THE 153RD OPEN

July 19, 2025

Chris Gotterup

Mixed Zone

Q. Great play. Can you kind of take us through your round a little bit.

CHRIS GOTTERUP: I really felt like I played well today. Really the only shot that I would like to take back is hole 3. Yeah, I really hung in there well and grinded it out and tried to pick off shots where I could and ended up with a good score today.

Q. This is probably pretty new territory for you at a major. What does it feel like out there? Clearly it's not shaking you, but this is uncharted grounds at the moment.

CHRIS GOTTERUP: Yeah, I feel like I've gotten a bit of taste over the last couple of weeks of what it feels like out there with Oakmont and the Scottish Open and stuff like that.

I feel like it's been fine. It's definitely been fun. A lot of people out here. Yeah, just been fun.

Q. This is a very forward-looking question. A month ago nobody would have been thinking about you for the Ryder Cup. My editor said you should ask him a Ryder Cup because now people are talking about it. Has it entered your brain at all?

CHRIS GOTTERUP: Not really.

Q. Not at all?

CHRIS GOTTERUP: No, I'm just focused on this week. I really haven't thought about it one bit. Like you said, a month ago I really hadn't thought about it at all. I'm just going to focus on playing well tomorrow.

Q. There's one common thing, which is keeping up with Scottie. How do you do that?

CHRIS GOTTERUP: They just asked me that over there, and I said he's been the best player in the world for the past couple years. I fully expect him to go out and play a great round tomorrow. I'm going to have to bring my best tomorrow, and I'm going to have to bring it anyways in terms of it being a final round in a major.

Not just Scottie out there, there's a lot of great players in the mix.

Q. Results-wise the first four months of your season have been so different than the last couple. Is there any reason?

CHRIS GOTTERUP: I don't know, that's a good question. I don't know if I know the answer either. I just feel like I'm starting to get more comfortable. I feel like I'm starting to understand my game better and how I operate and what kind of golf is needed at certain places. I just feel like I've been very in control of my misses and my attitude. It's been good.

I don't have an answer. I wish I had it. I would have used it a long time ago.

Q. No changes off the golf course, anything like that?

CHRIS GOTTERUP: No, my life off the golf course has been great. Just something clicked, and I'm going to ride it as long as I can.

Q. What's your routine like here at night? What do you do between now and when you tee off tomorrow?

CHRIS GOTTERUP: I think we're going to go grab dinner somewhere, I don't know if it's here, with my parents. Then we'll probably try to sneak out and go get some ice cream somewhere and chill and then try to sleep as long as I can tomorrow.

Q. They like their ice cream here, don't they?

CHRIS GOTTERUP: It's been pretty good so far this week.

Q. How would you characterize today? Just how you handled a Saturday here in a major after you've been putting yourself in position.

CHRIS GOTTERUP: Like I said before, I felt like I played well today. Really not much I'd take back from today. There's some tough tee balls out there and some tough pin locations. I feel like I took advantage when I could.

Q. You have the ability to be pretty explosive. Do you think -- Scottie just went to 14, but are you close enough to where you can make something happen tomorrow?

CHRIS GOTTERUP: I'm not really too worried about it. I'm just trying to go out there and play what I can do and play what the course gives me.

I'm not too worried about -- like I said earlier this week, this is house money for me this week. I wasn't even planning on being here come a week ago. Anything's a bonus. I fully expect to give it my best, and we'll see where that ends up.

Q. Where do you think you can take this, what you've been doing the last two weeks from here?

CHRIS GOTTERUP: I'm just trying to ride it out as best I can and learn from why stuff's working well and just put it in my back pocket and try to take it to each tournament from there and learn along the way.

It's definitely been a nice learning process these last couple months, and I feel like I've done a good job of piecing things together and trying to figure out why stuff's happening, good or bad, and use it for the future.