Five questions with 1992 Masters champ Fred Couples, who is in the top 10 after 36 holes for the sixth time since 2010, all after he turned 50 (excerpts of his post-round interview):
Q: Does age figure in at all for you at Augusta National?
A: I feel like my age is still OK, because I can drive it far enough. But I'm not long like I used to be on this kind of a course, but it still plays where I can still reach a lot of these greens with shorter clubs to make the ball stop around the hole.
Q: What happened on the 18th; it seemed like your shot of the day?
A: On 18 I had what I thought was really good yardage, and the only problem was that I made two really bad bogeys in a row. So I was kind of thinking where do I want to hit this. And it hit in the flat part of the green and went up the hill and was circling back toward the hole, and the crowd was kind of going crazy. Very nice to finish with a birdie.
Q: Can you keep it going for the weekend?
A: Yeah, I'm a competitor, so I like to believe in myself. I like to think that I've had a lot of good finishes here, and my goal is to keep fighting with these guys. … But tomorrow, it's a tough day. And I'm not thinking winning this tournament, but I'm thinking continuing to play well and see what happens.
Q: What have you been doing so well?
A: I putt well here, even though sometimes I'm not considered a great putter, I putt very well here. And I feel the greens, the speeds from yesterday, to this afternoon, they were way faster. And I just played so many times that I kind of feel like I'm not going to make many mistakes.
Q: Do you remember when you really understood this course? When you felt like you got it?
A: I do remember the first time I made the cut I was playing with Tom Watson, I think I shot 80 or 81. And he shot 68. I learned a lot about the course that day. And I watched him play and I listened a little bit to him and Ray Floyd, how to play the course. But I honestly don't know the very first year I thought, wow, I have this course down. It's not very easy to figure out.
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