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U.S. SENIOR OPEN

June 27, 2019

Kirk Triplett

Notre Dame, Indiana

Q. A lot of red numbers on that scorecard.
KIRK TRIPLETT: I putted very well. But I got the ball in the right spot a few times, too. You know, the pins are such that you're not going to make a lot of 30-footers, but you can make some 15-footers, and I made a bunch of those.

Kind of sketchy early in the round, but I started on the back nine and the holes are a little easier, and kind of hit my rhythm there the middle of the round and hit some nice shots on the hard holes. Played them 1-under, that 3, 4, 5 stretch, and then birdied 6 and birdied 9 to kind of top it off. So I'm thrilled.

Q. With the course being softer, did you feel like you could be a little bit more aggressive and go at the flag?
KIRK TRIPLETT: Well, I think this course in some ways just forces you to shoot at the flag anyway because you can't really figure out -- there's some short sides, which obviously you can't end up on, but for the most part there's enough tears and humps and bumps that if you're playing to 30, 40, 50 feet, you're going to struggle to make pars anyway. You might as well go at it.

To me it's the kind of course where a lot of days you'd make six birdies and three or four bogeys, and that would be a really nice round. And I kind of did that today but only had one bogey.

Q. How much different do you think this course is going to play for the afternoon group?
KIRK TRIPLETT: I don't think it'll be much different this afternoon, and I think it's got enough water on it that it'll probably stay pretty similar to this tomorrow. But after that, anybody's guess, right? Every time a thunderstorm rolls through, it kind of goes back to this fairly soft, fairways are playing wide, aggressive shots are rewarded.

Q. I know a couple guys have said that the putting surfaces have been really good. Did you get that sense, and how well did you --
KIRK TRIPLETT: Well, I think in the morning, you can certainly see the difference between the front nine and the back nine. The first nine holes they were almost like glass; the back nine you could see them bumping up a little bit.

I think the one thing you're going to see going forward that you haven't seen in the past is you're able to fix a lot of those. You can tap down a spike mark. I had a big spike mark in my -- I had a six-foot putt for birdie on No. 6, and I would have been trying to figure out whether to go under it or over it, and you just tap it down. The new rules, they do give you an advantage, especially in this kind of situations, these kind of greens.

Q. How do you maintain the level of play that you had today?
KIRK TRIPLETT: Well, we play every week, and 25 times a year, you try not to get too excited about a good round. But this is a big tournament. For me it's probably the biggest tournament of the year for me. I've been looking forward to it, wanting to do well, and trying not to get too keyed up.

But I'm pretty excited with where my game is at and how I'm playing. I like the course, but I also think it's the kind of course where you need one or two of these good rounds, and then you need to be around par the other couple. You can play the same way as I played today and shoot 1-under very easily, as well. It's going to be hard for somebody to shoot that score every single day.

Q. What's the experience been like here at Notre Dame, and what's the overall experience been like?
KIRK TRIPLETT: Well, I kind of cheated. I had a son that graduated from here last May, so I've been here a number of times and knew what was in store for the guys. Just the way the community embraces the university, and maybe it starts with the sports programs, but it's much deeper than that.

And everybody is kind of proud of the people that go there, and I'm certainly proud of my son for having gone there. He got a great education, and I know he'll be coming to South Bend for the rest of his life for all kinds of events. It's a neat community, and I'm happy to be just a little tiny part of it.

Q. Have you been here for a lot of football games?
KIRK TRIPLETT: I've been to a few football games, junior parents' weekend, a few others events. I usually came in November or February, so I never played the golf course before this week. Very nice facility. And it's a Senior Open; they're not going to have it at a course that's not worthy, and this course is certainly worthy.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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