TIM HERRON: With my lean and everything? I hear about it all the time.
Q. Do you ever watch it?
TIM HERRON: Yeah.
Q. What's going on there?
TIM HERRON: What's going on there? I don't know. Listen to him.
Q. I'm just curious. It's tremendous body language. This is a compliment.
TIM HERRON: I think I lean on it even when it's going at it. The thing is I'm working the ball. A lot of people are straight ball hitters. I cannot hit a ball straight to save my life. I'm either going left to right or right or left or high to low.
Q. On purpose?
TIM HERRON: Yeah. Hopefully I'm doing it the right way. If the ball starts left, I lean this way. If I'm drawing it and it goes out to the right, I'm trying to work the ball back this way. I mean, I've done it my whole life.
Q. Were you aware --
TIM HERRON: I'm very aware. People give me a lot of grief.
Q. Before people started telling you about it or before you started seeing it were you aware how much you lean?
TIM HERRON: Yeah, but hopefully it's on TV. I think I struck a nice pose on 17. I held my pose. It was the only one I think all day.
Q. You talked about basically getting back in the hunt with these guys out here. Back during the Hope did you feel like that might have been something that hurt you by not having had that experience for a while?
TIM HERRON: No, I don't think so. It was blowing 40 the last day, I was hanging in there. After I made eagle on a par 5 I was the next one up on this hole, I had 284 yards to the bunker, hit a 3-iron. I just stayed in it, gave it the special lean so it could go farther. It went way too far and I hit a 285-yard 3-iron down the hill and it was blowing 40 at my back. I just got a bad break there. The next time I guess I hit 5-iron and then I'm still in the golf tournament. But that was tough.
I felt like I really matured by playing well the next week and kind of having a chance to win. That kind of helped me, I think, mature, if you can say that. I don't know if I'm mature, but golf-wise maybe I'm mature.
Q. That was the one that went into the rocks?
TIM HERRON: Yeah, but it was all set up from the tee shot. The weird thing of getting it down there, it was a very strange hole, but getting it down there and hitting back into the wind towards the hole where I could hit the ball and keep it close to the pin, but it was not the right thinking and I overthought, I guess.
Q. When you won Bay Hill, I would suspect of your three wins that's the biggest one for you?
TIM HERRON: Yeah, I think so. I think Honda, my seventh event I ever played, that kind of got everything going where, yeah, I can play out on Tour, and then Bay Hill, yeah, because of the field.
Q. Was it Tom and Davis or just Tom in the playoff?
TIM HERRON: It was just Tom, but Davis shot like 73 and didn't make a birdie that last day. How many times has he ever done that? He missed the playoff by one shot.
Q. You mentioned the strength of the field of that tournament. How much more would it mean at a place like this?
TIM HERRON: Like I said, a win is a win, but of course you'd like the purse higher and the field better and it's going to make you feel even better to win. But like I said earlier, a win is a win. I'm only one-fourth of the way through. I'm just hoping I'm in a position on Sunday to have a chance to win again. That's all you're trying to do is put yourself in position and hopefully it all comes together.
Q. Off the top of your head do you know how many of these things you've been in, the WGC events?
TIM HERRON: I don't know, maybe three, three or four.
Q. These top 50 Money List things you've been sort of flirting with.
TIM HERRON: When did they start, '99? I think I played maybe all of them in '99. I don't know how many they had in '99. Then I played maybe one in 2000 and I haven't played since.
Q. Have you been to Spain?
TIM HERRON: Yeah, I did the Spain. I don't know.
TODD BUDNICK: How about your birdies, Tim?
TIM HERRON: I only had four birdies so it will be quick. I birdied No. 1. Hit driver, wedge to about six feet short of the hole.
No. 2, hit 3-wood, wedge to about 45 feet, made that down the hill, hard right to left.
No. 12, par 5, I drove it actually left bunker, had to lay up, laid up at a perfect number, hit an L-wedge in there about five feet, made that.
Next hole, No. 13, had about a 20-footer down the hill left-to-right and thank God the hole got in the way. It would have been probably five feet by.
You know, that's the important thing. You can have an uphill putt here and you want to hit it firm, but if you knock it two feet by, you've got a two-foot downhiller. These greens, it's going to be a challenging weekend. It's going to be fun.
Q. As we look ahead to Sunday afternoon, where do you see -- if it's tied, where do you see this tournament being decided, which holes? 17? Do you know what I'm saying?
TIM HERRON: Yeah. 15 -- well, yeah, I think it's 14, 15, 16. 18 is a great hole. 17 is a good hole. I mean, yeah, 16 is an unbelievably hard hole because it's a par 5 converted into a par 4. If you don't hit that green, there's not really a place to miss it. I guess the front right bunker is the only place to miss it. You can't really get it up-and-down left of the green and you can't get it up-and-down from right of the green. If you do, you hit one hell of a shot.
Q. I had heard snippets of when you beat Tiger at the U.S. Amateur and that was about it. I was wondering if you could tell me what year that was and what you recall about it.
TIM HERRON: I don't recall. I don't think he was driving quite yet. He might have been 15. What year was that? '91, '92.
Q. Where was the course?
TIM HERRON: Muirfield. Was that '92?
Q. Yes.
TIM HERRON: You know, he was just a kid. He had potential and he was carefree. I kind of kept it in play, he didn't that day, and I beat him.
Q. Was it a big deal back then or no?
TIM HERRON: Well, it was a big deal because no one wanted to play him because they didn't want to get beat by a 15-year-old kid. When you're in college, you don't want to get beat by a 15-year-old kid. The way the kids are coming out now, you're going to get beat by 15-year-old kids now.
Q. You almost got outdriven by a 12-year-old girl.
TIM HERRON: No, I did get outdriven. Yeah, she was 12, so I get over that stuff.
Q. I know you did the Pro-Am with her a couple times, but there's talk she may get an exemption to the Sony this year. Any thoughts on that? Obviously this is nothing new anymore.
TIM HERRON: My only opinion that I'd give to her is that, you know, I know her dad is pretty close, but I'd just say somehow they have to separate -- parents can get maybe too involved at a young age, and I'd like to see her talents come out and hopefully she won't get golfed out. How old is she now?
Q. She's 13.
TIM HERRON: 13, and she's playing all over the world at age 13, and that's going to -- that's pretty tough to a 13-year-old, I would think, so hopefully she won't get golfed out and she can use her talents as she gets older.
Q. You don't have any problem with her getting that spot?
TIM HERRON: Well, what am I supposed to say? That's the way --
Q. Your opinion.
TIM HERRON: My opinion? Yeah, that works. I'm not that stupid.
TODD BUDNICK: Thank you, Tim. We'll end on that one.
End of FastScripts.
