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THE SENIOR OPEN PRESENTED BY ROLEX

July 25, 2019

Paul McGinley

Lytham St. Annes, Lancashire, United Kingdom

Q. Birdie on the last, hope that gives you momentum heading into the morning?
PAUL McGINLEY: Yeah, it was a battle. Stop, start at the start. I didn't play good to be honest. I just fought like hell, and 3-over keeps me somewhere, somewhere in the game still. So somewhere in the 60s tomorrow. This is a tough golf course. The players, no matter how good the conditions are, they are not going to get away to double figures, I don't think.

Q. How big is the news for your country and the golf world that Adare Manor is hosting The Ryder Cup?
PAUL McGINLEY: Yeah, we are on a run, aren't we. We won the Amateur, be playing hopefully Augusta next year, follow that on a month later with Shane and such a great win for him, The Irish Open at Lahinch and now The Ryder Cup. Stars are shining on Ireland for sure.

Q. As a Ryder Cup Captain, you know what it's like to win and to have home turf advantage. What do you anticipate the fans and the energy to be like at Adare Manor?
PAUL McGINLEY: We saw it last week and we saw it at Lahinch and The Irish Open. We love our golf. Golf is not a particularly elite sport in Ireland. Every town has a golf course. Golf's not that expensive. For $400 a year you can being a member of the club and there are a lot of clubs in the country. Everybody plays. We play hurling, as well, which is played with a stick and camogie for the girls. They learn how to swing a stick and they turn to golf very easily.

We are not a big country, but north and south combined, about 5 1/2, maybe 6 million people, but a lot of us play golf. We love our golf and it's great that we are having this success. To have such a big high-profile event on the horizon, it's something to look forward to. In life, we all like something to look forward to, and certainly the country of Ireland looking forward very much much to 2026.

It's a great thrill. A lot of rumours about it the last year. I was involved a bit. Didn't get over the line easily. A lot of hard negotiations took place. I think Shane's win last week, the surge of succeed we had at Lahinch, the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open; I think all of those things combined to get the deal done and certainly the last month has helped. Four, five, six weeks ago, things were a little bit dodgy, but some hard negotiation happened in the last month and Irish success obviously helped.

JP has created something amazing down there. Best hotel in the world, it got voted last year. Tom Fazio golf course, I was involved with PÃ¡draig in the design of it and went down and had a look at what he was doing and gave some feedback. I think it's a great platform to host one of the biggest sporting events in the world now, you'd have to say. There's a lot of competition to get The Ryder Cup to a country, and certainly from a European perspective, there's a lot of competition out there.

Yes, JP has created a fabulous platform for us, but indeed the Irish government has stepped up to the plate for it to happen, and thankfully they did. I was involved a bit with those talks, and they negotiated hard, but fair, and I think as I said, the success that we've had of The Irish Open, the way it's been promoted around the world, sellout crowds, sellout crowds in Portrush, that has proved to the Irish government that this is something that the people of Ireland want.

Shane's win was the icing on the top, and you know, the government sees this as a big opportunity to promote one of the biggest tourist attractions in Ireland, which is links golf courses, and all golf courses. We have got JP's hotel, as well. They see it as an investment. It's not money spent. It's putting money out to get money back, and they will get it back by a multiple, that's for sure.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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