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FUNAI GOLF CLASSIC AT WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT

October 20, 2005

Ryan Moore

LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLORIDA

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Ryan, for joining us for a few minutes. You were walking in and talking about how well you played and how comfortable you were out there. Talk about the round a little bit.

RYAN MOORE: It's all right. Getting back to my own comfort zone. It's a lot hotter to wear pants today. I liked it when I got to wear shorts out there. That was way better.

But it was just a really solid round of golf, and I'm telling her walking in, I haven't had what felt like an easy round of golf in a long time, and it kind of felt easier today. My swing, I was really controlling it and I found something on the range last night. I didn't really want to hit balls after I played my practice round, but I thought, oh, I need to hit a couple, and something kind of clicked. I started fiddling with something with my stance, and it just felt immediately better and my swing just felt great.

I controlled the golf ball all day today, started it down my line really well, hitting it with good distance control. Just everything was a lot better. My speed control on the greens was horrible, though. I'm lucky a couple of my putts hit the middle because they were going really fast.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Are you becoming more comfortable out here? Obviously last week you played at a place that was fairly comfortable to you, and now we're here, and this is where you played AJGA.

RYAN MOORE: It is nice playing a few weeks in a row on courses I'm familiar with. I played Greensboro a couple years ago, so I had already played there. I played pretty solid there, you know, shot some good scores. And last week, of course, in Vegas. And then playing on a course that I'm comfortable with and have a little bit of tournament experience on, too, always helps. It just felt comfortable out there, just played really solid all the way through.

Q. You said you were fiddling around on the range. Unless I'm wrong, you are a feel player, kind of get it out of the dirt type player? Is that how you work on your game?

RYAN MOORE: You know, there's certain things that I like to work on, little stuff. I mean, I do have drills I work on and stuff in my swing that I'm constantly tweaking. I'm not just going out there and flailing at it and trying to swing and see what the heck happens. I have a purpose to going and practicing.

It was just something in my stance that maybe I drifted a little bit closed for me, which I'm generally very open, and so I really went back and kind of extreme and got really, really open again so I can just really see down the line so well, and I extend down the line so well that way. I felt great. I felt like I just had control of the ball for the first time in I don't know how long. It's been a long time for me.

I haven't really hit the ball very consistently. I shot 63 last week, but it was hitting a lot of shots not how I meant to hit them and they went right next to the hole. It was kind of one of those rounds that just happened. Today was just a good round of golf.

Q. Do you not work with a swing coach?

RYAN MOORE: Yeah, I don't work with a swing coach, no.

Q. That's kind of unusual out here, isn't it?

RYAN MOORE: Yeah, I guess so. I work with my dad, and he always keeps an eye on me, but a lot of times I stick to myself. I can feel what's wrong. A lot of times it takes me some time to figure out exactly what it is. Today I was talking to my brother walking up the 18th hole, and I was like, man, I'm glad I went to go hit balls last night. I was kind of frustrated walking off the course almost to the point I didn't want to go practice, keep repeating what I was doing because it just didn't feel good. I thought, gosh, I should hit a couple balls just to work on a couple things. I don't know, I hit about 15 balls and almost quit because I was so frustrated, again, and I was just about to say, oh, let's go, I'm done. Then this kind of popped into my head. I was like, go get me another basket, let's hit a couple more, and there it was.

Q. Do you have somebody that looks at all at all on Tour besides your dad, just an extra eye, somebody you trust, your caddie, somebody like that?

RYAN MOORE: My brother, I can have him take a look at me. I have a couple one of my good friends at school I play a ton of golf with, I'll have him look, and he's actually who caddied for me last week, and he's going to be my permanent or full time caddie next year starting in January. He's always going he's practically my swing coach. So he always has a good eye on things.

Q. What you're trying to do, what you're trying to accomplish this year, does it weigh on you? How much do you really do the math or try to figure out what you need to do week in and week out?

RYAN MOORE: Well, I have a lot of other people doing all that stuff for me. They're all telling me what I need to do. You're going to keep moving up, you're $20,000 clear of this now. It's like, okay, I'm just going to play golf. That's all I can control is me on the golf course, and I'm just going to go out there and play the best I can every day, and fortunately I came out this week and it feels good. I played a good round of golf. All I've got is tomorrow ahead of me. That's all I've got.

Q. I got here Tuesday night so I missed it but I was reading your transcript, and I thought you said something like as it relates to Q school because you're at least guaranteed the 126 to 150 spot that even if you didn't make it, you might not do Q school or you've been told that you should get 22 or so starts?

RYAN MOORE: Yeah, I mean, I have The Masters for sure. I already got a spot at Colonial for sure next year, so I have a couple of the invitationals and PGA TOUR has been telling me I'll get between 20 and 22 or 23 starts, somewhere in there without the invitationals. That and sponsor exemptions, I mean, I'll have a full schedule with really no problem, from what I've been told.

Q. Why wouldn't you do Q school? I know you said what you just said

RYAN MOORE: Because I'm not going to need to.

Q. You might be able to improve yourself on the pecking order for earlier in the year.

RYAN MOORE: Yeah, we'll see. Like I said, I'm not going to have to worry about it hopefully. That's what I'm working on. As soon as that's over, then I'll move on. I have signed up for Q school and I do have my entry in just in case, and I put that in a long time ago before all this happened. But all I can do is go play tomorrow and see what happens.

Q. Just kind of housekeeping because this is looking like a moot point, but if you need Southern Farm, is that an option?

RYAN MOORE: I'm in the next two. I have a spot in both.

Q. There's a point where if you do well enough this week then you would give it up?

RYAN MOORE: Yeah, that's kind of what they want me to do with it, but we'll see. Pretty much it'll take me a Top 10 to guarantee that I won't miss to be in that Top 125. So that will get me in any way.

Q. After this PGA TOUR season ends, do you have anything unusual planned for the, quote unquote, off season, any overseas events, any Australian Open or anything like that, or are you sticking close to home?

RYAN MOORE: You know, I was offered some spots and it's something I was thinking about, some of the Australian events. But I'm pretty worn down and will be even more so at the end of these three weeks. I just am looking forward to some time off. I'm playing a couple events like the Tommy Bahama Challenge, playing something up in Pebble Beach a few weeks later. I'm going to play a little bit of golf but not tournament golf, and after that I'm probably not going to touch a club for about three or four weeks and just do absolutely nothing because I love doing that (laughter). I'm really good at it.

Q. You don't get bored?

RYAN MOORE: Never, ever. I'm looking forward to it very much.

Q. (Inaudible).

RYAN MOORE: You know, every winter I would go home from school for about four to five weeks and wouldn't really practice much then, and I guess last summer I had surgery on my tailbone, so I couldn't do anything for about a month. It was in the first week of June before I won all those tournaments I had surgery and I couldn't really do anything. I couldn't even sit down actually for a month. I had to like lay down in bed or on my side. It was kind of a pain in the butt.

Q. How did that come about that you had tailbone surgery? I thought you were doing most of the ass kicking out here.

RYAN MOORE: That was a pain, I can tell you that much. I don't even like to think about it. It wasn't very much fun. It was from I have no idea. It was hereditary or something, I'm not sure. It's just something that popped up. It's bothered me for a long time but I didn't really know what was wrong. It just kind of flared up and got to the point where I had to have surgery. I had no choice. I was looking at a point where I wasn't going to be able to play at Sahalee or the Pub Links, but fortunately I recovered really fast. I maybe swung a club for two days before Sahalee last year, and I went out and shot 16 under there, something pretty good. It was just kind of one of those things. It was probably a break I needed, so I'm looking forward to another break here at the end.

Q. Was that before

RYAN MOORE: That was immediately after the NCAAs. I was on my way to qualify for the U.S. Open up in Ohio when it all happened. I had to go to the emergency room the night before I played and had to withdraw and fly home. It was a disaster. But it seems like it worked out. I don't mind too much now.

Q. Have you thought your reception out here has become warmer and warmer and warmer as you've quickly proven that you're not just the latest hot shot prodigy guy, that you're actually living up to the pre arrival hype?

RYAN MOORE: Yeah.

Q. There was this little period where you're being watched and evaluated before you get the open embrace.

RYAN MOORE: I'd say after Canada it really changed. I don't think there was a single person I passed by the next week up in Pennsylvania that didn't say, great playing last week or congratulations, Ryan. You know, that was really good, blah blah blah, great birdie on the last hole. Practically every person I saw said something. That's kind of when I knew they were starting to warm up to me just a little bit. I proved to myself that I played some good golf on a tough golf course under tough conditions and finished strong and did some good things that week.

Q. (Inaudible).

RYAN MOORE: No. I mean, I really haven't. I haven't had a problem with anybody or anything really. It's been great. I have no complaints. Yeah, nothing really.

Q. (Inaudible).

RYAN MOORE: Well, probably not necessarily. There's a few weeks where they were kind of checking me out, and I think after a while they kind of saw I guess I wasn't too bad of a guy. Maybe I am, maybe they hate me, I don't know. It's a possibility (laughter).

Q. Back in April at The Masters, you said that you were thinking about winning that tournament, that you pretty much think about winning every tournament you've ever entered and played in. Is that still the goal, or has all this Money List and getting into tournaments and all this sort of changed for you, or is winning the ultimate?

RYAN MOORE: Never changes, never, ever will I don't think, and if that ever does change, that's probably when I won't be playing. You know, that's my goal every week at the beginning of the week. That's all I think about, what I need to do to win that week, what do I need to improve on from last week or whatever it might be, and that's all I think about.

Right now I obviously put myself in good position. That's where I want to be. I want to play a good first round. I'm never trying to shoot 64 the first round, but that just kind of happened; it was a good, solid round and put myself in good position and I've just got to keep moving forward. I'm not thinking about the Money List, I'm not thinking about anything out there, I'm just thinking about the shot I'm hitting. That's it.

Q. (Inaudible.)

RYAN MOORE: Drove it into the left rough and hit a tree and kind of kicked almost out but it was still in the thick rough kicked right just a little bit, which really wouldn't have made a big difference from where it was. And I hit a 4 iron out of the rough. I was about 218, 220, somewhere around there, and just it actually came out great, just flew it maybe ten feet left of the hole, kind of ran through the green, had maybe about a 35 footer, somewhere around there. And I putted it in, just one of those ones that just drilled it right in the middle of the hole, popped up in the air, went right in there. It was probably not even going to be on the green. But it went in; it was one of those putts.

I lipped out about four holes in a row before No. 9 or No. 18, made a putt there, made that one there, so I kind of got a little jump start there, which was nice.

End of FastScripts.

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