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THE SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY ROLEX

July 22, 2016

Tom Watson

Carnoustie, Scotland

Q. What was the difference today compared to yesterday?
TOM WATSON: Well, I hit a lot of fine iron shots today. I still hit it in the bunkers off the tee on the front nine. I knocked it in the bunker, left it in the bunker and made double there. Did the same thing at 7. I hit it in the bunker and made bogey there.

Bunkers are not the place to be on links golf courses, I can assure you.

Q. You're going to enter tomorrow at least nine back of the current leader. As you try to minimise that gap, what is your goal?
TOM WATSON: Well, the goal is to hit the fairways. The main thing is give me a look, every hole, give me a look. Even if you're in the rough, the rough is not too bad. You can usually work your way from the rough to the greens.

But stay out of the bunkers, bottom line. And the thing I'm going to have to do is run the tables on greens and make some putts. I made a few putts today, which I'm pretty happy about, but it was not very good yesterday.

Q. Finally, as we pull back a little bit and talk about your career, and this is a big spot for you, you won your first Open here at Carnoustie, what has Carnoustie meant to you over a lifetime?
TOM WATSON: Well, The Open Championship started with Carnoustie for me. It was my first Open Championship in 1975. It was an unknown. I was told that Carnoustie was the toughest course in the rotation. We caught it in easy conditions. There was no rough and it was burned up; the balls were going nine miles. But you had to play chess here because you couldn't hit driver off the tee very often. You had to fit the ball in the fairways on a lot of the holes.

It's pretty soft right now. I can hit drivers -- of course I'm hitting it shorter now. I can hit driver off the tee a little more. But Carnoustie, it's as tough as they come when conditions are bad. It requires you to really think around the golf course. When you make a mistake, you're sorely penalised on this golf course.

Q. For someone who has so much history here at Carnoustie, does playing the weekend here at a venue such as this, does this ever get old for you?
TOM WATSON: No. You never like to miss the cut. Of course now, I shot 76 yesterday, and I was thinking, well, God, I've got to play some golf or I'm going to be down the road, as they say.

I started off and made a birdie on the first hole, get off, and then I hit the ball in one of these pot bunkers on No. 4. I hit the lip coming out and made double, now I'm 1-over. So I'm struggling and fighting. Then I make a birdie at 5. Hit the ball in the bunker again at 7.

But then I hit a great shot at 8. Almost made a hole-in-one at 8. Made a good up-and-down on 9 to kind of settle things down. But I've been hitting the ball in the bunkers too many times here the first two days. I don't know how many bunkers I've been in, but I've been in about half a dozen off the tee but when you do that, you're going to make bogey or worse.

Q. How has your strategy over the years changed on this golf course, if at all?
TOM WATSON: It really hasn't. The golf course is soft right now. But it played downwind and I made a mistake at 14, the spectacles. I hit too much club for my second shot. It was a hundred feet past the hole and I knew better, and I was thinking over that shot, it's not 5-iron, it's a 6, maybe even a 7. But I flushed the 5 and there it is. I 3-putt from a hundred feet. But those are the things that old people don't remember very much.

I remember for a reason just to hit over the Spectacles and let the ball trickle over the green on the downslope there, and that's the way to play the hole.

Q. You mentioned knowing specific parts of this golf course in detail; is there any part of being here that surprises you?
TOM WATSON: No. This golf course hasn't changed at all. This golf course, back when Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Arnold Palmer played Big Three golf, a long time, before you were born, Jack told me the story. They played the golf course, it was blowing about 35 miles an hour. It was bone dry. And after it was over, the scores are 77, 78 and 79, but that wasn't the point.

The point was that Jack, he tallied up how many greens they all hit. Jack hit three greens, Gary hit two, and Arnie hit one green in regulation in the 18 holes they all played. That's how tough this golf course can play.

Q. Looking ahead to the final 36 holes, any strategy about tomorrow?
TOM WATSON: The strategy is to keep it out of the darned bunkers. That's the No. 1 thing, and No. 2, I hope I can make some putts. You can get a feel for these greens. I think I've got a pretty good feel for the greens. I changed my stroke a little bit today and early on was good and later on it wasn't. But early on, they kind of got that feel that you like to have.

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