HORIZON IRISH OPEN

September 8, 2023

Ross Fisher

The K Club, Ryder Course

Quick Quotes

Q. Clean card, what was working so well out there?

ROSS FISHER: I think pretty much everything. Was pretty smart off the tee. It's firming up and it's quite hot out there, so I didn't feel like you needed to hit driver that much today. A couple of irons, a few fairway woods off the tees just to keep the ball in play which I felt like I did reasonably well.

But again just feel really comfortable on the greens. You know, coming off the back of Czechoslovakia where I really struggled with the greens. They were really slow.

I did a lot of practice at home. Fortunately the greens were a little quicker and to come here and see the greens how they are, I'm definitely comfortable and eagle the lines well and getting the speed right. Nice to see the ball get into the hole and disappearing.

Q. It's not uncommon in afternoon tee times to cast on eye in the leaderboard, just to see a barometer of what the course was doing. Were you surprised to see what Shubhankar was putting out?

ROSS FISHER: Not really. It's a strong golf course. It's tough. But if you play smart and you keep the ball in the fairway, you know you've got ball in the hand. So it's from my perspective, it doesn't seem like the longest golf course we've played. There's quite a few short irons, and not many long irons in today but yeah, I was at the hotel, chilling, watching a bit of TV and saw that Shubhankar was going well and a couple other guys shooting low. I knew there was still low scores out there, it was just a matter of me going and playing a steady round, which was nice to keep a bogey off my card.

9 was a big momentum par safer there on 9 to keep the momentum going into the back nine and rolled off a few more birdies and to have a clean card, like you say, around here, on this tough golf course, I'm obviously delighted and looking forward to the weekend ahead.

Q. How important is it for you to be in the right place this time tomorrow, especially given Sunday we are going to have some adverse conditions?

ROSS FISHER: Yeah, I saw the forecast isn't looking too good for Sunday. Just play it by ear. Just one shot at a time, all the clichés, sorry to say, but yeah, just try to go out with the same mindset tomorrow as I have the first two days, play aggressively when I can and play strategic golf, and just work on the same things, keep that putter rolling, and hopefully this time tomorrow I'll be chatting to you again.