THE 151ST OPEN

July 20, 2023

Tyrrell Hatton

Mixed Zone

Q. How would you reflect on your round?

TYRRELL HATTON: Got off to a nice start and then just struggled on the back nine, to be honest. Ball-striking today wasn't great. Yeah, just found it really hard. Couldn't figure it out.

Level par isn't a bad score when I felt like I was really struggling.

Q. You had those birdies at the start, then at the turn it was a struggle, but you held yourself together to get through and obviously you're still in there?

TYRRELL HATTON: Yeah, well, you can't win the tournament today, you can only kind of lose it, and what are we, five back? Which with three rounds to go is nothing.

Hopefully wake up tomorrow with a better golf swing and I'll go out there and try my best again and see what we can do.

Q. Can I ask you about 17? There's a lot of chat about that short par-3. What did you make of it?

TYRRELL HATTON: I think it's a little bit harsh, probably too severe on the right. A lot of players are going to just be aiming up the left, which to be honest when you've got wedge or a 9-iron, the fans really want to watch us try and hit it 25 feet left of the pin.

I actually wish they'd built it up so that you still played down because it's such a beautiful view behind it. I know you need a lot of earth to build that up, but I think having us play up the hill with it being such an exposed green, if you get some crazy winds, which you can do on links courses, it could almost be unplayable.

I like the fact it's a short par-3. I think when you're aiming 25 feet left, I don't know if that's a good hole or not.

Q. It'll be interesting if the wind blows.

TYRRELL HATTON: Yeah, it's certainly going to be interesting come Sunday. It would be pretty sad to see if someone ended up losing The Open from that and not necessarily hitting a bad shot into the green.

Yeah, I don't know what else to say.