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THE 146TH OPEN

July 20, 2017

Paul Casey

Southport, England

PAUL CASEY: I'm loving being back in England. The Open Championship at Royal Birkdale may be my favourite links course of any of the courses on the rotation. I think it's so fair, so beautifully designed, bunkering perfect, conditions great. Yeah, so many cool things about it, just the whole week so far has been perfect. In warmup hit it well.

Yeah, so it's nice that after taking the break and everybody says, "You've been cycling," and all the rest of it, it's nice to show that the break does me good.

Q. (Inaudible.)
PAUL CASEY: Yeah, the only error was the three-putt on the 11th, which was frustrating, because I played that hole really well tee to green. I took the bunkers out of play, hit 3-iron off the tee. Yeah, I left a longer approach with a 5-iron, but that's actually what Rickie and Adam did, as well. Just got the wrong side of that ridge and ran the putt miles past.

I made very few errors other than that. Ball control was good. But I felt like I had to do something today because, one, you've got already a very strong leaderboard, and, two, with the weather coming, I don't know what's coming, but everybody says everybody is going to get wet tomorrow. It's like make hay while the sun is shining. I'm not massive fan of playing in the rain. I'm not sure any of the guys are. But it's important to capitalize on good conditions.

Q. (Inaudible.)
PAUL CASEY: Yes, it is. It is, and I think I've always loved this week because my birthday has been on or around it. I love going to work on my birthday. I genuinely do. I've missed this tournament on my birthday. It's just cool. What can I say, walking down 18 is a great experience. And apparently life begins at 40, so maybe -- maybe it's a good omen for me this week.

Q. (Inaudible.)
PAUL CASEY: Thank you very much.

Q. (Inaudible.)
PAUL CASEY: It's great to think about, but that's like seven red cards in a row and will the next one be red or black. You just don't know, do you? This golf course is so fair that -- it's not quirky like links can be sometimes. Open championships I think there's a trend, there's a slightly older set that usually win Opens, that I would say probably go against that. But I don't want to talk myself out of an opportunity to win this. I'm trying to deflect the pressure.

Q. (Inaudible.)
PAUL CASEY: I think I shanked it out of bounds with a 3-iron. I did. Crouched down by my bag -- is it not true? Was it the second round, then? All right. But I remember crouching down by the side of the bag, Craig Connelly was on the bag. Spoilt the story; it sounded great. I couldn't figure out how he was still --

Q. (Inaudible.)
PAUL CASEY: That's right, yes, I did. I shot level-par on the weekend and went from the cut line to 7th, that's all I know. Crashing down by by the bag with Craig, the wee man, thinking how on earth are we still playing, surely somebody should blow a horn. It was ridiculous. And then you look at Padraig and Poulter who also had my side of the draw, came out to be one and two. Worst conditions I probably may have ever played in.

Q. (Inaudible.)
PAUL CASEY: Yeah, the shank did. Yeah, it did. As I pulled it towards that left bunker and it narrowly missed and kicked back towards the fairway. I was like, whew. See, I already thought I'm off to a better start.

Q. (Inaudible.)
PAUL CASEY: Yeah, I mean, it's something I do anyway. I cycle when I'm home. It's rare I don't do at least 100, 150, 200 miles a week if I'm home in Arizona. Not last week, because last week I practiced as hard as I could. So the week before, 300 miles, 3,700 feet climbing. Started off in Verona a couple of days, and went up to Corvara, which is a town in the Dolomites. Cool climbs they do.

Q. (Inaudible.)
PAUL CASEY: Seven days. Only 300 miles is not a lot. So 60, 70 miles a day. But doing eight and nine thousand feet of climbing in the day. It pales in comparison to what these boys every day. Something the boys do every day. It's mental.

Johnny went, as well. I kind of treated it him to it. It was his 50th birthday gift. There was a lot of wine drinking going on, as well.

Q. (Inaudible.)
PAUL CASEY: Don't know. What am I treating myself to? No, I'm not. I haven't had a crisis yet. Maybe I'll have one tomorrow. A white Lamborghini or something. I don't know. I'm still in my 30s there.

Q. (Inaudible.)
PAUL CASEY: I'd like to treat myself to that. Yeah, it will be a big party. I think I'm in good form. When Johnnie McLaren came on the bag, it was kind of a five-year bag to try and win one of these, win a major.

The Open has never been the one I've seem to have fared the best at. I seem to have struggled at apart from St. Andrews when Louis won. My results haven't been good. But I feel really good about this week. Don't know why. Maybe I'm more in love with links golf than I was before. Certainly this course helps. I really like this course. Not putting that much pressure on myself, but very much wanting to win it. The odds are in my favour - seven first-time winners. So, yeah, it would be a hell of a party, though.

Q. (Inaudible.)
PAUL CASEY: I think there's a whole slew of things, not having played in England for a while, excited to be here, crowd, yeah, away from the course doing things. I used to hide a lot of that stuff away, not tell people. Wouldn't tell people -- because I injured myself snowboarding. I think because of that you get, oh, why is he doing that? So I never used to share what I would do away for fear of being criticized for it. Johnny is a part of that saying, "Tell people." So there's actually a film crew there. So you might actually see in images of it, see how slow I am on a bike. And so now it's very comfortable with myself on the golf course, away from the golf course, I think that's part of playing now -- use I'm playing good golf.

Q. (Inaudible.)
PAUL CASEY: Yeah. I put on about a stone in cheese and beer and stuff. Even Johnny -- Johnny always makes sandwiches for me on the golf course and it's always like some sort of healthy bread. This week he's gone full white bread, which is just the best, being back home.

Q. (Inaudible.)
PAUL CASEY: No, I'm off next week, so proper party next week. Dinner tomorrow night, but nothing silly or Sunday, yes.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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