HORIZON IRISH OPEN

September 7, 2023

Jordan Smith

The K Club, Ryder Course

Quick Quotes

Q. Terrific opening round of 6-under par 66; the key to which was six birdies in eight around your turn. What did you particularly well in that stretch?

JORDAN SMITH: Tee-to-green was, yeah, it was some really good stuff out there. So I took advantage of the par 5s. I think I went for all of them in two. And yeah, didn't really -- I missed one fairway which caused a bogey because I had a terrible lie but apart from that, it was really good golf, yeah, I was really happy.

Q. You teed off first off 10 at 7.30 in the morning. Give us a sense how the golf course played.

JORDAN SMITH: It was playing longer but I surprisingly got up on 10 in two, somehow ripped a 3-wood and it scuttled through the bunkers on to the green. Yeah, the ball wasn't going very far at all. I mean, on the 12th, I hit a 7-iron which is usually like an 85 and it went sort of 65, so that was a bit of a shock.

Got used to how far the ball was going and yeah just played some really, really solid stuff.

Q. Five weeks off after The Open and came back to Switzerland and finished in the top 20 with four rounds in the 60s. Are you refreshed and ready to rock?

JORDAN SMITH: Yeah, I needed a few weeks off. I felt pretty drained after the start of the year, a lot of long haul flying, definitely needed a few weeks off and I was raring to get back which was nice.

Like last week I played really well tee-to-green. Just didn't quite hole the putts but managed to find some today.