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THE SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 22, 2011

Mark Calcavecchia

SURREY, ENGLAND

Q. 137 for two rounds. What's pleased you most about your play over those two days?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: I played well for the most part. Not too many crooked drives. Although I hit three or four today. And I got lucky and got out of a couple of them, with a few pars and actually birdied 12 when I thought I drove it into the gorse. So you've got to drive it well here.
I'm putting pretty good. I'm making some putts. And not too many mistakes. So so far so good.

Q. Did you like the course the first time you saw it?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: I did. I enjoyed it. I had a great group of guys, three guys in the Pro-Am, and actually had a blast. And I played pretty well in the Pro-Am.
And I thought it was a good course for me. I drive the ball pretty much straight.

Q. Six top 10s for you this year. Very good form. What is needed to turn those into wins?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: So far this year, the entire year I've been on the Champions Tour, you know, our guys really play good out there.
Every now and then, or almost always, I have a lull where I just make some silly bogeys or miss a few short putts and I just have a bad stretch. So out on the Champions Tour, especially in the three-round tournaments, you just can't afford to have a bad stretch because you're going to get passed.
That's pretty much been my problem. I just haven't been consistent enough and good enough all the way through the tournament. So this is a four-rounder, which is good. And we're halfway done but I'm in a good spot so far.

Q. Watson, Player and Bob Charles have won the Open double (inaudible)?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: I haven't thought about that. But that would be awesome company to be in, for sure.

Q. Links golf course, you come to Walton Heath, Heathland golf course, what adjustments did you have to make?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: I think this place is a lot more like what we normally play in the states. I think it's harder driving course than Royal St. George's since the rough wasn't very bad, you can hit it pretty much all over the place there and potentially have a pretty good shot.
Here if you start hitting it crooked, odds you'll be, number one, lucky to find it and, number two, trying to hack it back to the fairway. And the other main difference is the shots into the greens are much more like what we're used to in the states. Ball's stopping fairly quickly and that's a little bit easier to figure out what iron to hit.

Q. Got off to a quick start today. Birdies at 1 and 2. Finished with a birdie. Couple good breaks. Hit it into the heather a couple times and you make par, 11 and I think it was 13?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: Right. Those were good breaks. Good pars. I really hadn't hit a bad drive, then hit it way left on the 11. That kind of threw me a little bit.
Hit a few more bad ones after that. Got away with pars on both holes. Made a great par on 13, and then played a little bit better, bad iron on 16. But you're going to hit bad irons. All in all, pretty solid.

Q. You put yourself in a position to join some pretty prestigious company, Tom Watson, Gary Player, Bob Charles, those are the guys that have won not only the Open Championship but the Senior Open Championship. Your thoughts about that.
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: That would be super cool. That's pretty heady company, three Hall of Famers, and to join those three on the list, won both Opens, that would be special for sure.

Q. Another good day's work. You started off in style with a couple of birdies, and you kept your round together quite nicely.
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: That's a good way to put it. It could have got away from me. I played great on the front, although I 3-putted both par 3s. Was hitting it great. I was fine, then I hit it way left off on the 11th tee. It was a little bit of a struggle.
Those last seven, eight holes out here are pretty tough. There's a lot of golf on those holes. And I kept it together. So it was a good way to put it, and it was nice to birdie the last hole and shoot a good score.

Q. Throughout this year, your consistency on the Champions Tour and now over here, you're producing lots and lots of good scores.
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: I've been pretty consistent this year in terms of not having too many bad days. Unfortunately, one of them was last Friday when I got off to the horrible start in the Open, which was certainly frustrating. But as far as the Champions Tour goes, not too many disasters. I seem to make enough birdies and do enough things right over the course of the tournament to always have a fairly good tournament, which is nice. And there's just that hump that I'm trying to get over.
And Nick Price kind of told me once that it took him a few years to win. Once you win one, it's kind of like starting over; it gets a little bit easier after that.

Q. Walton Heath is a course, when you first came here at the start of the week, did you immediately like what you saw?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: I did. I really liked it. I liked it because I thought it was a pretty difficult golf course, which it is. We've had not much wind and really good weather other than an hour and a half or so yesterday afternoon.
So the scores are really about as low as you would expect them to be out here. But you gotta hit a lot of good shots here. If you start hitting some bad, crooked shots you're going to make bogeys and doubles. So I like it.

Q. And are you confident you can press on now over the weekend?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: I don't see why not. There's a long way to go. Like I said, I kind of held it together. I got a little sloppy on the back nine. I'll try to be aware of it tomorrow. My last four drives were great after three crooked ones on 11, 12, 13. And so, yeah, I'll be all right. I'm looking forward to the weekend.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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