Day one at the 149th Open: What they said after the first round
- Dave Tindall
- 15 July 2021
From the leaders to a frustrated Bryson DeChambeau, we sift through the best quotes from Thursday’s play at Royal St George’s.
Best bet
"Probably in my mind the perfect round I could have played. I didn't make many mistakes. When I had good opportunities for birdie, I made the putts. So yeah, just a very good solid round.
"I was just very patient. I was trying to just hit my shots and didn't really hit anything close enough to make birdies those first few holes, and then all of a sudden just made two good putts on 8 and 9 and got the ball rolling. It happened quickly, but you still need to put yourself in those positions, and I felt definitely the last 10, 11 holes I gave myself a lot of opportunities."
"Here I feel for the first time since then (when winning at Royal Birkdale in 2017) I'm at least coming in with a bit of form, a bit of confidence. And really my start lines off the tee, and I felt like I drove the ball good enough today to be able to shoot a really good score."
"I felt like I played really, really solid. I just kept plugging away and eventually started giving myself chances and got under par and kept it there.
"First round of The Open, you can only lose it on the first day, you can't win it, and it's just nice to have shot a good round and get going and move on to tomorrow."
"Fairways, the fescue fairway stuff, you just don't get in the U.S. I had to adjust, especially after playing last week at the Scottish. I changed irons just to get a little more centre ball strike contact, and it paid off. I'm able to be fully committed. I feel confident with my irons again that I just didn't have last week.
Impressive 67 for Collin Morikawa in his debut at #TheOpen
— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf) July 15, 2021
Players to win in their first Open start since World War II
1953 Ben Hogan
1964 Tony Lema
1975 Tom Watson
2003 Ben Curtis (at Royal St Georges)
"I feel like my putting stroke has been good. Just had to figure out speed, and I was able to hit some good putts with speed today. Really happy playing out here. It's fun. It's a learning experience, but I hope to figure it out shortly."
"I thought I played very solid. Got off to a nice start. Struggled a little bit on 7, 8, and 9. Kind of gave a few shots away there. Other than that, played really well.
"If you can drive it in the fairway, you can attack the golf course. The rough is pretty penal and obviously the bunkers are always penal."
"As a whole, I think 2-under par today is pretty solid. With the wind and some of these pin placements, it was not easy. Tomorrow I feel like I need to hit it maybe a little bit better off the tee. Had some sporadic drives in there. Other than that, I feel pretty confident.
"This is my first time playing links golf as a professional. It's been a while since I've played it, but it takes some time to get used to. That's why I came here on Saturday, just to get adjusted to the weather. I really enjoyed it."
"It was a nice round. Very happy with it. Obviously very happy with the finish. Even happier after how the morning started, where because of terrible traffic coming in, even though I left the house with plenty of time, I needed a little bit of help from a couple very nice English policemen on the bikes to get me here with only about 35, 40 minutes to tee off, when usually I like to be here around an hour and a half, hour and 25."
"The trouble around the greens and on the fairways is just so penal that if you're a magician I'm not sure you can show off your skills and elevate yourself into a much better position than a guy who is average.
"But you will get found out if you don't drive it well because you just cannot get it round this golf course bogey-free if you don't. I made a few errors and didn't drive it my best. That was probably the reason I failed to make more birdies coming in."
"Really happy with that finish. Yeah, it was a tricky afternoon. The conditions got pretty rough there in the middle of the round. The wind got up and I made a few bogeys in a row, so sort of said to myself at the turn if I could get back to even par for the day I would be happy.
"To birdie the last hole and get back to even par, yeah, it's nice to finish like that. Looking forward to getting back out there tomorrow."
"If I can hit it down the middle of the fairway, that's great, but with the driver right now, the driver sucks. It's not a good face for me and we're still trying to figure out how to make it good on the mis-hits. I'm living on the razor's edge.
"It's quite finicky for me because it's a golf course that's pretty short, and so when I hit driver and it doesn't go in the fairway, it's first cut or whatever, or it's in the hay, it's tough for me to get it out on to the green and control that."
"I'd say I played pretty average. I didn't play my best golf. But then again, you're playing with Louis who's shooting 6-under and playing great. It kind of makes you feel probably a little bit different.
"Disappointed to bogey the last. I think if I would have parred the last and shot level par I would have been quite happy with myself going home this afternoon, but I didn't. I got an unfortunate bounce and went into the bunker and made bogey. But I battled hard. I was quite proud of myself. On to tomorrow."
