MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 6, 2023

Fred Couples

Quick Quotes

Q. How was it?

FRED COUPLES: It was a good day. It was a fun day. I actually played really, really well, even the front. Everyone bogeys 5. I bogeyed it seven straight years now every round. And then No. 9, for some reason I cannot hit the fairway and made bogey there.

Then the back nine was really, really good golf, and I putted really, really well on the back nine. It was like every eight-footer I had or ten-footer, I made. I made one from off the green on 17, and I three-putted 18 for bogey. But hit a good drive and a 7-iron in there. Hard to walk away with a bogey.

But I enjoyed the day. It was fun. It's hot. I thought the course played -- I don't know the right verbiage. If you hit it really, really well, it played pretty easy for it to shoot 70 or 71 or 72.

I would think, if you are playing when I did and you're a really, really good player, if you shot par, you'd probably feel okay about it because you're not out of it. For me, you know, I'm shooting as low as I can just to shoot as low as I can to hopefully make the cut.

For all the best players here, I thought it played pretty easy today.

Q. Both Tiger and J.T. made a comment about how far you're hitting the ball. Is that something you've been working on?

FRED COUPLES: No. These fairways, there's a lot of them that I feel that I can really, really play, and there's others that I don't.

So when I get pumped up, I can drive it far enough where it gets them all excited because last year I played -- I was really almost a cripple, and I was popcorning it. This year I felt pretty good. So I got it within 20 yards of them a few times, which is good.

They're -- I don't know how old Tiger is. He's getting up there. He was blasting it. I know he struggled today a little bit, but it makes my week starting playing with those guys on Monday and Tuesday. That is a lot of fun.

Q. Do you know your ball speed and your club head speed?

FRED COUPLES: I don't really know, no. It's not a whole lot. I'm going to say I think I did a couple years ago, and we were laughing. I think I'm 106 or 107 club head speed.

But I hit it out there where I get a little bit of roll nowadays. But here, not a whole lot of roll. I had -- hit a 6-iron into No. 7 with a decent drive, and 11 played -- I don't know what I had. I just laid up to the front of the green. I had 240, I think, to the pin, but I didn't make par.

I smoked the drive on 18, but again I love the -- again, I can say I love 18. I cannot play the 9th hole. I don't know why. It used to be my favorite driving hole, and now I'm over left and right.

But if I get going, I can really hit it far enough to play this course.

Q. 13 was fairly dry. Wonder how that hole went.

FRED COUPLES: 13, I'm still hitting the driver just to keep momentum, and I'm hitting it to the right every time.

Q. Not going for it?

FRED COUPLES: No. And I laid up pretty well where I was further left and I shot it right down the edge of the hazard. I can't see going for that green ever again. I don't know how I could.

Q. What's a hole that's really a lot different for you now?

FRED COUPLES: Well, No. 11.

Q. It is for everybody, isn't it?

FRED COUPLES: Correct. For me, though, it's 240 with a decent drive down the middle. I'm not going to go in there with some 5-wood with all that crap. If you go and miss it to right, you're going to make bogey. I got lucky. I kind of went through that one tree. I was just trying to rip a 4-iron down in front of the green.

13 is different for everyone. And No. 7 is brutal. When you're back there for me or Larry Mize or Jose or anyone old still playing here and you're hitting a 6 or 7 to that green, you're just hoping to get on the green. Then it can be a comedy of errors where you putt. Today I made a good two-putt.

Q. I think you went 23 years in a row before you finally missed a cut. As you got older, as that streak got longer, did that weigh on you when you came here?

FRED COUPLES: No. I don't know when that stopped. That would be maybe 16 years ago.

Q. You are old.

FRED COUPLES: Is that right? This is my 38th one. I was 47 or close to that. I missed a couple.

But not really. Then I know exactly what I did. I had a nine, ten-foot birdie putt on 18 going right down the thing, and I hit it beautiful, and it just inched off to the right. I knew what the cut was, and I knew I missed it right then.

Well, I don't remember every cut I ever missed, but I can tell you I remember that one.

Q. What is it about first round here?

FRED COUPLES: Beautiful pairing. I don't know them. I said it in there, I always watch Russell Henley play because it's intriguing. When he gets the lead, he usually wins. And Alex Noren, I just like everything about him.

So when I got that pairing, I feel really comfortable getting that kind of pairing. And I know that why is that? Well, because none of them are overpowering greatness. I don't think they'd be mad to say that. And then I felt like I could compete in my group.

Tomorrow may be different. I know Alex got off to a bad start, but he's a very, very qualified quality player. 8:36 was -- as long as I could get started at that time, it was pretty good.

Q. Obviously the holes have gotten longer, but your distances, are they kind of similar to what they were when you were in your 30s?

FRED COUPLES: No.

Q. Like 6-iron now versus then?

FRED COUPLES: They're not horrifically different. They're different from a 4-iron. I don't carry a 3-iron anymore. So I hit a 3 rescue.

But the 4-iron is hit or miss. I can hit it 200 maybe, and 20 years ago I could hit it probably 215. It's almost the same loft. I have kept my lofts -- now 40 years ago when I first started, they were all tons of loft on them. But now everyone's using stronger clubs.

I hit a 7-iron 160 yards. Alex Noren hits a 7-iron 190. But he's just so strong and powerful. I just can't get my body there. But I'll take a 7-iron 160, 162 yards every time.

Q. Fred, the putt on 17, it felt like you knew that was going in right off the face.

FRED COUPLES: Well, it was going uphill, and it was rolling straight. So it was pretty exciting when it got close.

Then the Debbie downer is on 18, I was surprised my ball -- after, looking at it, stayed where it did. If it would have trickled down that hill at four feet, it would have been a putt that I'd had before. So it looked like it was going in, and then a big deal because it rolled six feet by.

I wish I could have lagged it down there a little better. I struggled a little bit on the greens, but I made five, eight, ten-footers for pars. I putted a couple other ones well by too, but that just didn't work out.

On 17, when I got it rolling to the hole like that, it was going to go in.