Q. You told me you thought the course was getting tougher and tougher each day?
CASEY WITTENBERG: It is, unless it rains for some reason today. I've heard that maybe it might. The golf course is just going to be playing even harder tomorrow. The greens on certain spots are just extremely firm and it's really hard to get the ball close to the hole and they're getting extremely fast.
Q. After playing two rounds yesterday and going 20 holes with Rubinson, did that take anything out of you or did it make it difficult to get started this morning?
CASEY WITTENBERG: No, not really. Obviously playing with as many holes as I did yesterday it was kind of tiring but yesterday was a long day and this morning you just had to gear up and just go out there and try and get off to a good start. It's really a key thing to get off to a good start on this golf course if you want to win. You can get off to a bad start and you get down and have you time to get back, but it's a really a hard grind, a long day if you have to come back from way done and yesterday afternoon I had to do it, and I was trying to get off to a little bit better start today.
Q. How do you feel about your putter? You had several missed opportunities but then you made some pretty clutch putts too. How do you feel about your putter; do you think it can get better?
CASEY WITTENBERG: To win the U.S. Amateur you have to make clutch putts. You don't necessarily have to make tons, but you do have to make the ones that are important. I've done that pretty well throughout the week and hopefully it can just continue.
Q. Talk about your play on 13. That was almost an unmakeable birdie on 13?
CASEY WITTENBERG: My putt on 13 there, George hit an unbelievable chip from where he was to even get that ball up-and-down it was quite amazing and I didn't have an easy putt as it was and it was so fast I was just trying to kind of make it but I was trying to lag it down there and I had a spot picked out. I rolled it over that spot and it was just kind of letting it roll down when it got with about halfway. I was like, I think that ball is going in, and then at six feet I said, there's no doubt it's going in. I didn't see the ball go in the hole so I don't know what it did. Obviously it went in because I didn't have to go pick it up or putt it over.
Q. You did a celebration there?
CASEY WITTENBERG: No, I wasn't really trying to mean anything by that; it was just U.S. Amateur is such a tough thing you kind of need something to pump you up once in a while and that was a big putt at a big time.
Q. And then 14?
CASEY WITTENBERG: 14, that one, they say -- I just watched it on TV. They said that it was going pretty fast. From where I was standing it hit the center of the flag stick and I thought it was going in. I really did. But it was just an extremely difficult putt. It's really hard to hit that fairway. You almost have to hit it down the right center. I've been in the left rough almost every day and my ball has been bouncing from the fairway over almost every day. It's hard to keep the ball in the fairway on that hole and unfortunately I didn't really have a bad lie but I had a bad enough lie to where I had to worry about it. So you had to kind of bail out a little left and I gave myself an extremely difficult putt and I was fortunate to make par but at the same time it could have gone the other way and I could have been two up instead of all square.
CRAIG SMITH: From the looks of things you sit here, you don't look like you're 18, you don't talk like you're 18; you're so composed and you hide your emotions. Usually 18-year-olds will be pumping fists and smiling, jumping. Do you ever get to show some that have stuff or is that all behind you.
CASEY WITTENBERG: I think that's all behind me. When you're playing the match you don't want to have somebody pumping a fist in your face and running around a green; this, that and other. I think there's times when you can show some emotion but as far as trying to be impolite to your partner I think that you ought to show him as much respect as he's going to show you. It's just a grind out there and you just got to keep your emotions as even as you can and hopefully things will work out for you.
Q. You've accomplished so much. Maybe we take it for granted a bit, but just how excited are you to be sitting in the semifinals of the U.S. Amateur?
CASEY WITTENBERG: You know, it's obviously been a huge goal of mine to be able to play well in the U.S. Amateur. It's our biggest tournament and a lot of people that are great players can't get over the hurdle in the U.S. Amateur. It's a tough thing and I've been put in a great situation this week and I'm just going to take advantage of it.
Q. In the large scheme of golf do you feel like it's a major championship?
CASE WITTENBERG: Definitely. Definitely it is. It's the major championship in Amateur golf.
CRAIG SMITH: July, the Southern, Porter Cup, your qualifier here which may be the most remarkable of them, you won by 10 shots and then you come here to do this. Just put the big picture on it for us.
CASEY WITTENBERG: It's been a fun last stretch of the summer. I'm getting excited about going to school and being at Oklahoma State and I've just played well at certain times. When I really need it to hopefully it will continue for the rest of the week.
Q. Are you really that cool all the time in everything you do? Are you just wearing that like a nice fresh clean shirt every day?
CASEY WITTENBERG: I like to think I'm pretty level headed about everything that I do. On the golf course there's -- people have different ways of acting and showing their emotions and I'm just trying to keep everything even keel. That's just my personality.
Q. You're doing well.
CASEY WITTENBERG: Thank you.
End of FastScripts....
