U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 30, 2023

Bernhard Langer

SentryWorld

Flash Interview

THE MODERATOR: Bernhard Langer, 3-under 68, currently tied for the lead. A little more activity on your card today than yesterday. Could you please walk us through your round.

BERNHARD LANGER: Yesterday was -- yeah, you can't say boring, but a lot of pars. I think I only had one birdie, if I'm correct.

Today was a little bit better. Played pretty solid, and believe it or not, I had two three-putts and a hit a sand wedge from the middle of the fairway into the water hazard, which is painful when you think about that from 100 yards, but that's golf.

The course is tough, but it's fair, and it's a great setup. I'm fortunate to be playing well and look forward to the weekend.

THE MODERATOR: You're clearly putting an emphasis on staying in the fairway. You're third right now in driving accuracy. Notice you didn't take the driver out of the bag after 13 today.

Could you just talk us through your approach off the tee and how much of an importance it is to be in the fairway in this Championship.

BERNHARD LANGER: Yeah, I'm not the longest guy out here, but I still feel many times the 3-wood is a better club for me off the tee. That leaves me a lot of clubs into the green, but I feel that's a better way for me to attack the golf course or to make pars on some holes and then attack the holes where I have shorter clubs in.

That strategy has worked so far, and we'll see what I do on the weekend.

Q. Bernhard, besides the rough, which everyone is talking about, how else does SentryWorld protect power? How is scoring so difficult, rough aside?

BERNHARD LANGER: Obviously there's the rough, but there's a lot of water in play. Then you have the greens that are quite severe at times too. Four or five of them are really firm.

No. 5 is one of them.

18, I think, and 9 are two more that just seem to be high and exposed, a lot firmer than some of the other greens.

And the undulation. They hide the pins behind knobs and behind bunkers. That's the U.S. Open -- well, every week really. It's vital to come from the fairway and control your distance and control your spin, and the rough is just extremely tough to play out of.

Q. Bernhard, how have you avoided any kind of disaster on 9? And what is the key to kind of getting through there without damage?

BERNHARD LANGER: Well, I was fortunate to hit the fairway on both days so far, and that left me mid-irons on some into the green, which today I hit the green, and yesterday I hit an even better shot but it went long into the back bunker0 and I got it up and down.

So, yeah, it's a very, very difficult hole, tee shot and second shot. It's easy to rake up a quick big number somewhere along the line.

Q. How would you compare it to No. 18 in terms of difficulty?

BERNHARD LANGER: Yeah, 18 is a bit -- plays a bit longer now, the way the wind is. As I said, 18 doesn't have water, but it has plenty of other trouble, and 9 has a lot of water to deal with.

Both of them are difficult holes, yeah, no doubt about it.

Q. It's always difficult to predict scoring, but would you take two more of these on Saturday and Sunday, what you did today?

BERNHARD LANGER: Absolutely, yeah. I'll take two more 68s and let the rest of the field have a shot at it.