Thursday, October 4, 2018 - Q. Great opening round.
PÁDRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, I hit my irons pretty well pretty much all through most of the round, pin-high a lot. The wind is obviously difficult. So I really wasn't in trouble very much. I missed a tap-in on 16, which I just walked -- I was trying to tap it in and it was less than a foot. Didn't make any of the putts easier after that. Two and three-foot was looking long later on in the round.
A couple of missed opportunities, so it was awkward like that. As I said, I certainly prefer to play this golf course in a crosswind. I find this is very playable in a cross-wind and I was definitely, with the forecast, we knew Thursday was going to be a bad day, so when it came out that I was on Kingsbarns, I was very happy about that. It is a very playable course, in bad conditions.
Q. Maybe because it's got more elevation, do you think this is probably the hardest of the three to play in tough wind?
PÁDRAIG HARRINGTON: No. Because as I said for the last five minutes, it's actually the easiest in crosswinds. If you've got a wind direct in up-and-down the golf course, it does get difficult but in a crosswind you can still reach the par 5s, so there's plenty of opportunities. The targets are bigger here, and the greens are bigger.
The width of the fairways are much, much bigger on a lot of holes. This for me is way easier. I know I've had this discussion with a few people, but as long as there's cross-wind here, you're happy you can still shoot a decent score.
Q. Great week last week as vice captain, but nice to have the clubs in hand?
PÁDRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, it was scary, I missed the cut. I had 11 days off the golf course. I started hitting shots on Monday, so a couple of days hitting shots and my first round was on Wednesday, 11 days, and it's completely different, hitting a golf shot, hitting one on the golf course. I thought I would never be ready for today but there you go, a little bit of focus, a little bit of, I suppose, being in competition, it sharpens you a little bit. I was surprisingly -- I was really good mentally today, which I thought I was going to struggle, but yeah, happily surprised.
Q. Looking forward to Carnoustie tomorrow, with your history there?
PÁDRAIG HARRINGTON: Right, I have good history there and it's nice for me to go back, but Carnoustie is a tough golf course. I for one always go into Carnoustie with a bit of trepidation. It's not somewhere -- just because I've won there, doesn't mean I'm going to breathe around there tomorrow.
Yeah, it certainly gets my attention.
