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THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 20, 2006

Mikko Ilonen

HOYLAKE, ENGLAND

STEWART McDOUGALL: Ladies and gentlemen, Mikko Ilonen, 4 under par, 68, joint leader in the clubhouse.

Mikko, you won an amateur championship here. How does it feel to be leading in The Open Championship, only the second time you've been here?

MIKKO ILONEN: I don't think it's going to last all day. It's very easy out there. There's going to be a lot of low scores today. I'm very happy to be where I am. 4 under is a good start, hopefully I can get another one going tomorrow.

Q. What's the difference this week compared to when you won the Amateur here, in terms of the golf course?

MIKKO ILONEN: It was very green when I was here compared to now. It was obviously playing a lot longer and tougher. We had rain and wind pretty much every day. So it was just completely a different golf course.

Q. A couple of questions, what month and year was that what month of the year did that

MIKKO ILONEN: I think it was the end of May, beginning of June.

Q. I'm sorry if you have to answer this everywhere you go. In terms of coming from Finland, how much golf is played there and basically what was your path to get where you are today?

MIKKO ILONEN: I basically played golf summertime, when I started. I started when I was ten. I'm 26 now. I started to play amateur golf when I was 13. And then after that I started to spend a week or two during the winter, obviously somewhere in Spain, playing a little bit of golf.

But basically when I turned pro I was traveling all year long; I didn't spend too much time in the snow. So basically the last five, six years I've been traveling during the winter, and in Finland you can play probably six, seven months of golf during the year, which is not too bad. I would only play two months.

Q. How late in the evening can you play during the summers there?

MIKKO ILONEN: Where are you from? England?

Q. Yes.

MIKKO ILONEN: The same as Scotland.

Q. It's a little bit south.

MIKKO ILONEN: You can go out at 10:00 in the evening and get nine holes in.

Q. Yeah. Did you do that?

MIKKO ILONEN: I don't do that very often, no.

Q. When you started out?

MIKKO ILONEN: I did when I was younger, yeah, a lot, all the time.

Q. Are there an awful lot of courses around where you were?

MIKKO ILONEN: Where I was born and where I live now, I still live over there, there's not too many golf courses, really. We only have two around the city and one a little bit away from the city. I would say only one, really, but we have over 100 golf courses in Finland and there's a couple of really good new courses over there, now. The practice facilities are there, summertime, obviously. But it's getting better. And they're building new golf courses all the time.

Q. All three, both of the people in your group shot good scores. Were you sort of feeding off each other, all of you getting birdies?

MIKKO ILONEN: I actually didn't play very well in the beginning, the first couple holes were pretty bad, but I managed to get it around and made some good up and downs and pars. John and SK played very good at the beginning, too. So it was a very nice day.

Q. Since you won here as an amateur, have you been back to this course since then, played it at all?

MIKKO ILONEN: I haven't, no, no. I just said five minutes ago that this is the first time back here since 2000. It's nice to be back. Obviously there are some good vibes over here. But as I said, the golf course is completely different, but I can still remember the holes as they were in 2000 and how they are now.

Q. What was your did someone in your family play? How did you get introduced to golf?

MIKKO ILONEN: My brother forced me to play (laughter).

Q. Older brother?

MIKKO ILONEN: Yeah, that's the truth, yeah. But then I got hooked. It looked difficult, and I said first I don't want to even try, but then, okay, I've got to try, so I got hooked.

Q. What's his name?

MIKKO ILONEN: Sami, S a m i.

Q. Does he still play?

MIKKO ILONEN: Not much.

STEWART McDOUGALL: Thank you very much.

End of FastScripts.

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