THE 153RD OPEN

July 17, 2025

Matt Wallace

Mixed Zone

Q. Talk about your round. How did the course treat you? How did you find it?

MATT WALLACE: We've started in the hardest part, absolutely throwing it sideways and cold and wet and windy on the 1st. Pretty happy with my start. Didn't hit enough shots on the makable holes, and then compounded a couple errors. Well, no, I think not compounded but hit some good shots at critical times. I thought level par would have been a good score for me today. Then caught a bad lie on the last and hit it in the bunker and didn't make the putt, so 2-over. It was frustrating.

Q. Phil was saying this thing earlier today that it feels so proper because good shots feel like really rewarded, bad shots feel really punished. Does that check out for you?

MATT WALLACE: For sure. He also didn't play in any rain at all.

Q. He admitted that too.

MATT WALLACE: Right. Watching this morning, I thought, okay, it's windy. It's going to be tough. It's hard anyway. Add the rain in there, when it slides off the face, skids on the greens, pins are tucked away in positions you can't get to -- like the 4th is ungettable really from when we were playing it. You're hitting 5- or 4-iron there if you're in the fairway.

Yeah, it was tough, but manageable to shoot around level par for our wave, middle-of-the-day sort of one.

Q. Watched you tee off at the 1st, Matt, and probably had the absolute worst conditions there. It's a hard hole as it is; that just made it near impossible.

MATT WALLACE: I felt like just hitting driver, just piercing a driver. With it being wet, it could go anywhere, and there's out-of-bounds both sides. 2-iron would leave another 2-iron in, so I went with the mini driver. I hit a good one, but then you got a strong drawy 6-iron, 5-iron into a really difficult hole with pin positions.

So we played in the hardest moment but we managed to get through it unscathed.

Q. Looked hard to get off there --

MATT WALLACE: It was absolutely -- Jamie couldn't -- there was no point holding anything over. He did hold the umbrella over the ball, but it was coming in sideways and underneath and just getting it. So I was kind of like praying to God that I hit the middle of the club face and I did, and it went straight.

Q. Anything in particular that makes that hole so hard? It's been one of the hardest statistically.

MATT WALLACE: If you miss the tee shot, you've then got the uphill, so you can't run it up. It's not that easy with the wind into and out of the right. It's manageable when you play it with no rain and stuff because you can hit a shot. Obviously that short right bunker comes into play if you hit driver, so you want to hit something short of that potentially, and you can't rake it right to left because it brings in the front long left trap. It's just a clever designed hole, but makes it even harder in the conditions we play it in.

Q. When you're thinking driver maybe on the 1st, then you say no because I don't know with the water, is it because there's water on the ball? Is it water on the face?

MATT WALLACE: Well, on the face. I mean, I play those situations quite fast, but I hit a couple shots today, no matter how fast, there's a bit of water on the face, and it will grab it even in this part, and then it's just going to slide off the face. Yeah, it's difficult.

Q. Forgive my ignorance, but I think that's something that people of my skill level do not understand.

MATT WALLACE: If I was to say to you, if you've got grooves on a 3-wood, go to that because the grooves on the 3-wood can counter the sort of slidey off the water, the face. If you've got loads of rain and it's into especially, go to 3-wood. If it's downwind, you might be able to get away with it where it doesn't slide off and it will go straight. My advice would be hit a 3-wood if it's raining more so.