U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 1, 2023

Justin Leonard

SentryWorld

Quick Quotes

Q. How do you think the leaders are going to fare down the stretch?

JUSTIN LEONARD: Oh, I don't do that. Or at least I didn't do it well when I was on TV.

Q. What will they face?

JUSTIN LEONARD: Look, the golf course was pretty dried out yesterday, and this morning it was pretty easy to find pitch marks and all that stuff.

But it's hard. You can play this golf course out of the fairway. I've spent too much time this week in the rough. I thought today it was probably set up the best. A couple of really hard pins, and the tees were pushed up.

But yeah, you have to play from the fairway.

Q. You said par was a good score, so you bested that today, obviously. What did you find today? Is it really the course setup or did you find something else in your game?

JUSTIN LEONARD: Yeah, I haven't played very well the first two days. I kind of got it around on Thursday, and then yesterday just missed too many fairways.

I put the ball in play, and I hit my irons better. I had four or five good looks at birdie in a row on the back nine, and I don't think I had four or five good looks in total the first two days.

It helps playing earlier. It's a little softer. But it's going to get firm. I don't know that it'll get super crunchy or anything, because the breeze is down.

I played a little better, but the golf course seemed a little more receptive today.

Q. Did this course remind you of anything that you might have seen when you were playing U.S. Opens on a regular basis?

JUSTIN LEONARD: Well, it just reminded me of kind of our typical U.S. Open setup back in the -- I started playing in the mid-'90s and through I'd say that period where I played, those 20 years when I was playing my U.S. Opens, yeah, this is right up there with it.

The greens are really fast and they're firm and the fairways are firm and the rough is deep. I feel like it's because of some of the golf courses that were chosen there over the last 10 years or so, maybe that wasn't so much the case.

But this is right in line with what I'm used to seeing a U.S. Open for.

You catch a lie here and there, but then you get reminded with a bird's nest, and it's like, okay, you need to find a way to get the ball in the fairway.

It doesn't really remind me of any particular golf course, but it's a really good U.S. Open golf course for sure.