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THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPJuly 17, 2015Paul DunneST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND Q. Two 69s. What a few days it's been. PAUL DUNNE: Yeah, it was really enjoyable. Today I expected the weather to be worse than yesterday, which it was. Towards the end of the front nine it got really blustery. I went out today, when I arrived at the course, I thought anything about level par would be really good, but then once I saw that the wind was kind of crosswind, I expected it to be down on the front and into on the back which made the back play really tough. But because it was just kind of a cross all day, I knew there was a couple birdie chances on the back nine, so I thought if I could just get anything in under par it would be a really good score, so I was delighted to shoot 69. Q. Paul, you shot 69 the first day and you're really rolling on the second day. What goes through your mind? PAUL DUNNE: I was just trying to stick to my game plan. We have certain targets we pick off tees depending on wind direction, we go down different sides of fairways. There was a few pins that were a little friendlier on the back nine kind of in the middle of greens so I knew I could go at them with medium irons, and I was just trying to play every hole as it came. You can't really get too far ahead of yourself, especially when it's windy like that. It's easy to drop shots as you go along. I was just playing each hole as it came. Q. The question about expectation in the first round, you said you half expected to play well. In the second round was it the same thing? What did you think about last night entering into this round? PAUL DUNNE: Not a whole lot. I have -- I'm staying in a house with friends and family, so it's quite a relaxed atmosphere. I wasn't thinking too much about the golf. I was just kind of thinking about the weather forecast and what it was going to throw at us, and then this morning when we had the delay, it gave me a few extra hours in bed, which was nice to get a bit of rest. But I wasn't thinking about cuts or finishes or anything, I just tried to go out and put a number in my head and play, because once you start thinking about making the cut, it's very easy to drop shots, because you have them to play with if you are a few shots inside. So I knew what scores I wanted to make on every hole, and that's just kind of how I tried to go about it. Q. Your expectation of the weekend, which obviously you're going to be out late in the third round of The Open Championship. You're a 22-year-old amateur and people are going to notice what you're doing. What are your thoughts on what's ahead? PAUL DUNNE: Yeah, it'll be a new experience, but I'm not 100 per cent sure how I'll handle it. Hopefully I'll just take it like second nature, but you never know. Obviously the forecast is for high winds tomorrow, so the course is going to play really tough. When it gets that windy it's kind of hard to focus on anything else but the shots at hand because it's so easy for them to get away from you on the wind. Q. Pádraig Harrington was in here earlier and saying he'd love it to be messy weather tomorrow. We haven't seen too much of your play. What are your strengths? PAUL DUNNE: I think everyone likes to play in sunshine with no wind, but whether it's to my advantage or not, I'm not sure. Obviously I'm used to a lot of different types of golf now with my experience in America and amateur golf in Ireland we played a lot of links in wind. I'm not really hoping for anything. Obviously I hope it's playable. If it gets too windy and the ball starts rolling on the green, obviously it won't be. I'm just going to take what it throws me. I can't control the weather, I can just control what I do when I'm out there. Q. Across the 18 holes did you have any moment where you thought to yourself, this is pretty special, this is pretty amazing, or did you manage to stay in it? PAUL DUNNE: No, I was fairly relaxed the whole way around. Alan Murray on the bag, head coach of the college I went to in America, UAB, we get on well. It was a relaxed atmosphere with the playing partners, as well, and I felt like everyone in the crowd I knew. Yeah, it wasn't -- I didn't feel out of my comfort zone at all. Probably the putt I had, about a 20-footer for birdie on 15, and there's a scoreboard there and I knew if I made that I'd get on the first page of the leaderboard. It didn't make me nervous, it just kind of made me excited. Yeah, a little disappointed to three-putt 16 and make bogey, but it was nice to get it back at the last. Q. You've had some support out there. PAUL DUNNE: Yeah, it's been brilliant. Like I said, the practice rounds the first few days, just kind of a few friends and family were over, and then as the tournament started, everyone from Greystones just rolls in one after the other. It's great to hear the roars from the crowd and know they're directed at you, and hopefully I can hear some more roars the next few days. Q. People see amateurs in this tournament and maybe don't realise how good amateurs are these days. How big a part does golf play in your life? PAUL DUNNE: Yeah, obviously golf is probably the biggest part of my life right now. It's something I do every day. You don't go a day without thinking about it. But in terms of why amateurs are doing well, I'd say if you put an amateur tournament on around here, people will be shooting scores to be up there on the leaderboard. Maybe not up at the top, but certainly around top 20. But it's just hard to -- when the atmosphere is like this. It's kind of like a zoo out there. Yeah, amateurs are well capable of shooting the scores needed to do well, it's just about controlling your emotions when you're out there, not letting it get to you. Q. When you put yourself in contention for leading amateur prize (inaudible)? PAUL DUNNE: Yeah, obviously that would be brilliant. It would be nice to get the silver medal, my last year as an amateur. It would be something I would remember forever. But there's a lot of golf and a lot of bad weather to play in before that. I'm not going to think about it, I'm just going to see what the weather is like when I arrive here, put a new number in my head and go about business tomorrow. Q. You talked about the zoo. With the weather the way it is, how important is it to keep to routine and how difficult is it to stay focused? PAUL DUNNE: Yeah, it's good. I feel like myself and Alan got a really good game plan in the practice rounds, so we kind of have strategies to play different holes if the wind is off different sides, what targets to pick and when to attack pins and when to play conservative and just take par. I feel like once we know our strategy, it's easier to kind of relax into it and just go about it like normal golf because it takes your mind off the fact that it's The Open Championship and it's a big event, so it just makes you think it's normal golf again. Q. How did you manage the bunkers today? PAUL DUNNE: Yeah, I haven't hit it in one yet. Hopefully that's not a jinx on it tomorrow and I hit every one out there. I've been close to a couple. Yesterday my drive on 14, I hit a bad one, I pulled up it should have gone into the bunker. I got lucky it bounced over one. I wouldn't say I've been perfect in avoiding them. I've got a couple lucky breaks here and there, but hopefully I can stay out of them the next two days. That would be great. Q. Do you think you have to be lucky to avoid them? PAUL DUNNE: Yeah, you need a couple of lucky breaks or else you just need to be really, really good. But I think everyone is going to hit it close to some bunkers this week. There's so many humps and hollows in the fairways that it's easy just to catch the wrong side, get a wrong bounce in the fairway and go into it. Obviously luck plays a part of it, but you've just got to take what you're given. Q. Is it your goal to play the Walker Cup in September? PAUL DUNNE: You'll have to ask the selectors that but I hope so. Q. (Inaudible.) PAUL DUNNE: I birdied No. 9, I had 79 yards in, and it was a pretty standard wedge shot that I practised. It's a good one for me, so I just hit it in to about four or five feet. And I birdied 14, par-5, hit my wedge shot in to about 10 feet and rolled it in. 15, I hit 6-iron in from 179, I think. Wind was a little into off the right to about 20 feet, and I got a great read off James Hahn. His ball was just outside mine, so I managed to roll that one in, and then birdied the last, it was just an up-and-down from off the green. Q. (Inaudible.) PAUL DUNNE: On 18? No, it was right in the middle. Q. Did Todd Hamilton say anything to you at the end? PAUL DUNNE: Yeah, he just said, well played the first couple days, keep it going this weekend, and hope to see you in the future. That was it. Q. You said you had a number in your mind. Can you say what it was? PAUL DUNNE: Yeah, first day was 68 because I knew I'd get the best of the weather, and today it was 72 when I was going to the golf course, and then when I was on the range and realised it was a crosswind all day, I thought 70 would be a good number. I was 1-over my number yesterday, 1-under today, so I'll take it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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