U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 6, 2006

Allen Doyle

CRAIG SMITH: Allen Doyle, five birdie and finishes at minus one.

Q. Five birdies is a pretty good showing out there. Do you feel like the course owes you a few?

ALLEN DOYLE: Well, it might, because I played the back nine. I had it in good shape on 17 in the front, about 10 yards short, and I pitched it to 12 or 14 feet. So I kind of, you know, threw one away there maybe, or at 18 I hit it in there about three and a half, four feet and some grain took it and it kind of just caught the lip there.

But outside of that and 8, I made the double on 8 when I hit it in the right side and on the edge of the tall stuff there. So, you know, I mean it's but I made some, I made a good putt on 2 for birdie, a slider, which I may not normally make. So I guess, net, net, net, I would have liked to have thought I should have shot maybe a shot better. Two if it would have been you know, that would have been nice.

Q. How receptive is the course today?

ALLEN DOYLE: Well, we started to get some hard greens. I don't know what it was like this morning, obviously. I'm sure they were softer. But they really started to firm up this afternoon and the ball started to run out.

I bogeyed 12 and I hit a 20 degree hybrid off the tee figuring that I would be well short of that left bunker, because the left bunker was 250, 252, or something, and it runs out past the second bunker down the down slope.

I had 99 yards to the hole that I had that tree in my way. But I hit a little punch shot and it ran forever. It ran clear across the green and then I chipped it back over the green.

So it was starting to firm up and we had trouble finding the ball marks. I had a gap wedge into 14 there and the wind was in our fairways and I hit a 112 yard club and I kind of hoped I could hit that down slope and maybe could get it to the hole, and it hit on the down slope and went about 12 feet past the hole. So the greens were really starting to firm up.

Q. Pretty solid ball striking for you today?

ALLEN DOYLE: Yeah, it was. Other than the drive on 8. I was leery of going in the left side there. So I guess I overcompensated to the right.

But outside of there and maybe an iron I hit a bad 6 iron on 15 but outside of that, I hit the ball real good.

Q. You can't win this on the first day, obviously, but you certainly could take yourself out of it. Are you pleased where you're at?

ALLEN DOYLE: Oh, yeah. You got to be. I don't get excited after Thursdays. And in four round tournaments or after Friday in other tournaments, this is just the beginning. It's in its infancy still. But, yeah, you don't want to go out and put yourself behind the 8 ball on Thursday or Friday. So today was a good start.

Q. Enjoyed getting out and playing open golf again with the course set up the way it is?

ALLEN DOYLE: Yeah, that's kind of it. We really don't play enough of that. We play I've been kind of critical of our TOUR in the past few years where we were playing fairways where we pick up mud on the ball and the greens aren't they just don't they're not we don't play enough championship courses. It's kind of nice to get to a place where you really got to think on every shot and you can't you know, you don't see a guy in front of you blowing it all over the place and then when you get through you look at the scoreboard and he shoots 3 under or something. You say, wait a minute, you know.

So, yeah, it is nice to get to a course where you got to be where you got to land it on certain sides of the fairways and you know the greens are going to be firm and you want to keep it on certain parts of the green. So it's good to get out in these conditions.

Q. Talk about 7, 8 and 9. It was very up and down for you. How were you able to keep things kind of held together there?

ALLEN DOYLE: Because it is what it is. I mean, even when I made the double, which I had to tell myself, if I drive it in there one time, other guys are going to drive it in there more than one time. So if you don't let it get to you, then you got a pretty good idea that it's going to take its toll eventually. And if you only do that one time during the week you'll be on the plus side of guys who are doing that.

So it was nice though when I screwed up 8 to come back with 9. That was a good, that was played good today against the wind. So it was good that I stuck a pretty good 6 iron in there and made a good putt.

Q. How long on 9?

ALLEN DOYLE: About 10 feet or so.

End of FastScripts.