U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 8, 2021

Fred Couples

Omaha Country Club

Quick Quotes

THE MODERATOR: Fred Couples, a 1-under 69 today. Fred, sort of a slow start, but really a nice finish. Birdies in three of your last five holes. Take us through those that got you into the red today.

FRED COUPLES: It was a slow start, and there's not a whole lot. I hung in there to be 1-over, and I made a bad bogey on the 11th, 8-iron, par-3. After that, I started driving it in play. I had birdie putts every hole. I'm going to mix the holes up. 13? Maybe 14, where I hit a wedge up to about four feet?

THE MODERATOR: 14.

FRED COUPLES: I hit another wedge on 17, hit a drive off the tee on 17 to about two feet. And the best shots I hit on 18, where I had an 8-iron to three or four feet and made birdie.

The course is hard, so it will make you look mediocre, but what made me scrambling was I was in the rough most of the front nine.

Q. Earlier this week, a few of the guys compared portions of the course, the greens and some of the hills, to Augusta. Do you agree with that?

FRED COUPLES: I don't see that.

Q. You've been so good there. I just thought maybe it would translate to here as well.

FRED COUPLES: This course translates to a few others, but it is not a knock on it. I really like the course, but I don't see Augusta here. I can see the greens -- the greens were done correctly today. They were, I felt, perfect. They weren't slow, and they weren't crazy fast. They'll get faster as we go along. The pins were okay. Those scores being shot -- I don't know. I saw Billy Andrade or Stephen Ames, is there two or three guys at 5-under? That's an unreal round. It's not an easy course.

They did move a couple tees up. We played 18 from a tee we should use. The one from 480 where you're hitting into a bank, I don't think that's for guys from 50 to 70, but the course is magnificent. It's going to be a quick turnaround for me, but if I can get feeling good on the range and get going on that back nine, which is a tough nine, although I made it look easier today, but I start on 10, and that's a brutal hole. You can't get ahead of yourself on this course. It's a very difficult course.

The rough is, I've got to believe it's as tough as Torrey Pines, the way it looked, or tougher. It's thick. I hacked it out of it every time I got in it, which was a lot, and you're not going to knock it on the greens too many times from the rough.

Q. What adjustment did you make to your back side with the driver?

FRED COUPLES: I was trying to cut -- I do fade the ball, but I was trying to hit a softer cut, kind of panicking to get it in play, and I feel like I was picking it up. Then No. 9, which I smoked the drive there, and that started a series of good drives, and just it's hard for me to make driver adjustments on the golf course. It's just I can cut it or I can cut it more. Today I was over cutting it, and today I started straightening it out just by making a better backswing, which everyone needs to do, but I struggle doing that because I'm so tight trying to get the ball in the short stuff. And even when I was hitting it in the fairway, I wasn't hitting it very far.