Q. You must be very pleased with that morning's work.
ROBERT MACINTYRE: Yeah, to be honest, delighted with that. I felt I played absolutely beautifully, to be honest, off the tee, with the real punishment, I drove it as good as I can drive the golf ball. I wasn't really hitting long drives. I wasn't trying to hit long drives. I was just trying to stay in the short stuff and manufacturing shots, whether it was 3-wood, whether it was driver, just try to hit the shape that I needed to find the fairway.
I thought I done that great, apart from 18. It was a different shot, it was a long hole, so I felt I had to sneak up there a little bit more, and with the trouble up the left, I couldn't manufacture it. Tried to hit a good holding draw, and I done that, and it just didn't move in the wind. It just stayed up the right in the rough.
But overall, honestly, I don't know if it's good or bad to save a level par, but that's almost as good as I've got.
Q. That must feel so satisfying.
ROBERT MACINTYRE: Yeah, it is. To walk off there -- even walking up the last and I've hit it in the rough, and first thing Mike says to me when we're getting up to the ball, he's like, look, nothing changes here, we keep doing the same things, pitch it out, walk to the ball. He says, the exact same thing, look, nothing changes here, same discipline. We just kept doing that.
Pitching wedge into the last pin, I should be hitting that inside 15 feet, but you can't because if you try and pitch that just past it to get it inside that 15 feet, it takes one bounce, it's over the green, you're not getting that next shot inside 40 feet. I said, well, just try and manage where to attack and where not to, and I felt like we done a great job today.
Q. Can you put into words how demanding this golf course is? What is it about it that makes it so difficult?
ROBERT MACINTYRE: Off the tee. I think into the greens, yeah, it's difficult because they're sloped, but at the end of the day, you just hit the green and then just try and two-putt it. But off the tee, I've never played a golf course as hard.
Yeah, there's a couple -- I mean, 17th hole, for instance, I'm not even -- you're going to see 95 percent of the players not even try and hit the fairway. They're just going to shell it in the left rough, try and get it on the green, walk off there with par.
It's a drivable par-4, but there's just nowhere -- you can't lay it up. It's too tight. If you do hit the fairway on the lay-up, it's too short a shot with a green sloping away from you. There's just little things like that where on a hole that's short and people are thinking, there's going to be lots of birdies, there's going to be lots of bogeys. I just think off the tee, it's the most demanding golf course I've ever played, and I've played Royal Lytham.
Q. Where would you rank this round? You've had some great rounds in your career. It's a level-par round, but where would you rank it?
ROBERT MACINTYRE: That's up there, up there in the top 10 of any rounds that I've played. It is just so hard -- honestly, every shot you're on a knife edge. If you miss it -- even if you miss the green, you miss it by too much, you then try to play an eight-yard pitch over the rough onto a green that's brick hard running away from you.
Every shot I'm trying to keep flights as neutral as I can, and sometimes I've not got the club to get to the hole. But I just can't bring in over the green or short of the green. I hit it to 30, 40 feet and try and two-putt it. It just feels like every shot is on a knife edge.
Q. What do you think of J.J.'s round if level par feels like the best you've got?
ROBERT MACINTYRE: It's unbelievable. I said it on the way around, I said, 4-under par, that is incredible. I get starting on 10, you can get a little bit of a run going 10, 11, 12, 14. You can, if you've got it going at the start early, get it going. But not to have missed -- he must not have missed many fairways. That's probably going to be leading at the end of the day, to be honest with you.
Q. Did you have any fun out there?
ROBERT MACINTYRE: I absolutely did because I like hitting crazy shots. I can hit some wild shots, and I said to my team yesterday, I was like, look -- even my caddie Mike, I said, there's going to be some shots that I'm going to say I'm going to hit and you're going to be like, there's an easier shot, but it's a shot that I'm going to tell you that's going on the fairway off the tee, whether it's a rescue or whether it's a driver. I've just got to ride the horse and just let the horse go at times.
Today on a tough golf course like that, there's no -- yeah, he's telling you where to go, where the lines are, what the center lines are, but it's my job to get it there, and he's not to worry about how I'm going to get that or the way I'm doing it.
Q. Tomorrow it's going to be firmer, faster. How do you sleep tonight knowing that test is going to be a hard one?
ROBERT MACINTYRE: Yeah, I know that. But a level-par round today, I'm going to have a nice lunch now. It's in a great spot. It's a good start. Hopefully they can control how firm and fast it gets because it is big slopes around this golf course.
Q. You'd take four level-par rounds now, wouldn't you?
ROBERT MACINTYRE: You shoot four level-par rounds, you're walking away with a medal and a trophy. I'm sure I'd take that.
Q. Just where you are in the season, what are you looking for? What are you expecting this week?
ROBERT MACINTYRE: Look, I'm here to try and win the U.S. Open. I've been playing nicely. It's not that big result. Dallas I'm sitting fourth, fifth, sixth, bogeyed the last, finish eighth. It's been one of them years so far that's been a maybe year, but I'm playing nice. Stats-wise from last year, I'm better this year than I was last year statistically.
Overall the whole game, yeah, my putting has been good, but now we're starting to think we might even peek over the actual positive side of strokes gained.
My game is in great shape. Yeah, the results haven't been great, but that's partly to do with how I'm reacting to disappointment at times.
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