THE 149TH OPEN

July 16, 2021

Ian Poulter

Mixed Zone

Q. Ian, thank you so much for joining us. Nice round out there for you. Can you reflect on what it was like out there?

IAN POULTER: It was good. You know, I got off to a decent start birdieing the first and felt really good today. Hit it really solid. It was interesting. I woke up this morning and social media someone I said I was first in fairways hit.

So yesterday kind of highlighted how frustrated I was from that position in not to be able to get the job done. I came out today with a good mindset to just keep being aggressive, do what I'm doing, and try to roll a few putts in.

It was great to hear again 32,000 people in the afternoon applauding good shots, good putts. I got on to a nice little roll around the front nine, five birdies. Just a little shame there on the last. Just to kind of land it one yard too far right and the ball feeds off the back right of the green and made bogey.

But I'm in good shape. Playing good, feel good. I love links golf and it's The Open, so weekend of good work to come.

Q. Reflecting on let's say the comparison between the two days, today you seemed to be hitting a lot more greens and taking advantage of that, especially on the front nine where you seemed to start like a rocket. With that in mind, do you see that as good momentum towards the weekend to make a push up the leaderboard?

IAN POULTER: Yeah, I mean, as I said, only doing what I needed to do yesterday by putting it in play was a good thing, but I didn't do what I needed to from a there onwards.

Today I had much more control of my ball. I was flighting shots into the greens, giving myself opportunities, and yesterday I was just -- it was just off. It wasn't quite 100 per cent. You know, this golf course, when you're two or three yards out on your landing positions, you're going to get yourself in some tricky spots.

I found that yesterday, hence why I went to the range just to calm down a little bit, get rid of some of the frustration, start to see a few shot shapes. I did that today, so hopefully I can continue that trend.

Q. Looked like you were having kind of good fun out there with Paul. I'm just wondering how much does a familiar face maybe help kind of help you to play well?

IAN POULTER: It's always nice, you know. Paul and Johnny are good friends, and when you're in -- kind of when you're in the mix and making birdies and you're kind of egging each other on, hitting good shots, holing good putts -- you know, Paul played well would yesterday; played well again today -- and it's always nice to have that where you're being pulled round as well.

It was good fun. There was lots of friendly banter out there on the course, which is always a lot of the fun, especially with Paul and Johnny.