THE SENIOR OPEN PRESENTED BY ROLEX

July 29, 2023

Padraig Harrington

Royal Porthcawl Golf Club

Quick Quotes

Q. How deep did you have to dig to shoot 71?

PÁDRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, I didn't feel like I had done much wrong to be 3-over. In one sense I felt okay about how I was playing and the other sense, I wasn't sure. You're never quite sure how the rest of the field is going to go. So I'm over 4-over par, the leader is 4-under, and you're kind of worried you're going to get eight, nine shots at the end of the day, which is too much.

I got a good break. I holed a nice putt for eagle on 6, and then I played quite nicely for a good few holes. Had some birdie chances. You know, felt like I was making things, and got a good break, chipped in on 14, which you need those sort of things on a bad day.

Obviously messed up the 16th hole but that kind of happens. On a day like today, there's a bunker at 260, which is a decent carry, so instead of hitting it low, I tried to hit it reasonably high. I pulled it, I make the carry, and got up in the wind and missed the fairway by, you know, 30 yards right. Holed an okay lie. Didn't come out as well as it could and got up in the wind and I lost the ball.

Thankfully they changed Rules of Golf so now you get to drop it within a club length of where you were. So I dropped it in a beautiful, beautiful lie and was able to hit it all the way up to the green on the next shot and got up-and-down out of the bunker.

Obviously a big break on the last. Hit 3-wood, 9-iron to five feet. It was inches. I was going to hit the putt left lip, and I was standing over and it was blowing and blowing. I ended up hitting it -- tried to hit it left half, probably hit it straight and just got in the right side.

Q. Just briefly, ten birdies and three eagles so far this week and a number of dropped shots. If you can limit those mistakes tomorrow, do you feel there's a really good round out there?

PÁDRAIG HARRINGTON: You know, I've chipped poorly this week. That's my strength and I chipped poorly. I had two big long weeks. You know, I didn't finish as well as I would have wanted in Scotland, and then The Open, being a major, I was just working hard for two weeks. You know what, I put down a few down chips just to being mentally tired.

So I'm going to try and recover now again, between now and tomorrow. Come out fresh. It's not a given, but I'm hoping that I'll be sharp, real sharp. I didn't realise until I got the bad news that it's actually going to be worse tomorrow. I'm not sure if that's true. But if it is, you've just got to be really sharp mentally. There's no way you can -- you don't even try and hit some of the fairways. They are just too dangerous to try and hit them, and the same degrees, you're playing safe a lot of the time and you're just going to have to have a really, really sharp short game tomorrow.