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U.S. SENIOR OPEN

June 29, 2018

Paul Goydos

Colorado Springs, Colorado

THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome Paul Goydos, with a 3-under par 67 today. Places him at T4 on the leaderboard. And I'd probably say an eventful scorecard.

PAUL GOYDOS: Those are the scorecards when you're checking it, to sign it, you check it 27 times because you're not sure it's right.

The golf course -- when you play major championships, especially U.S. Opens or Senior Opens, and I'm sure the Ladies Open and the Junior and the Amateur, you're going to have those. I made a mistake on the 11th tee and paid a pretty big price for it. That's going to happen.

Now the birdie on 13 and the hole-out on 14 and birdie on 15 aren't going to happen generally, but you've got to stay -- it's part of the process of playing in these events is hitting bad shots and paying steep prices for doing so.

THE MODERATOR: Take us through the clubs you hit, yardages and stuff, on 14 and 15.

PAUL GOYDOS: 12, I was happy to make par there. And 13 I had, you know, yardages here are hard to remember because you hit the ball the funny distances. But I think on -- I think on 13 I had the 189 yards downwind and hit 7-iron. At sea level it's a 4-iron, and hit a solid shot where I was trying to hit it. I didn't know it was going to do all the things that it did, it rolled up the hill and over to the right and almost went in, made a little three-footer for birdie there.

14, hit a good drive. And the things that I think are really difficult in altitude, at least for me, is into the wind.

Because you're still hitting less club than you would hit at sea level into the wind. And I had a hundred -- it would have been an 8-iron at sea level. And I hit a 9-iron into the wind. I hit the 9-iron as good as I could hit it, not as far as I could hit it, but as solid a shot I could hit.

It's hanging up in the air. If it lands two yards shorter than it did, I might have 50 yards from my third shot, it's going to run back down the hill, and it hit perfect. And all I could see is it disappeared, that's a bonus. Make a double, you hole out a shot. It's the scales just doing this.

Then I hit a good drive on 15. I caught the iron a little thin which was good. The pin was in the back, skipped back there to 20 feet, and got a little -- I think I looked at the putt a little too long, got a little confused. You start looking at the mountain and you start looking at the bell and all the wrong things as opposed to the line of the putt. I actually had my caddie come in read it, he read it perfectly and hit a good putt and it went in.

Q. I heard you on TV. Are you still trying to figure out the physics how the putt didn't go in on 18?
PAUL GOYDOS: Exciting. Just going with, when you hole out a shot there's a lot of luck. And those things even out over time. And there's a quick evening-out process. Hit a good putt. It was about the slowest lip-out I've ever seen. It actually sort of rocked in. Thought it was going to go in. It didn't.

It's on the right side of the mountain, even. It wasn't like on the wrong -- No. 3 I had one hanging on the lip but it was on the wrong side of the mountain. This is actually -- what do you do? It's part of the game. What do you do? I hit a good putt. Good tee shot. 8-iron, hit a good putt. That's fine.

Holing out a shot. When you hole it out, there's so much luck involved in that.

Q. Just a follow-up, the Broadmoor, putting at the Broadmoor, see anything quite like that?
PAUL GOYDOS: No, I hit -- you have to have -- it takes a little more faith because they don't break the way they look, per se. Some do. But some putts, they're doing a good job. I talked to Kevin a little -- the counterslope of the deal. So there's a knob on the green, that putting it on the side of the knob that faces the hill. So it kind of counters that.

And so you're looking at a putt that it's kind of like those funhouses, when the thing's rolling up the hill. And you're looking at it. And it's got to go right but it's going to go left. It's almost like you want to cut one of your shoes off or something so you can read them. But I think part of that is just faith. And practice rounds, you guess at where hole locations are going to be and you hit some putts around. And again you have faith.

Q. Some of the groups that I was watching late in the day, the greens on at least some of the earlier holes were getting a little bumpy. Did you notice that or have any trouble with that as the day wore on?
PAUL GOYDOS: I didn't notice it. It's poa annua. It's what you get with poa annua. I grew up on poa annua in Long Beach. I actually think they're holing up quite well. Poa annua is tough. I'm guessing up here at 6,000 feet. It's hard to grow grass without a lot of extra care that you would take, say, at sea level. I could say Pebble Beach is poa annua.

But no, I mean, I think they were bumpier than yesterday morning, but they were fine. I didn't hit any putts that I missed because they bounced or anything.

Q. Nine holes that you just played, can you recount anything in your career like that in a nine-hole span?
PAUL GOYDOS: No, generally after I go bogey, double, I go ballistic, break all my clubs. I generally don't have that much patience, quite frankly. I think I've had rounds where I've got -- had a stretch making an eagle, couple of birdies, finished double bogey, bogey. Probably done that a bunch. But to start out like that.

Again, I played good on the front nine. I make the bogey and the double bogey to get back to 3 over for the tournament. There's not that many birdies left. A lot of really hard holes left.

If you look at the course statistics I would guess 10, 11, 12, 13, 17 are probably in the top six or seven hardest holes on the golf course. So I was at that point I was happy to make a par on 12 and just see what happens. The shot on 13, again, I didn't know it was going to do -- all three of us hit it close there. I was just trying to hit it in the middle of the green, try to make pars because they're hard holes and it rolled up by the hole. Holing it out is, again, there's a lot of luck involved with that. Having said that, I couldn't hit a better tee shot couldn't hit the 9-iron any more solid than I did. Now you kind of get the attitude, wait a minute, things are going my way again. There was a little bit of a roller coaster there because I was teaching my caddie some new words on 12th tee. Then you're the happiest guy in the world on the 16th tee.

It happens in golf. It hasn't happened to me that much. But not in a major championship. Not in a golf course this hard. I've made bogeys and doubles and eagles on the same nine but not on a golf course playing as hard as this. That's probably the best way I can answer that.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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