	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

August 11, 2011

Padraig Harrington

JOHNS CREEK, GEORGIA

PÃDRAIG HARRINGTON: You feel better with a bogey birdie finish than a birdie bogey finish, they are all the same thing, but that's golf, very fickle.

Q. What happened?
PÃDRAIG HARRINGTON: I hit a nice 3-wood, wedge.

Q. Close?
PÃDRAIG HARRINGTON: I hit it 15 feet short of the hole. Greens probably as quick as I've ever seen greens on a Thursday morning and I just was tentative all day.
I wasn't trusting my putts and I found it difficult, yeah. I could have done with holing a couple of putts for a few birdies here and there, just to keep a bit of momentum going. But no, I struggled a bit on the greens that way. And made two bogeys off wedges, which is very sloppy. That was going to hurt me.
You know, a couple of putts and those two bogeys, plenty of good shots but never really got anything really going. Confidence-wise, momentum-wise.

Q. A bit of a rush to the first tee --
PÃDRAIG HARRINGTON: Couldn't find the toilet. Couldn't find any toilets today. Had to leave the course three times to find a toilet. I don't know what the story. Is wherever they are, they are well hidden.

Q. Sweating so much, no one has to go. Sweat it all out.
PÃDRAIG HARRINGTON: I gained two pounds yesterday out there, drinking. There's a thing in the tour physio bus that measures it. I went in before that and I went in afterwards and I gained two pounds.

Q. Need GPS to find the toilets, is it?
PÃDRAIG HARRINGTON: You know, yeah, just obviously they are there but they are well hidden. I spotted two in the TV area on 18.

Q. Was it difficult to concentrate on what you were going to do and what was going on with Tiger?
PÃDRAIG HARRINGTON: You started so nicely. His own game -- you know, I thought Davis did very well to shoot 2-under par, put it like that. He wasn't helped by either of us for most of the time.
So yeah, it was a good score by Davis in that sense.

Q. Where does 73 leave you in the tournament?
PÃDRAIG HARRINGTON: I don't know. I haven't seen really.

Q. Not much damage done?
PÃDRAIG HARRINGTON: I thought there was. It's only going to get tougher tomorrow afternoon. You know, greens are going to be faster again. They are going to be a little bumpier. Going to be a little bit of wind. Today was the day to get your better score in.
Obviously a bit of work to be done. But I did see some very nice things out there, so hopefully, you know, places that I did lose my focus, but there was some nice -- some pleasing aspects.

Q. What will you concentrate on this afternoon then?
PÃDRAIG HARRINGTON: I'm going to hit a lot of pace putts and I'm going to hit some more wedges as I would most afternoons. But yeah, those are the two areas. As I said, two very poor wedge shots cost me bogeys, and obviously tentative with the pace on the greens.

Q. What is it like to he see Tiger struggle like that? He doesn't shoot 77 in majors very much, historically.
PÃDRAIG HARRINGTON: You know, we are all working at our own game. Yeah, I just focus on doing my thing, and you know, you try not to get into it too much, what another player is doing, especially if it isn't going well for him. That's why I said Davis was doing well to score 2-under par, when he wasn't watching his playing partners hole lots of putts and rip it out. It's a lot easier to play good golf when everybody is playing well. So his golf was certainly excellent.
But if somebody is not playing well in the group, you just try and ignore it and do your own thing, so I didn't pay too much attention.

Q. Davis was talking yesterday about playing his way on to The Ryder Cup team.
PÃDRAIG HARRINGTON: He's playing lovely golf. His 2-under par was well within him. You know, he probably could have been a couple better.

Q. What do you think of 8-under par?
PÃDRAIG HARRINGTON: It's some story.

Q. That finishing stretch, what do you think of that?
PÃDRAIG HARRINGTON: It's very tough. You know, obviously today, they moved a number of the tees up and it was playable. 16 or 15 was incredibly difficult. I would love to be a spectator and not a player on that one.
Yeah, I hit a 6-footer for par. I hit it short left of the green and I was happy. You know, I certainly wasn't disappointed with my tee shot, and I had a 6- or 8-footer for par, and would have been a bonus to hole it there. But the other three holes didn't play too bad.
18 I suppose it did a bit, but we were hitting 5-wood off the tee. So you might have a long second shot but we didn't take -- I suppose we didn't take responsibility off the tee, let's say. We were definitive.
So [] I think the way it played today was an excellent finish, yeah. It will be tough now off the plates as we played it in the practice rounds, but today the finish was very stern. 15 may be a bit too tough. But, the other ones certainly played a lot easier today and it was nice to walk up to each tee and get the extra 20 yards.

Q. Would you prefer to be playing the course the other way around tomorrow?
PÃDRAIG HARRINGTON: Of course. Anybody who is trying to do well in the tournament or make the cut would always prefer to be finishing on the 9th. Your last six holes on this nine, you're thinking you can make some birdies. It's not that way on the back nine.
It's a big challenge. Anybody coming the last four holes trying to play them at level par, you know, either to hold onto a good score or to make the cut or whatever the different prerogatives are at that stage; it's a tough finish.

Q. Working with Pete this afternoon?
PÃDRAIG HARRINGTON: No, I'm going to continue to just try and work on the things I've been working on this week, get my head around playing rather than changing anything.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297