U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 30, 2023

Padraig Harrington

SentryWorld

Quick Quotes

Q. All right, first question, I got to ask, how was is Indiana Jones?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: It was really good. My 15-year-old son fell asleep in it, but I loved it.

Q. What was good about it?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: A bit of nostalgia in it, you know. I would've watched them all coming up, so plenty of action and it wasn't -- it was outrageous, but not too outrageous. He wasn't trying to play a 20-year-old man, so I found it very entertaining. It was long and I didn't find it long. Enjoyed every minute.

Q. But your son didn't?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: He fell asleep in the middle of it, yeah. He'll have to start in the end.

Q. So 3-over yesterday, even today, finish on a 10-foot putt to close our the day. Are you feeling more comfortable out there now?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Course get very short, really, really short and tricky. The rough has disappeared. It's all gone. So it's just bouncy and tricky. Yeah, very, very awkward.

Yeah, so still a low one out there, but it's tricky for sure. It's just got very fast.

Q. How are the green speeds looking this afternoon?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: They were slower than yesterday.

Q. Okay.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, you know, definitely slower. The speeds of the greens were actually, yeah, much more manageable today. Seemed like two different referees came out. The front nine there were some really tricky pins, the back nine some easy pins.

Again, it's just getting the ball in play off the tee. It got so short. You know, it's really, really moving the ball when it was warm out there. So if you hit the fairways you're going to do very nicely.

Q. Looking at the rest of the weekend, a lot of discussion out there that this is one of those courses where you can make up a lot of the ground on the leaderboard just like that.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I would think you can make up ground on the golf course, yeah, if you -- you know, I was doing nicely today and I fel asleep on 11 and 12, and all of a sudden those three shots are going to be a lot to make up.

You know, there were two pretty easy holes that if you walk off with two pars, all of a sudden, level par, now at this stage I would be -- I missed few putts coming in, even though I holed the one on the last.

Good chance for eagle on 15 is it? 14? 15? 12-footer there for eagle.

12-footer the one before.

12-footer. Yeah, four in a row from 12 feet.

So I could have made some hay today but, you know, I was a lot better than I was yesterday. That's for sure.

Q. Were you thinking better today than yesterday?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, I was a lot better today. Yeah, my head was in the right place. Wasn't racing as much today. So it was a good day.

Q. Maybe Indiana Jones helped.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: No, it's just you get the odd day like that. I'm pretty disciplined about how I eat and how I go about things and hydration. I don't think it was any of those. It was just more to do with winning last week and just you get days like that where you're just a little bit off your game and you've got to make the most of it.

Today I was better, and I suspect I'll be better the next couple days.

Q. I don't think you're that far behind.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: No, no. As I said, those two holes that -- 11 and 12 I just made a couple birdies, so I kind of just -- I do that sometimes. I was a bit blase about them. You know, those three shots, like if I was level par I would be sitting here saying I'm in really good position, like I'm where I want to be -- not where I want to be, but certainly in it.

Yeah, holed a nice 10-footer on the last so that's something.

Q. Is it still amazing to see Bernhard on top of his game?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: It's fabulous, yeah. Absolutely. You know, to be leading at this stage on a -- you know, obviously the golf course got short so wasn't so bad. The tees were up and the fairways got firm.

Be interesting to see -- I assume we're meant to be playing the back tees at the weekend. I certainly would hope. As I said, it really is short now. Hard to get a driver in your hand at all now at this stage.

So we'll see. You know, no matter what it is, you're better off on the fairway. As I said, the rough has got trampled down for some reason. I don't know how it has, but the rough isn't anywhere as penal as it was at the start of the week. We'll see.

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