ISPS HANDA SENIOR OPEN

July 23, 2026

Ernie Els

The Gleneagles Hotel, Kings Course

Quick Quotes

Q. 5-under par 65, what pleased you most about your play today?

ERNIE ELS: Kept it under control. I had a nice start. Birdied the second hole. I had a good up-and-down on 4. I played the front nine quite well. Made some putts. The greens are quite smooth this morning, so hopefully it stays like that.

Then the back nine, I made a silly mistake on 13. It was really downwind. It was really hard to make bogey there. All in all, it was a solid round. I had a week off last week. I was down in London. So I played a bit of golf but really nice to have a nice start today.

Q. Outside of holing a few putts, what's the key to scoring well on this course?

ERNIE ELS: Yeah, you've got keep your wits with you, you know. You can be really aggressive. If you aren't, you can be really -- spectacular. It's a scores where you've got to get yourself around. The course is running a little bit, so you can hit linksy shots and play the wind. And the greens are tricky to read, tricky to putt. I think that's why scoring is going to level out a little bit.