U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 29, 2023

David Toms

SentryWorld

Quick Quotes

Q. Could you just sum up your day for me.

DAVID TOMS: Just an up and down day. I did a lot of good things and a lot of dumb things, which you can't do in a U.S. Open to score.

Overall I was pleased with it. I knew it was going to be tough. I played the last two days. I knew pars were good scores. I actually made some birdies today, which was a bonus. I just had too many bogeys.

But even par is a good start. I hate to give a lot of shots back coming down the stretch, but they were hard holes. And I hit decent shots; just didn't score very well.

Q. Could you talk a little bit more about what happened with those three bogeys down the stretch.

DAVID TOMS: I missed a couple fairways by six inches maybe. Maybe not even that far. Shots from the tee that I thought were good, and I get up and they're either in the rough, in a bunker, things like that. Then it's hard to score.

Then I had a three putt. Tried to hit a smart shot on 16, the flower hole, over to the left of the pin. I three-putted there so made a bogey there. So just little unforced errors where you feel you're trying to play smart, you're hitting good shots, and you're still making bogeys. That's a U.S. Open for you.

Q. You were tied for the lead at one point, 3-under. Is that ever on your mind?

DAVID TOMS: No. I pay attention to how the scoring is going, but as far as being by the lead, it's not something I even thought about. I knew what was low this morning and I knew where I was this afternoon. So I knew I had to be right there.

I didn't know what guys were doing or how they were playing this afternoon. I just knew the golf course was hard.

I hated to give a few back or I would be right around the lead, but I'm certainly close enough to be okay as long as I keep playing well.

Q. How about bouncing back from that double with three straight birdies?

DAVID TOMS: That was obviously the key to my round having any success at all. I was playing really good, in control. I missed a fairway. I hit a smart shot, chipped out, hit another smart shot at my next hole.

Watched a guy putt in front of me and ran it way by, and I did the exact same thing and missed the next one.

There's just things you can't do. If you're going to play, you're going to play smart, you're going to chip out, or you're going to play the percentage. You can't make double bogeys. You've got to make bogey at worst.

Q. You've won this before. You know what it takes mentally. How do you keep yourself calm?

DAVID TOMS: You just can't get -- when you make three birdies in a row you can't get too far ahead of yourself. Or, hey, I'm leading this golf tournament. And certainly when you make bogeys, you can't get too deflated because you know a lot of people are.

You've just got to be there on every shot. If you get too high or get too low, you get ahead of yourself and get down. You've just got to be there on every one to be best of your ability.

Q. Where does this rough rank? You've played in so many U.S. Opens. Where does this rough rank?

DAVID TOMS: It's right there. It could be the most brutal first cut of rough I've ever seen. Some holes we don't even have that. So the ball, now the way the fairways are starting to chase they're running into it.

I was in that first cut of rough by that bunker on 18, and, I mean, I had no idea what it was going to do. I was trying to hit a smart shot left of the green, and I still hit it left of the green. It's just one of those kind of deals where you're hoping that your good shots remain good shots and you don't get bad bounces, and you capitalize on your good ones.

Q. There are only four guys under par. What do you think it says about this course?

DAVID TOMS: That doesn't surprise me at all. We certainly didn't have much wind this afternoon. I know they had a little this morning, but probably didn't have much at all early this morning when and you saw most of the good scoring.

So I thought the golf course, when it started firming up and the greens firmed up and they were a little bit bumpy in the afternoon with all the traffic on them, it's hard to make putts.

So I knew it was playing difficult. It didn't surprise me at all that not many guys shot under par.

They have taken a couple of par-5s away from us on this golf course and made them par 4s, so that affects the scoring right there.

When you get those types of things, when you convert par-5s into par 4s, they're hard holes, and it certainly affects the score.