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DUBAI DESERT CLASSIC


March 3, 2005


Jarrod Lyle


DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

RODDY WILLIAMS: Jarrod, well-played today. Talk about how you played today.

JARROD LYLE: It was good. I hit the ball really well today and that's crucial really. You just have to hit the fairways, because the rough, you can't get to the greens from most of them. I holed a couple of good putts and it was just all-around good, solid golf.

RODDY WILLIAMS: Your first round here, what did you think of the Emirates Golf Club here.

JARROD LYLE: It's fantastic. Just you've got to drive it straight, and I'm just enjoying my time over here and hopefully we can keep the form going.

RODDY WILLIAMS: I understand you had a special invite, as well. Tell us about what brought you out over here.

JARROD LYLE: Yeah, Emirates gave me an invite to the tournament, and hopefully I'm doing a good enough job to warrant my invitation. They have looked after us really, really well , flew me and my Dad over here and now I am off to have lunch and meet a few people, it's been great.

Q. When did you find out you were invited?

JARROD LYLE: Thursday last week when I was in New Zealand, I got a phone call and was just in a mad rush to organize everything and changed from a tournament in Thailand this week. A bit of a mad rush, but we made it.

Q. Were you playing in Thailand because you have an Asian Tour card through their Q-School last year?

JARROD LYLE: Yeah. I finished 30th at Tour School last year so.

Q. Can you fill in some bio, background details for us?

JARROD LYLE: Yeah, I'm 23. Come from a town called Shepparton which is two hours north of Melbourne near Old Victoria. I turned pro November last year. Geez, I don't know, what else, I finished third in the Heineken, which is my best finish to date --

Q. Australian Amateur Champion or anything?

JARROD LYLE: No, runner up. Lost in the final last year.

Q. Tell us about your leukemia as a teenager.

JARROD LYLE: I was diagnosed May 13 in 1999, as a 17-year-old, and I spent probably eight or nine months in the hospital having chemotherapy and things like that. That sort of knocked me off for a good 18 months, I didn't play any golf, I just didn't have the energy. That's part of my life that is never going to leave me and I'll never forget.

So in a way I'm kind of grateful that it happened but, you know, I had a lot of good things happen because of it and I suppose this is one of them. You know, I'm just living life at the moment, taking one day at a time and just enjoying everything.

Q. Do you suffer from any after effects at all?

JARROD LYLE: I haven't had any medication since Christmas of '99. I've pretty much been in the all-clear since then, I still have regular checkups every year now. So it's something that, you know, whenever I get sick, I always think the worse now. I feel like I'm getting a cold, then, oh, God I'm getting cancer again. So it's something that's in the back of your mind forever.

I could probably lose a little bit of weight and get a little bit thinner but at the moment, I don't really care, I suppose. I'm playing good golf with a belly, so might as well stick with it.

Q. Is playing golf, is that part of your motivation to get better?

JARROD LYLE: Definitely. One of the things, I was still in my last year of school and there was a teacher at the hospital she wanted me to try to finish my schooling and I just pretty much told her, I had other things to do when I get out of here. She didn't really like it that much, but that's what I wanted to do, and here I am doing it so pretty much a dream come true at the moment.

Q. Your Heineken Classic performance was pretty thrilling, you got yourself within a shot or two of being in the playoff, but what did you learn from that week?

JARROD LYLE: Well, I learned a lot. After watching Craig Parry the last few days in that tournament, he was never really challenging I suppose. But the last three holes of the third round, he made three birdies to get himself back in the tournament. And then he made three bogeys midway through the last round and was almost counting it out, but then all of a sudden he charged up winning; and I did the opposite, went backwards and finished third.

I learned just you never give up. Things happen for different reasons and funny things happen. So just took it one shot at a time and don't get ahead of yourself. At one stage of the tournament I got ahead of myself and I'm thinking, "I'm leading, I'm going to win." All of the sudden, I hit in the trees and came back. That's probably one thing I learned, and I suppose it was maybe just a little bit of an experience, too, being in that position for the first time.

End of FastScripts.

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