THE 153RD OPEN

July 18, 2025

Tom McKibbin

Mixed Zone

Q. Tom, how do you feel after today?

TOM McKIBBIN: Not great. A little bit annoyed. Yeah, a little bit pissed off.

Q. How do you think about taking the positives away, the crowd this week, the support you got, reflecting back, how do you feel about that?

TOM McKIBBIN: Yeah, it was good. The crowd supporting me the whole way round was amazing. The whole week was good, sort of positive. I thought I played all right, just a few sort of stupid mistakes that looking back, I wouldn't really hit different. The shot was fine, just sort of missed in the wrong spot or got the club slightly wrong.

Overall, I actually thought I played quite nicely, just a few silly mistakes.

Q. You kind of looked like you might miss it by just one shot. You were so close to maybe having a great weekend.

TOM McKIBBIN: Yeah, I think that's what's probably most annoying. I feel like I actually played -- this is probably the best I've played out of them all. Just so many like stupid errors, just pins at the back of the green, hitting over the green. It's just where there's nothing really wrong with the shot. So I think that's what's a little bit frustrating.

Q. I know there's days for learning, but from a learning perspective, what it's like getting into that pressure situation on the 1st tee? It's hard going around. What have you picked up?

TOM McKIBBIN: Not much. I've hit plenty of tee shots. It's obviously a very difficult tee shot at half six in the morning. I've hit two decent ones down there that I think now going forward, I don't think there will be many harder tee shots going forward from that. After that, nothing really too much.

Q. It is after all only your third major that you've played in. So it's still a learning curve for you. What's the rest of the season look like for you now, Tom? What's your schedule for the rest of the season?

TOM McKIBBIN: There's only three events left, so give those all I have for those. I'll play a little bit of DP as well coming towards the end of the year as well. Gearing up for them.

Q. And overall -- the week, the buildup, your practice, everything you did for this event, you're happy with how that all went?

TOM McKIBBIN: Yeah, I think so. It's very hard obviously when you don't really play much links golf, and then you start playing it two days or three days before a tournament. Yeah, besides that, all good. I felt like I've been playing nicely. I felt like, as I said, I've played okay.

Q. You adapted well?

TOM McKIBBIN: Yeah, I didn't really see too many big issues. Yeah, it's definitely strange playing a course that you've played a lot before, playing sort of in a tournament.