THE 149TH OPEN

July 16, 2021

Viktor Hovland

Mixed Zone

Q. Thanks for joining us. Can you reflect your second round for us, please?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yep. Not the best start today. Hit a lot of really bad shots today, to be frank. 2-over after four and was just trying to hit the greens, which was not really easy, especially when I was just missing everything to the right.

And then later in the round I started missing it to the left. So it was pretty frustrating, but I made a couple nice putts here and there and made a couple nice saves. I felt like I stabilized my game a little bit on the back nine, so hopefully I can continue that trend and have a good weekend.

Q. Just wondering in terms of conditions out there and the prevailing conditions, there seemed to be a slight change in direction of the wind, and also the fairways and greens seem to be firming up. Does that seem to be making a difference, especially with bounces and just reads on the green?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, I would say it started bouncing a little bit more for sure, but nothing crazy. I felt like it was very easy to adjust quickly. Greens were definitely faster today. I noticed that. I noticed I hammered by a couple putts and had to adjust quickly, and then I left them short after that.

But other than that, it wasn't blowing that hard. Even though it was a slightly different wind direction it was still pretty gettable. If you were in the fairway you could get yourself a lot of opportunities and make birdies.

Just didn't do that today.

Q. So in terms of let's say with the weekend ahead, do you think that there is a good chance that you can maybe go low tomorrow and kind of make a push for a jump up the leaderboard?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, I mean, there is just so many guys in front of me. It might be a little tough, but I'm going to give it all that I have. Just focus on my own game.

If I can sort out my driver tomorrow and be allege sharper on my approach shots and you never know. You just get hot. We'll see what happens.

I've certainly got some work to do.