U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 11, 2021

Mike Weir

Omaha Country Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Mike Weir who finished 3-under 67 today, 4-under for the championship. You gave yourself, you got off to great start with the eagle on 6, gave a few back at the difficult 8th and 10th holes, and then finished with some strong birdies on the back there to give yourself a chance here in the end. Just take us through your round.

MIKE WEIR: Yeah, it was a really good round. It was definitely the best round of the week, not only score-wise but the way I played. I made a couple early, I had some that easily could have fallen in too that could have really gotten off to a good start. After I eagled 6, I made a great save from a plugged lie on 7 and just hit a beautiful pitching wedge into 8 that the wind switched and I ended a foot short of being very close to the hole for birdie and then I end up making bogey. And then left one hanging on 9.

So that little stretch of holes right there -- and missing a short one on 10 -- 8, 9 and 10 was probably the difference in the tournament. If I could have got those, couple of those to fall in instead of lip out, would have been maybe a little bit tighter coming in. But at the end of the day it would have been really tough to catch Jim. He's such a tough competitor and solid player that he's not going to give too many back, you know he's going to fight. So when you get on a little run like that where it kind of starts getting away, you know it's really going to be hard to get back.

But I fought hard, had another pretty good look at eagle on 16 and had a close look on 17 as well and just couldn't get them to go in.

Q. Can you sum up the week for us? What the experience has been like playing in your first U.S. Senior Open?

MIKE WEIR: Yeah, it's been a great experience. The golf course is phenomenal. With obviously with the storms what happened the staff did an incredible job getting it ready. I thought it was very fair but tough and on the greens is I think the most difficult there's so much slope and you never have a flat lie in the fairway. So it was a good test, so it was the most amount of rough I've seen on the Champions Tour since I've joined a little over a year ago, so it was penal if you missed a fairway. Yeah, I thought it was a great test.

Q. How do you think the course held up this week?

MIKE WEIR: Yeah, I thought it held up very well. I think it could have even been tougher if that rain didn't come in yesterday and soften the course up, I think probably the scores wouldn't have been as good today as with the rain helped. The balls weren't running off the fairway, if you land in the fairway it's so soft because of all the rain the ball would stay in there. So that's Mother Nature. But the staff did a great job getting it ready and there's some very good pin positions out there today and that's the defense of this place, for sure.

Q. Jim gave the field a little bit of an opening early on, I don't know if you were aware of that as you were out there and does that change anything you might do when you see him falling back like that?

MIKE WEIR: Yeah, I saw it. I was watching, for sure. Like I said, when I made that save on 7 from a plugged lie and I had just looked at the board that I saw I was two behind, that was a big moment for me. I thought getting that ball up-and-down, I hit a -- the difficult 8th hole -- I hit a beautiful drive and had a pitching wedge and like I said, I couldn't have hit it any better, it was just coming down right on the pin and a foot short, came back in the bunker, I missed a short putt for par. So that one stung, because it looked like, in the air, it looked like I was going to be maybe possibly making another birdie and kind of having some momentum.

No. 9 I hit two really good shots again and left one that went right around the hole. So that hurt. But I still felt like I was in it. I still felt like if I kept plugging along there and the way I was playing and I had made a couple putts, maybe that flat stick would have gotten hot on the back nine, but it didn't and all in all a great week, but Jimmy's looks like he's going to get it done.

Q. You played with him many times. You're probably not surprised that he was able to overcome a bogey, double bogey and settle into the round.

MIKE WEIR: Yeah, I mean a veteran guy, I think Jim's steady and yeah, probably he's leaned on his experience, this is not the first time he's made a bogey and a double bogey early in a round, it happens to all of us and it's unfortunate when it happens when you're in major championship golf, but it can happen and obviously he just stuck with it and made a couple birdies and he's back looking like he's going to close it out.