THE 153RD OPEN

July 18, 2025

Nicolai Hojgaard

Mixed Zone

Q. Curious if you can appreciate the uniqueness of you and your brother right in the mix, top of the leaderboard. Did you have an eye on him early in the round before you started?

NICOLAI HOJGAARD: Yeah, it's cool to see Ras playing well this week. I saw him quite early on the leaderboard, and I kind of wanted to follow it up. A little frustrated I didn't manage to get to 5 where he is. I felt like the round had potential.

But yeah, happy for him.

Q. We had asked him earlier if he roots for or against you when you're in the same field, and he said he'll root for you until the final nine on Sunday.

NICOLAI HOJGAARD: Yeah, I agree. I cheer him on and happy to see him play well, but I also want to beat him. But it's a good relationship, and hopefully we'll have a good week weekend and maybe battle it out on Sunday.

Q. Do you recall a tournament in your youth or whatever where you guys were kind of in competition, chasing the same thing, you both wanted it badly? I'm sure there's probably more than one of those, right?

NICOLAI HOJGAARD: Yeah, we played some amateur events where we were in a playoff, and it was pretty tense. But we've tried it a few times. But now our relationship is better, and back then we couldn't handle those situations. We can do that now.

Let's see what happens this weekend. Hopefully we'll get a chance to play with each other.

Q. Who was interested in golf first?

NICOLAI HOJGAARD: I don't know. We played from a really young age and we played at the same time. I don't know who was interested first.

Q. When you say you handle it better now, obviously you're more mature now, but were there times when you guys argued, you were banging heads quite a bit back in the day?

NICOLAI HOJGAARD: Yeah, 100 per cent. We couldn't handle each other's success when we were younger, but we can do that now and support each other and get motivated by each other. When you get older, you get slightly more mature.