THE 153RD OPEN

July 17, 2025

Tony Finau

Mixed Zone

Q. How do you assess it out there? Just the way you played, overall?

TONY FINAU: Yeah, I played really solid. Kept the ball in front of me, hit enough fairways. When I didn't, sometimes you have to get fortunate out here to miss the bunkers. A couple of tee shots that I thought could be in bunkers weren't. I thought I capitalised where I needed to, and I played pretty nicely. I made a mistake on 17, and it cost me a bogey.

Overall, pretty solid round.

Q. Jon Rahm was saying a lot of it is acceptance, right? You get a bounce, didn't go in the bunkers, like you said. How do you view that, in terms of the right mindset going into the next few days like that?

TONY FINAU: Yeah, you have to try and execute the shot that you see. There's so many cross-wind shots on this golf course that make it hard to hit the fairway, but you have to commit to your shot and try to hit the best shot you can and just accept the result. You make a good swing and it happens to be in a bad spot -- I made one of the toughest tee shots on the course was on 11 today. Couldn't hit a better tee shot, and I get there, and I'm right in the middle of a sand divot.

Things like that just happen. You roll with the punches and just move on. Overall I feel like I did a pretty good job of that today.

Q. I know Scottie Scheffler has mentioned acceptance, kind of like what you were saying right there. How do you grade sufficiently overall with acceptance of late?

TONY FINAU: Yeah, I'm not playing the golf that I know that I'm capable of coming into this week, but having the experience that I have, I know that anything can happen on any given week. You try to reset and don't worry about the past or the future, worry about now and take care of what you can and control what you can control.

I felt like I did a pretty good job of that. Your mind is going to wander throughout rounds. It's just human nature. But overall I felt like I stayed in it pretty nicely today. Under par, I thought on a day like today, where only 4-under par is leading the golf tournament, that means the golf course is playing pretty tough, and I put together a good round.

Q. You said this week it's easy for your mind to wander, human nature. When you have a few minutes between holes, you and herbs, how do you guys just have the right mentality to -- or what is the right mentality?

TONY FINAU: Yeah, that was a lot of waiting. I wasn't sure how long the round was. We got to 18 green, and I saw it was 9:15, and I was like holy cow, six-hour round. There was a lot of waiting, but I've got a couple of good friends that I played with, Nick and Harry, both guys that I've known for a long time. So we were able to chop it up. There was a lot of that today. There was a lot of talking and a lot of chitchat while we were out there because there was a lot of waiting.

It's nice to have friends that you're close to that you can just have conversations with.

Q. Urbs told me in the past he's very intentional with you about being confident with giving you a number, just the way he speaks. I'm just wondering, just give you the chance to shine a little light on him a little bit and the dynamic he brings to you.

TONY FINAU: Urbs is not actually caddieing for me this week.

Q. Who do you have on the bag?

TONY FINAU: Local, he's an Irishman.