THE 152ND OPEN

July 21, 2024

Padraig Harrington

Mixed Zone

Q. 4-over par, your overall thoughts on the Royal Troon Open?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: You know, just never really -- got tentative on the greens, couldn't hole the putts. That kind of lost momentum. I think I made nine birdies in the week, which if you struggle, you need to hole at least a few of these putts to see the upside at times.

Look, the game was great in places. I have been putting well. Excited about the rest of the year.

Q. Your game is obviously in a good place for next week at Carnoustie.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, yeah. Be a different sort of challenge, I'm sure. But I need to make more than nine birdies. Ultimately I created plenty of chances, and I only made nine birdies this week. Maybe early on I just didn't hole the putts, as I said, and that kind of crept in. I didn't seem to hit my putts with much confidence for the rest of the week, which is a pity.

Q. You played very nicely early on in the round and I'm sure at one stage if you'd have made a few putts you were looking at creeping up the leaderboard.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Well, that's it. You kind of know you have to get everything going for you. In my head you wanted to be out -- you just wanted to make as many birdies as you could, maybe 3- or 4-under after nine and then come home in a couple under on top of that. It was going to take something special.

Yeah, just didn't hole the putts on the front nine. Some reasonable birdie chances missed on 4 and 6. I'm sure there was a few others. Didn't chip and putt 3. So there's three gone, and 8 maybe, and bogeying 9, unfortunately from there on you're -- you'd like to think you were -- the chance is gone of getting yourself into the clubhouse at 3-under par. It's not going to win now, 3-under par anyway. Somebody is going to shoot under par on that back nine and they're going to be the win engineer.

Q. What are the conditions like on the last few holes?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: We definitely got the best part of the day today. The wind died down a little. It was blowing, pumping at the start and it warmed up. Maybe the wind didn't even die down, it just warmed up. It's actually okay on that back nine.

As I said, there's enough of a test that we're going to enjoy it, watching-wise, but as I said, the leader is going to have to shoot under par. You're not going to -- and you can do it. The pins aren't bad on the back nine. I don't really see -- there wasn't really a tough pin on the back nine. They've set it up for good scoring. With the wind across and slightly down at times, you've got to play the golf coming home.

Q. Did you hang around to have a word with Shane last night?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I didn't intentionally, but I was happy to be around and having a chat with him, yes. But I'm sure he'd be okay without me.

Q. Did he need a pep talk?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: No. We just had a chat. Wasn't anything like that. He had his crew with him, and I sat down with him for a while, and we just talked about everything. I don't think he needed me and I don't think I had to be there, but that doesn't mean -- you know me; prepared to give anybody a lecture.

Q. Did you have any words of encouragement for him?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Of course I did. He was well in the tournament, as you can see today. He's well in the tournament now. Even if he comes home and shoots -- he has to have a big back nine from there, but 2-, 3-under par from there, as I said, somebody has to shoot under par coming home. Even those 5-unders, if they can come home in 1- or 2-under par, they'll be the winner.

But it's unlikely they'll get away with coming home in 1-over par.

Q. Justin is going to be 44 in a week. Can you speak to how hard it is to keep that competitive fire when you get into your 40s like that?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: The hard part is you try too hard. I think he's striking the ball really well. His game has come on -- like ball-striking, watching from the outside, looks really as good as it's ever been in his career. So yeah, I think at our stage we're always in danger of trying too hard.

Even yesterday, which it's not showing up today, if anything watching the golf yesterday, you might have thought he used a lot of energy in his round yesterday. It meant a lot to him, tough conditions, I suppose, grinding away, but he's obviously still got it going today, so he's in good stead.

Q. He's been really good for a quarter century. Do you think he's a little underrated?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I don't think he's underrated, no. I suppose different from the European side compared to the American side. No, he's not underrated on our side of the pond, no.

Q. Was Shane okay last night? He seemed very positive last night going on.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: No, he was perfectly good. Yeah, he was in good form when he came in. He knew, as I said -- he said himself, at the start of the week you'd take three shots back going into Sunday. So yeah, he knew he had a chance of winning.

Q. Irrespective if he doesn't quite close the gap today, you can see him competing at this level for several years to come?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: As I said, Shane plays better the better he plays. He's a confidence player. He likes to be up there at the top. He needs to show form.

I think what we've seen with Shane over the years is he does have ups and downs in the year where he'll have -- but then he hits one or two good weeks and he continues that on for a few months. Maybe he's just like all golfers.

Q. Do you know much about Thriston Lawrence?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: No, nothing at all.

Q. He's put together some round there, hasn't he.

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, I'm looking forward to going and watching him, not talking about him.

Q. One more on Justin: What do you appreciate most about his game?

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: He's a hard worker, that's for sure. I think this is the best he's striking the ball I've seen in his career. I think, yeah, from the side, he's got a bit of speed there. He looks like he's really as good as he's ever been. I think at his age -- I think always with Justin, the putting can be up and down. I was talking to him, he changed putters going into the tournament, so you're always looking at somebody when they change a putter and that other one had served them very well. But he knows what he's doing. Yeah.