INTERNATIONAL PRESENTED BY QWEST

August 3, 2002

Rich Beem

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you, rich for joining us. Good round today, and great position for going into Sunday.

RICH BEEM: Rock and roll.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Tell us about your day today.

RICH BEEM: First hole, a little nervous today, actually. A little more than I thought I was going to be. Not too bad, but it was nice to kind of get back in position to make a run at something, anything and hit a good dry down the middle and hit a perfect 7-wood about 12 feet, I guess, and just missed that. Watched Billy Mayfair make almost the same putt and his broke and my didn't.

A little sand wedge into No. 2 and made that.

Pitching wedge into 3 and made that. So that was 6 points to start.

I won't say -- kind of didn't hit it good, a couple mediocre shots. I made a good up-and-down on 6. Hit it on the downslope of the left-hand bunker, could not get it to the green. I got lucky, it did not roll all the way back down 80 yards. I stayed just below that bunker and got that up-and-down.

Parred 7.

Hit a perfect drive on 8 to go for it. I hit 4-iron, kind of a little indifferently back into the swale where everybody hits it, and chipped, got that up-and-down.

Then I got to No. 9. I've been hitting driver every day because the wind has been going and I didn't check it and hit driver and hit it in the water. Fortunately made bogey, 4-footer which was nice.

10, biggest drive of the day. I hit sand wedge in from about 95 yards and hit that about four feet, five feet and made that.

Snap-hooked another 7-iron for the third day in a row at 11 made bogey, as usual.

14, I hit a huge drive there. I really caught it solid and hit 6-iron in from -- I don't even know how far. I think it was like 200 yards. I hit a nice, beautiful draw and managed to putt straight up the hill and it could not have been any easier. It was about 12 feet, I guess.

Then parred 17. I hit a pretty good drive up there and had 179, hit 6-iron about 25 feet and just left it hanging on the lip. Just one more rotation and it goes in for another eagle. That was about it for all of my points.

Q. Between the altitude and the scoring system, how does it affect your game playing?

RICH BEEM: I like it. I just take straight ten percent off the top and fire at every pin I think I can find. I think that's the fun thing about being here, swing hard the ball goes forever and if you make birdie, it's like making two of them. It's two points, you make eagle, you make five points. It's nice. It's a lot more fun. Anything can happen.

I think that's the fun thing about this format is anything can happen in any given time. I mean, a guy could hole it out of the fairway for five points and another guy chunks it in the bunker makes plus or minus three and there's an eight-point swing and that's unbelievable. That's fun, if you're on the receiving end of it, anyway.

Q. How much were you aware of the scores of the guys ahead of you, and did that add any pressure?

RICH BEEM: No. My caddie told me after No. 10, just keep it going because Sergio has like 84 points in seven holes or something like that. He made, what, 19 points today? He just said that they are out there. And we both knew it. The course really was playing rather benign, as opposed to the first two days where it was just, you know, coming at you from all different directions.

You know, you get out there and you get on a good roll and pretty soon you can see every flagstick and it doesn't get that difficult.

Q. When you got to the first tee you could see guys were going in different directions?

RICH BEEM: And it was obvious, you get to the driving range and the flags are not even moving, they are just laying still. So you just know that a golf course like that, it's going to play easy. I know this golf course -- I still think it's a pretty tough golf course regardless, but if you're hitting it well and you're rolling the ball well -- these greens really slowed down. I think they probably dropped a foot on the Stimpmeter today; it's going to be for good scoring conditions.

I think tomorrow is going to be different because I looked at some of the pin placements tomorrow; looks like some are in the bunkers or on the sides of the mound.

Today the pins were accessible and the tees were up on some of the par 5s, so it was really set up to make a lot of points today.

Q. What was the source of your nervousness?

RICH BEEM: Just not being in position for a while. I think the last time I started off with a couple of good rounds and was anywhere in any kind of contention was probably the Kemper, I don't even remember. During the middle of the summer for some odd reason from June to the end of July, I just played terrible. I just don't play very good for some reason.

I played better this year than I have in years past, but not as good as I'd like. This tournament is a surprise because I have not done anything of notice here in the past. But I've been swinging that good all year, and I just feel like -- it's just fun. It's just a fun week. I think that's why I like it more than anything else. Plus, it's so hard. Oh, man.

I love it. Like I said, you can have so many different things happen. You can hole a 3-iron from the middle of the fairway and you make 8 points, and your playing partner hits it in the trees -- anything. And that's what's fun. I mean, that's cool.

Q. (Inaudible.)

RICH BEEM: I think tomorrow, like I said outside in some of the TV interviews, I think it's going to be fun tomorrow. Because if the conditions are as benign as they were today, I think anybody within ten points of the lead can certainly make them up.

I briefly noticed Steve Lowery was minus two points for a while today. So obviously when you make a lot of points, the next day, if you are not making a bunch of points early, you are thinking this is kind of a letdown. Who knows, I might come out and not make any points for the first nine holes. Then again, you've got chances to make points everywhere.

So I don't think that having a big cluster of guys up top is going to matter. I think anything can happen from the bottom on up.

Q. Talk about your putting. Seems like you've made a few, especially some good par saves today?

RICH BEEM: Yeah, my putting has not been the best part of my game all year. It actually goes in and out. This week has been better. I'm focusing more on judging the right distance. And these greens are good, too. They are fast, which I really enjoy. You hit them and just get them moving and get them on line that way. I just had really good speed this week, and that's been the key to putting well.

Q. You say you love to rip it and you like to fire at the pins, is there a hole out here that you don't look at as a points hole for you?

RICH BEEM: I don't like No. 11. I think No. 11 is obvious.

Other than that, you know, there's a lot of really tough holes out here. I think that the drive -- even the drive on 1 is not easy, when you're coming straight down the mountain. 2 is fairly nice. 3, you've got two fairways.

So there's just a lot of different holes that you've got to make up your mind how you are going to attack, and once you make up your mind, you've got to stick with it.

There's a couple of them that are just, you know, will get your attention real quick. That's exactly right.

Like No. 8, the par 5 -- No. 1 straight downhill. In fact, my strategy this week instead of really trying to tee it high and just bomb it was teeing it low is hitting it and landing it and scooting it. Especially 17, because last thing I want to is hit it up ; I want to hit it low and just let it run up there. Same thing with 18, because you can get in some problems . You tee it up on No. 10, you get it going in one direction just a little bit, it magnifies it completely. So actually, I'm trying to hit the ball lower instead of higher out here, but it's working.

Q. Did you have a ricochet off somebody on 18?

RICH BEEM: I thought I killed somebody, this lady, I don't know who it was. It was a low heater and just all of a sudden, it's hitting the crowd and it came straight left and I'm like, "Oh, no, I just killed somebody." Because it was moving, and for some reason, it hit her chair. I don't know exactly with a part of it, so that definitely saved me. I think that would have been probably bogey, if not "X" on that, if it was not for that.

It was in the rough, and it was really a great lie. It was straight up. Could not have been any better. I had some good breaks this week, but you need that when you're going to win -- or play well. You have to have good breaks if you win, but it's still Saturday, who knows.

End of FastScripts....