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U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP


June 18, 2009


Padraig Harrington


FARMINGDALE, NEW YORK

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I certainly thought nothing in the seven holes I played that was unplayable. I think when they called it, it was starting to become unplayable.
What they did for those holes was managed what would be unplayable in another situation was certainly fine as we played. There was no particular shot or situation that were difficult, but there was nothing unfair, I would say.
But there was a lot of work to keep it that way and I think at the end of the day, it got on top of them. They got as many holes played as they could have, and give them the best chance of completing the best tournament, I suppose, for Sunday afternoon, which is some sort of goal, I'm sure, of theirs. Obviously not the biggest goal in the world because they have got Monday tickets and everything.

Q. Have you seen them squeegee the greens?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, I've seen it plenty of times. It's a reasonably regular occurrence. I think the difference is they needed to do it on 18 greens constantly; whereas normally if we are on a Tour event and we need to do that, it's one particular hole that has a problem, or maybe they are trying to get the leaders finished on the last three or four holes.
This is a tough battle for them. They did as well as they could have done and in fairness, the conditions were playable when we started and they kept playable for the seven holes I played anyway.

Q. How about squeegeeing along the line?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Well, that's what you do. If you were playing on your own, that's what you would do. You would just clear the casual water that was between you and the hole and you would not be too bothered about the casual water everywhere else.
That's pretty common standard practice.

Q. Does it matter for the guys who never tee off today?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I don't think there's a guy who hasn't teed off today that is not sitting very happy right now in their hotel room right now or maybe at the cinema watching a movie something like that.
But that's the nature of the game. You're going to get bad breaks. You're going to get the wrong side of the draw. Who knows what the next three or four days are going to bring, or could be four or five days are going to bring.
Conditions end of the day could end up to favor this side of the draw. We don't know at this stage. We don't know.

Q. Obviously a frustrating start for you, what do you do getting ready for tomorrow?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Well, if you're started badly, you're delighted to be going off the golf course. I'm starting a new round of golf tomorrow and it doesn't look like this round was going in a very nice direction for me.
As I said earlier it's all about momentum in the bad weather, starting with a 3-putt and then dropping a shot from nowhere, all of a sudden I'm 2-over par and I haven't played quite well and I'm trying to figure out, how am I going to get back in this; how am I going to make some birdies and recover. I'm on the back foot, so the best thing for me is to come back fresh tomorrow. I know it's going to be early. It's a new start but for me, I've still got 66 holes of this tournament of.
So if I can get it into my head in some shape or form the 66 holes to go, I am amazed two bogeys and a double-bogey won't really cost me at the end of the day, but that's hard coming from 4-over par, too.

Q. With all of the squeegeeing and all of the water, was there anything out there that was unplayable?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: No. It was difficult. But it was not unplayable at all. Conditions were definitely playable when we went out there and they kept it that way for the seven holes. They just were losing -- they were going to lose that battle eventually and they pulled it at the right time when they could not manage to keep it going full stop. And up to that, at no stage did we have a shot at plenty of tough shots but no shot that was unfair.

Q. How much longer will this course play with all of this water, because it's going to be hard to get rid of this amount of water by tomorrow.
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Depends on what's going to come in, what the rest of the weather is like.
I think as it stands at this very moment, you know, it needs a break, it needs some wind, and it needs to start drying out. The worst conditions, obviously players are concerned about mud balls and things like that, but that doesn't happen when the fairways are wet. It only happens when they start drying out and the mud sticks to it. It's going to be a problem more tomorrow afternoon and Saturday than tomorrow morning.
But nature is going to take it's course. We'll get this tournament done. And I guarantee you they will have a U.S. Open Champion at the end of this week; well, at some stage in the next week. (Laughter). Somebody is going to be happy and somebody is going to be a winner, and the best player is probably going to win. We'll wait and see.

End of FastScripts




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