U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP 2023

June 15, 2023

Paul Barjon

The Los Angeles Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Great round. 3-under 67. Were you surprised at all at the way you played today?

PAUL BARJON: No, you know, I made a few more putts than I have in the last few weeks. I made a couple up-and-downs that were pretty good too on this course. But, yeah, I hit a few bad shots and ended up on the right side of the hole so I could make an up-and-down, work with the green I had. I played the par-5s very well. So not surprised. I've been playing okay, just kind of not putting four rounds together. So that's kind of the goal to put four round together.

Q. Tell me about that run, 13, 14, 15, all those birdies, how did you do it?

PAUL BARJON: Well, I hit it about five feet on 13.

On 14 I went for the green and just stayed short of that bunker in the fescue. I had a good lie. So I chipped it up again to three feed.

And I made a 7-footer on the next little par-3. So took advantage of this at least I would say 14 and 15 today were pretty gettable when it comes to pin placement and the length of the hole. But other than that there's not a whole lot. I mean 6 and 7, I guess, no, sorry, 6 and 8 are pretty gettable holes. So there's a few out there where, if you, again, if you put yourself in the right spot you can make birdie. But there's some bad spots you can make a bogey or double on these easy holes too.

Q. What about this course is pleasing to your eye?

PAUL BARJON: Yeah, it's good. I like kind of a linksy style. There's not a whole lot of trees. There's a few around the tee boxes and a couple holes on the front nine of trees. But kind of reminds me a little bit of back home when I played British Amateur and all these courses. But I'm excited to see the scores when it firms up a little bit. We had a little drizzle this morning and I think it softened the greens up a little bit. So I think that's probably explains also why the scores are fairly low.

Q. Are you surprised that two players shot 62 today?

PAUL BARJON: I don't know about surprised. I saw that there were some birdies. I don't know about the 62. I knew someone was going to shoot, 5-, 6-under. But, yeah that's a good round. That's pretty good playing from them. Because it's hard -- I don't know, I haven't looked at their scorecards -- but I'm sure they didn't make a ton of bogeys. And I think that's the tough part around here is to not make a single bogey or make one or two is pretty challenging.

Q. You played in a couple U.S. Opens before this. How does that help you this time around if at all?

PAUL BARJON: Yeah, I learned I think at Winged Foot I made four doubles in the first two days. Kind of got me, I missed the cut by a couple shots. So I learned that if you get in trouble -- and I talked to my caddie a couple times about that today -- if you get in trouble, just chip it out, try to make a 5. Every now and again you can get kind of lucky and try to go around the green and make up-and-down. But if you stay away from double bogeys that helps. And there's plenty of opportunities to find a double bogey out here.