Louis Oosthuizen opened with a 64 at Royal St George’s to take the day-one lead at The Open Championship. The South African was one clear of Jordan Spieth and Brian Harman, who were T2 on 5 under.
Afterwards, the 38-year old took some questions from the media. Here are three we found most interesting.
1. Bounce-Back Ability
Question: You’ve got an uncanny ability to bounce back, whether it’s bouncing back from a bogey with a birdie afterwards or whether it’s bouncing back from a tough loss at a tournament with another excellent showing and another run at the title. What do you feel is the secret to your resiliency and your ability to not let those prior things frustrate you?
Louis Oosthuizen: I don’t know. No, I don’t know. I feel if you do the work that you feel you should have done to get ready for a tournament and you left everything sort of out on the course, then there’s not much more that you can do.
I always try and — I do get upset on shots if I hit bad shots and things like that, but I try and always be at the best mindset for the next golf shot and the next tournament or the next round.
I try and not think too much of mistakes that you make on the golf course. I try and focus on every time hitting the best shot that I can hit, and I feel that’s the only way you can sort of go forward in this game.
2. Struggling Playing Partners
Question: You had two guys (Jon Rahm and Shane Lowry) that are well known playing links golf in your pairing and they didn’t really have a very good day. Does that distract in any way, shape or form from how you’re trying to get around your 18 holes?
Louis Oosthuizen: No, it didn’t. Playing with them, I didn’t really feel like they played poorly. They just — again, around this golf course, if you’re just out of position off the tee, you’re going to find it difficult to give yourself opportunities for birdies.
I just think it’s so marginal to be good off the tee and have opportunities to try and get close to the holes for your second shots. But no, it doesn’t distract me at all.
Looking at their score afterwards, I didn’t feel like they played — I thought they both were maybe level or 1-under par, and I saw they were just over par, but I didn’t really feel like they played poorly.
3. Recycling Putters
Question: You mentioned that you’ve stuck with the same putter now for a while. Were you previously changing every week, and if so, what happens to the naughty putters? Where do they go?
Louis Oosthuizen: Yeah, I’ve got a bag there at home that I might just throw in a river someday.
Yeah, I went through a stage where I changed a lot of putters. Every week we were trying something. I realised quickly that there’s no way to find any consistency in putting if you do that.
Yeah, I found one that I really like the look of, and I sort of worked on it. There were tournaments where I felt my stroke wasn’t great, and I felt like I was working on a few things, and I would actually change that putter then for just on the round.
I didn’t want to have any bad memories of that putter being not good on the day.
You know, going through all of that and sticking with it has really helped me a lot.
