Q. Can you talk about how it went out there? Obviously you were playing with a guy who was on quite a roll.
SHANE LOWRY: I told him when we finished, Keep it going, things will turn around for you pretty soon (smiling.) He pretty much holed everything he looked at today. It was good. We bounced off each other, we all played really nicely, and it's nice when you get a good group like that. My 3-under doesn't look that great beside his 7-under, but 3-under is a good score out there on this course, it's pretty difficult.
I hit the ball in play a lot today, I hit lot of fairways, which allowed me to hit a lot of greens, so I took advantage of some good driving today.
Q. What is difficult about it? Everything?
SHANE LOWRY: You miss a shot and you're going probably going to make bogey. You're going to miss some shots when you're out there playing 18 holes. So, yeah, I missed two fairways on the par-5s and made bogeys on both without hitting it in the water. It's just two horrendous lies and before you know it you're making bogey on what you feel like is an easy hole.
Yeah, there's just no gimmies out there. There's no holes where you feel like you can get away with one. You need to hit good shots.
Q. Speaking of tough golf courses, do you recall what you thought the first time you went to Oakmont?
SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, I do, actually. I've got a good story about that. The first time I played Oakmont was the Sunday before the U.S. Open 2016, and I went out to play with -- my coach was with me and we teed off on 10. We got around to 14, which is up beside the clubhouse, and I walked in. And I sat there in the locker room going, I have no idea how I'm going to play golf around this place.
And then six days later, I had a four-shot lead going into the final round. But, obviously, we got a bit of rain -- that was before the rain. It was firm and fast when I played it that Sunday, and it was windy. We got a bit of rain that week. Which helped us. But, yeah, Oakmont, I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to seeing what it's going to play like, and I'm looking forward to the challenge of it.
Q. Before you had set foot on it, were you aware of its reputation? Obviously --
SHANE LOWRY: Not really.
Q. -- for a hundred years it's kind of had this --
SHANE LOWRY: No, not really. Like, I would have -- obviously I know the history of the U.S. Opens from the past, but obviously it was a different golf course to what they played in 2007. They redid it. So, yeah, I wasn't aware, but I'm well aware it have now.
Q. What did you do, do you think -- I know you said the golf course changed a little bit, but you had to reset?
SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, look, it wasn't that I felt like I couldn't play it, but I was just like, This is too hard, I'm going in. You know what I mean? It was like it was one of those and, honestly, if it didn't rain -- I remember it rained on Wednesday and Thursday that week. If it didn't rain that week, God knows what the winning score would have been.
Q. What about a 300 yard par-3?
SHANE LOWRY: Yeah, we played it in 2016. It's, you know, it's probably going to be a wood for most players. It is what it is. Is it going to be the greatest par three we ever played? Probably not. But it is what it is and it's going to be on the scorecard and we need to play.
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