THE 149TH OPEN

July 17, 2021

Marcel Siem

Mixed Zone

Q. A standard boring level par-70 there for you in the third round of The Open; I suppose where to start? We'll talk maybe about 14 and then we can kind of discuss the sensational round apart from that. What happened on 14?

MARCEL SIEM: Yeah, I'm not quite sure if I missed a fairway at all today before that. I just tried to squeeze a 2-iron down there. Didn't even think about out of bounds. Tried to aim left of the bridge, hit a low chaser down there, hit it on the heel, and it cut it so much I couldn't believe it. It's very frustrating that that happened.

Yeah, and then I hit it -- second shot I didn't want to do the same mistake, so I hit it in the rough left; hit it to a perfect number from there.

I wanted to have a full lob wedge into that flag and my ball was middle of the fairway in a divot. That's one of the toughest shots you can have with a lob wedge in your hand. That went in the bunker, semi plugged, downhill lie. No chance.

I'm very, very proud of myself that I was able to forget about it, and I'm coming in with two birdies, I'm very happy with that.

Q. You were right about your driving; you were actually 100 per cent fairways hit for the first 13 holes. Considering what happened on 14, to have the courage and the ability to come back with two birdies in the last four holes and also just missing one on 17, couple that with what happened in the first 13 holes where you probably missed three or four birdie chances by the width of a paper, you must be incredibly encouraged going into Sunday top 10 in a major to have a good finish.

MARCEL SIEM: Yeah, thank you very much, first of all. I said that before to the scorers when we went up the stairs. I think that was the best golf I've ever played in such an important tournament.

I was great off the tee. My driver was much longer than yesterday. I changed it on the range this morning. My iron play was great. I just lost my touch because the first hole, I think, on the putting greens, because I left it short online. It was a straight putt up the hill and I left it short and lost the confidence on the front nine. Had great chances, and got it back all of a sudden, and yeah, that happened.

But like you said, I'm proud of myself. I will give everything tomorrow to get a good result this week.