THE AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

June 15, 2022

James Hydes

Quick Quotes

Q. What did you finish at in the end?

JAMES HYDES: I won 2&1.

Q. No drama on 18?

JAMES HYDES: No, it's a pretty tough hole to come down, so I was pretty happy about that. Me and Richard had a really good tussle out there. It was really good actually. It wasn't one of those matches where we would both play crap and see who is the better out of that. We both played well, pretty solid.

Q. Any particular highlights?

JAMES HYDES: Rolled into a nice birdie putt on 16 to go 1-up, then halved coming down the 17th hole.

Q. So you got 16 and 17 don then?

JAMES HYDES: Yeah, par on 17.

Q. How are you finding Royal Lytham and St Annes?

JAMES HYDES: It's pretty special. It's special just to be playing this course, and the qualifying, I was coming down 18 late last night and it was almost magical with the clubhouse and the sun setting. It's great.

Q. 42 countries here this week, 288-man field, feels like a bit of normality after the craziness we've had to endure, doesn't it?

JAMES HYDES: Absolutely. Yeah, it's nice to be competing overseas against international players.

Q. Have you played in this before?

JAMES HYDES: No, first time.

Q. So adjusting to totally different type of golf.

JAMES HYDES: I love it. I'm not a particularly long hitter, so I like keeping the ball low, so I think it suits me quite a bit actually.

Q. Is it more about -- of that being the case, is it more about strategy and the approach play?

JAMES HYDES: Yeah, it's kind of -- for me, it's quite a big deal hitting the fairways first and trusting the approach into the greens. Giving myself heaps of putts of birdie, the greens are that good that the odd one that shouldn't drop.

Q. You enter 32; do you start daring to dream already?

JAMES HYDES: Yeah, obviously The Open is right there, massively special and it would be amazing to play in. But just pretty excited for tomorrow's match already and see how far I can go. I'm loving it. It's great.

Q. You have one of your mates caddying for you? How did he do?

JAMES HYDES: Jared Edwards, he was awesome. He helped me quite a bit actually. It's quite nice walking without pulling at the trolley. It's good.

Q. Will he get a call-up for the match tomorrow?

JAMES HYDES: Absolutely. Hopefully it's not too early but he'll wake up.