daily basis, far from it, but a couple of times a week. So that part seems to be -- it's not good but at least it's going forward. But yeah, it's a work-in-progress, a real work-in-progress.

Q. Is it harder than you anticipated, having had such a long time out of golf?
JEAN VAN DE VELDE: To be honest I had no expectations. I said it; I will leave myself about 18 months to be full steam, if I can be full steam again. You know, if it goes quicker, it goes quicker. If not, it's just the acceptance of having not too many expectation. The expectation I think has to be on the attitude and more on how to manage the golf course and how to be realistic within the amount of golf that I have or that I've been producing over the last six years.

Once I put that on board or take that on board, then I can move forward, maybe, maybe, at a slow pace or at a quicker pace. But I do believe that because I have a good round, it's going to repeat necessarily the following day, I know I'm not that much of a dreamer. I spend enough time on Tour to know it doesn't work this way.

Q. The young French players coming through on The Challenge Tour, Langasque, Saddier, Sordet, you must be pleased with the young talent coming through; your country is obviously doing something right in terms of developing talent.
JEAN VAN DE VELDE: Very much. So the development programme has been on for about 20 years now, pushed by the French Federation. And if you look at it, you realise that over the last five years, we have about 60 youngsters who are in universities in America, and in college in America, boys and girls.

So sooner or later, some of them are going to appear on this side of the Atlantic. Some others are going to be on the other. We have Julien Brun who decided to play on the Canadian Tour and is doing very well. Sooner or later, I'm sure he's doing to play on the PGA TOUR. He decided to start over there instead of starting over here. We have Saddier, Sordet, and all the others. Langasque; he's a pure example of, as well, of how much he's been followed by the different bodies who invest in the programmes in golf. Yes, there's some good days to come I think.

Q. The letter that stirred things up --
JEAN VAN DE VELDE: I'm not going to talk or argue on the content here. It's irrelevant. It's a means of communication that is to be addressed. Nowadays, unfortunately, although they can be extremely good and very powerful, all the Twitters and Facebook and Messengers and this and that, whatever, name them; I'm not very acquainted to them, because they can be very destructive as well. Because you post something and the entire world knows about it.

I do believe that for this kind of, I would say, subject problems, in brackets, to be raised up, you have to do it within the people who are concerned by it, touched by it, and this has to be done in a room like this.

So to that extent, I do believe that, yes, that was probably a mistake. Now to the content itself, you know, I have my opinion on that and I will keep it.

Is that a political answer?

Q. You still have some good players coming through.
JEAN VAN DE VELDE: We have some great players. But you have to address, as well, when you have some phenomenal talent, and it's never easy to go through the finish line. You don't do it one time; you don't do it two times; you don't do it five; you don't do it six. I'm not going to name anybody, but I could name, and not only one. You've got to think, and it's not a criticism: What would you need to go to the next step? Do you believe it's only technical? If you do believe that, I think you're wrong. Do you believe it's course management? Do you believe it's the right decision at the right time; can somebody help you with that? Can your caddie help you better with that? I can talk about that. Is the mental aspect of the game? Is it the way -- your pre-shot routine; what is it?

Put all the subjects on the table, dig deep into them, and somebody that has been through that, or at least an expert who knows about it, can give you his opinion and work on that and see if there is some kind of improvement. If not this, it might be something else. But I do believe that, yeah, there's no point going through the process and having it slip through your finger all the time and not knowing why, basically, or throwing the coin, because tomorrow it's going to be better. It doesn't work that way.

Q. Well, Langasque has taken to it very quick, the professional.
JEAN VAN DE VELDE: Yes, and at the same time I think he's a tremendous talent. I saw him hit a few shots at the French Open this year. I mean, the distance this lad has, it's out of this world. He hit a driver and a gap wedge on 18. On 18 at the National, he hit to the right inside because it runs out in front of him and it wasn't even hot or sunny or whatever and the ball wasn't going anywhere.

He's got tremendous talent, tremendous potential, he's got an amazing short game. He's got a good head, as well. He's young. All the good ingredients. His head is not polluted with all the different dramas this game can throw at you. He has the ability of analyzing what is happening and forget, in bracket, about it, and move forward. As you're young, you're going to have so many more opportunities and you can do that. As you get older, it's a different story.

Q. Where were you --
JEAN VAN DE VELDE: June, I was in Paris. I was either in Paris or -- I was back from America, because I was captain of the Palmer Cup in America and I should have been this year, but because of the Palmer Cup being two weeks later, it was a week before the French Open and impossible for me to be there. I was in Paris --

Q. Do you have a special feeling?
JEAN VAN DE VELDE: Of course it's a special feeling. First of all, you're happy for the guy. Winning in match play, it shows the temperament of the kid, and winning here, it's a good course. I do believe that great players go through great courses, and luck can only happen a day or two, not throughout the week. It shows the potential that this young man has.

Q. You'll be going to The Ryder Cup, I presume?
JEAN VAN DE VELDE: I don't know. It's still -- it's in the open. I'm pretty busy right now. I go right, I go left. You know what I like to do, I like to put my backside in a lounge chair somewhere on the beach. I thought I was going to do that last night but they brought them in quickly (laughter).

We'll see. That's quite a few weeks to go before that. I also, within the golf department, I'm in charge, so we also have the ladies French Open which is beginning of October. I'm going to have to be there, as well. It's hard to be everywhere. We will see. But I will probably be to the one after that.

Q. Do you like being back here?
JEAN VAN DE VELDE: I love being back here. You know when you play yesterday, this course -- that golf course, when it was designed, how can you ever design something like that, playing with wood at that time, it's unbelievable. From 15 onwards, it's quite spectacular. When you believe -- if you don't save a lot of energy the last four holes, mentally, it will break you into pieces, in two pieces. It's a phenomenal golf course. There's no breather out there.

The first one, go, all right, and then the second one is brutal. 3 you go, okay. 4, you go, okay, I hit a good one drive, right over the bunker, no breeze. But then, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 as a par 4, just give me a break.

Q. How did you play 18 yesterday?
JEAN VAN DE VELDE: My usual. I missed a fairway left. I missed a fairway again left. Hit it on the green and lipped out for four, but I had a five. 480 yards and we're playing into the wind yesterday. It is not an easy par 4 by any means. Even downwind it's not easy.

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