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THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 19, 2008

Simon Wakefield

SOUTHPORT, ENGLAND

MALCOLM BOOTH: Ladies and gentlemen, we're joined by Simon Wakefield. Simon shot even par-70 today for a three-round total of 215 and is currently the leader in the clubhouse. Simon, take us through a testy round in very, very difficult conditions.
SIMON WAKEFIELD: Yeah, it was. I got off to a nice three-par start and I felt quite comfortable, quite relaxed. Very nervous this morning over breakfast, but I hit a few balls on the range and hit it well again as I've done all week, and then got off to a really nice start.
And then a couple of bad sort of tee shots -- bad shots on 4 and 6, really, that cost me two bogeys. But I wasn't too bothered by that because I knew everybody was obviously making bogeys out there, so I just tried to be patient and minimize the damage.
But then obviously a good birdie on 12 and 14 and then followed up with a good birdie on 17 to get back to level.

Q. If you were nervous over breakfast this morning, how nervous do you think you'll be tomorrow morning when it looks like you'll probably be in the final group or the penultimate group of The Open?
SIMON WAKEFIELD: I might not sleep a lot tonight anyway, but it's obviously very unfamiliar territory for me this week. You know, I've been leading going into the final round of a tournament before at the Johnnie Walker at Gleneagles last year and unfortunately lost in a playoff. And then obviously second this year in Austria, as well.
So I'm familiar with the position, obviously not this position of a major championship, certainly not the Open. But I'm just obviously hopefully going to sort of try and relax tonight, have a meal with friends and family and just try and get some sleep and not think about it. It's obviously difficult to do that, but I believe the weather is going to be a bit friendlier tomorrow, so the crowd will be magnificent, and I'm sure they'll carry me around.

Q. What's the key for you personally on a day like this when it's almost up to the line with balls moving on greens and surviving a day like this? Do you worry about score or do you look at --
SIMON WAKEFIELD: No, I think to be honest, score is irrelevant. I think all you need to do is play each shot as it comes, one shot at a time, and try and commit to that shot and hit it as good or -- as good as you can.
You know, 5-over is an irrelevant score, really. If it was 5-under, it would make no difference. Position obviously is the key.
I'm just going to go tomorrow obviously in the same frame of mind as I've done today, be patient. I appreciate that everybody else is going to be making bogeys and double bogeys and others, and I thought that that would be the key. If I could keep the double bogeys off the scorecard today, then I would hopefully have a good, decent round.

Q. Can you tell us what's the biggest win of your career so far, and also the second part of the question, a little bit about your Uncle Bob Taylor?
SIMON WAKEFIELD: The biggest win so far was the Dimension Data in Sun City two years ago or three years ago, I believe. That was obviously on the Gary Player course. That was fantastic. I was first reserve or second reserve for the Heineken in Melbourne of the same week -- sorry, the week before, and I went to Sun City because we were in Durban the week before that and just played the tournament instead of having a week off and ended up just basically trying to relax and play some good golf before Royal Melbourne.
I wasn't even thinking of winning, just wanted to play some good golf and ended up winning, so that was quite nice.
My uncle, well, he seems to get a mention everywhere we go, to be honest. Every press interview I do they always mention something about Bob. As obviously most of you know he was the former England wicket keeper, and he's my mom's brother (laughter). There's not much else I can tell you about that. I don't see him that much, to be honest. He sends me a text every now and then obviously when I do well, but he lives on the other side of the city from myself, and obviously with all the traveling that we do, unfortunately I don't get to see him very often.

Q. What was your familiarity with Birkdale before the championship this week?
SIMON WAKEFIELD: None at all. Never played it. I was here in '91 to watch Baker-Finch win, and I also was here in '98 obviously when Mark O'Meara won, although I was walking around a bit with Justin Rose. Obviously we played amateur golf together. And David Gilford, who was from my home club.
But other than that, this is the first time I've been here.

Q. Going back to Bob, will it be nice to be the most famous sportsman in your own family, if that's not an unfair question?
SIMON WAKEFIELD: He's achieved a lot, obviously, and I think it'll take another sort of few years for me to reach his standard and his level.

Q. Were you with Justin on the 18th when he chipped in a few years ago?
SIMON WAKEFIELD: No, I think we were out of here by -- I don't actually think I came up on Sunday. I think I just did the Thursday and the Friday, to be honest. It was ten years ago. I don't remember that far back.

Q. Forgive my ignorance. Where is your hometown? Is it a big golf area? Did you play a lot of links golf coming up?
SIMON WAKEFIELD: No, not at all. We are in a place called Stoke-on-Trent, which is famous for its pottery. I live just on the outskirts of Newcastle-under-Lyme, and it's right in the heart of the country really, right between Manchester and Birmingham. We're about an hour and 10 minutes, an hour and 15 minutes away from North Wales, and certainly in the winter when we get a bit of snow or wet conditions and our course is closed, we generally jump in the car and head to Conway or North Wales Golf Club, really. One is an Open Championship qualifying course at Conway, so that's the one we generally play. And it's a great test.

Q. Many of the other players today have spoken about misadventures with balls moving and such and borderline conditions. Did you have any instances?
SIMON WAKEFIELD: Yeah, we had one on the 8th. I played a sand iron into that green, and actually, on contact with the ball in the follow-through the wind actually blew me off my feet, so I had to step forward to keep my balance, and the ball finished just past pin high on a little mound about three or four inches off the green.
I went to see if it was on the green or not. It was difficult to identify whether the ball was on or off the green, and obviously as we were doing that, the wind blew it three or four inches onto the green, so I was obviously able to mark it, but then was not comfortable with playing the putt or hitting the putt because we were getting gusts of 30 miles an hour, really. And with that green being so exposed and obviously the tournament that we're at, I wasn't prepared to putt with the gusts coming. I spoke to one of the referees who called in and they had had the same situation on the 10th, so we just sort of hung on and basically waited for the wind to die down. It didn't seem to die down but we got on with it anyway, but I made a good two-putt and we moved on.

Q. How long was it? Five minutes?
SIMON WAKEFIELD: It felt like probably 10, 15, but I probably would assume between 5 and 10, I would have thought.

Q. Is it correct that you only took up the game when you were 15? And if so, why did you improve so quickly?
SIMON WAKEFIELD: I did take it up at 15, seriously. I tried my hand when I was probably 12 or 13 with my dad's clubs, chipping his brand-new balls into one of our garden walls and not being allowed out on the weekend for damaging them (laughter). My dad bought me a set of clubs and I sort of played a little bit. I probably spent more time climbing conker trees than I did actually playing golf.
It was the week of the Masters of my 15th birthday in April that was the turning point. I watched The Masters on TV, and it seemed something that interested me. I was always a big footballer when I was a youngster. And my 15th birthday came along, a couple weeks later I decided to buy some golf clubs and off we went. That was it.

Q. Who won that one? What year?
SIMON WAKEFIELD: 15, so '89. Faldo?

Q. That would do it.
SIMON WAKEFIELD: When did Sandy win? '88? I think I watched Sandy, was the first Masters I watched. I was jumping around the kitchen. Never even thought that's what I wanted to do, and I think obviously when Faldo -- I think if my memory serves me right, it was the playoff when -- that's right, so obviously the excitement was there. I fancied it, that this is where I want my career to go.

Q. Talking about football, I hear you're quite a big Stoke City fan. Will this be a good year?
SIMON WAKEFIELD: Yes and no, obviously growing up in Newcastle-under-Lyme we've got Port Vale, Stoke City, and Crewe Alexander all within 15 minutes really. And my dad was always -- when I was very small, dad used to always take me to Stoke, to Victoria Road, and then he got involved a bit in Port Vale, so we went to Port Vale, and I went probably to Port Vale more than I did any other. And then I obviously go to Crewe quite a bit, as well.
But since Stoke, I've gone to the Premiership. I couldn't resist buying season tickets, so I bought one for me and my friend got one. I'm obviously not going to see many games because they're Saturdays, but it will be nice to see them in the Premiership.

Q. I seem to recall a real pressure situation in your career at Woburn. Was that the most pressure you had, if you can recall, fighting for your card?
SIMON WAKEFIELD: Yes and no, to be honest. I think the course I played as an amateur for the Prince of Wales Trophy I was comfortable with, and for some reason that was the week that I knew I was going to have a good week. Taylor Made had just built a new driver for me that went straight in the bag and that was performing excellent, and I was comfortable with the course and I'm a quite straight hitter, so obviously around the forest of Woburn was very good. I got into a fantastic position, and then just unfortunately hit one out of bounds at the last, and I ended up losing my card by Â£2,000.
Then to go to Tour school and really to sort of build myself up again, because I get -- I thought I didn't deserve to be there. I did not play fantastic that year, but I had given 110 per cent and just didn't feel like I deserved to be there.
To build my game up and my confidence up to finish second was -- in my eyes was a fantastic achievement. It gave me a kick in the backside, really, that I don't want to be in that position ever again. You work, you work harder on your game just so you're not in that position ever again, really.

Q. I apologize if you've had to tell this story a million times to the UK press, but you were hitting balls against the garden wall and you got in trouble for doing it?
SIMON WAKEFIELD: Yeah, my dad had a set of Lynx Parallax, I believe they were, and obviously he was at work and I was at home and I got half a dozen of his brand new Wilson Ultras out of the bag and started pitching on the grass, sometimes overshot the grass and hit the wall, putting a few gouges in the side. And when he came home and saw the mess I had made of the golf balls he went ballistic. So that was the telling off I got. He has plenty golf balls off me now, I believe, so it levels itself out.

Q. 25, 26 hours you could be Open Champion. How does that sound?
SIMON WAKEFIELD: Bizarre, to be honest. You know, it's further -- well, it's a long way off my mind at the moment. You know, there's a lot of golf to be played. It's a world-class field, and I'm not even going to be thinking of that tonight. It's a fairytale situation, to be honest. All I'm going to do is try and commit to my game tomorrow and be hopefully in the best possible frame of mind tomorrow and just do the best I can.
MALCOLM BOOTH: Simon, thank you for joining us.

End of FastScripts

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