THE 154TH OPEN

July 16, 2026

Francesco Molinari

Mixed Zone

Q. How does it feel to shoot 67?

FRANCESCO MOLINARI: I was feeling good before doing that.

Q. Talk about the day-to-day, first of all.

FRANCESCO MOLINARI: I think we got sort of benign conditions this morning, very little wind. Actually probably a little more at the start. Then it sort of dropped down on the back nine before it switched to the northwest where it was now when we finished.

Yeah, played solid, a couple of soft bogeys the first 10 holes. Then the putter started working a little better after that. Good round. Good solid round, yeah.

Q. When you start the 1st hole and you bogey, does that make it a little more difficult to tee up on the 2nd hole and say this is not how I want to start?

FRANCESCO MOLINARI: I've been around long enough to know this is a long way to go. I was telling myself actually it might not be exactly right, but I remember the last few years always starting quite well, like the first two, three holes here at The Open and then ending up either missing the cut or not having a great week.

I just told myself maybe this time it's going to be better if I bogey the 1st instead of birdieing it, yeah.

Q. Do you find yourself hitting more irons on this course than normal, especially off the tee?

FRANCESCO MOLINARI: Yeah, for sure. I only played here in '17, but obviously it was very, very different. I think the wind direction that we're going to get from now on is more similar to what we have going off memory. Obviously it was a lot more like a lot softer and colder, and the ball wasn't travelling enough.

I think this week you'll probably hit more drivers, but still you can hit a lot of irons if you want to.

Q. Bob MacIntyre was here, and he was kind of saying his approach is to be a little bit cautious to play short a lot because he kind of counted on himself to scramble and make pars. Do you feel that's the case on a course like this? Especially today people are talking about the tucked pins. Does it make it more of a conservative approach?

FRANCESCO MOLINARI: The rough is wispy, and you don't get any control out of it. There's no spin on the ball. It makes it really hard.

I think how we had it this morning, yes. If you hit 9-iron off the tee, you're pretty sure of hitting the fairway. I think, if it gets windier, it might change a little bit because it might become hard to hit some of the fairways with irons. So you might just decide to hit driver and miss the fairway, but being closer to the hole rather than too far back.

Q. Just a quick question about the French guy you played with, Grinberg. He's 18 years old. What did you think about his game and his all around?

FRANCESCO MOLINARI: It's the first time I played with him. Obviously I saw him playing on the DP World Tour the last few years already. He's definitely a really, really good talent. Really nice temperament too out there on the course. He was really calm even with some stuff that didn't go his way. He's got obviously a lot of time to sort of improve what he needs to improve. He's got plenty of potential.

Q. Where were you at this age?

FRANCESCO MOLINARI: At this age I was definitely nowhere near as good as he is. I was somewhere in Italy hacking the ball around, but not playing really that well.

Q. Can you just talk about coming into this, did you see something trending or anything like that?

FRANCESCO MOLINARI: I had a decent week last week in Scotland. The times that I played this year, I had a few good weeks, Dubai Desert Classic and even big tournaments where I was close to the top. I think that's the challenge for me. I think being competitive with these guys, playing obviously less than pretty much everyone else does is the motivation for me and is the challenge for me to try and do that. I think I can do it, but I need to go out and prove it.

Q. What you were doing 10 years ago to get prepared for playing golf year-round, do you still do that?

FRANCESCO MOLINARI: No, no, it's changed. The things that I do have changed, obviously, in 10 years. But my motivation to go and practise at home, it's like, even if I have five weeks off I go practise pretty much every day. I still enjoy that part of the game. The last few years I didn't really enjoy some other parts of the job, like the traveling and being away from home and all this stuff.

But no, I still love practising and playing, and I still love that side of it.