DEUTSCHE BANK CHAMPIONSHIP

September 2, 2006

Justin Rose

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Justin, for joining us here for a few minutes in the media center. It's cold and windy and you battled it pretty well out there. Why don't you just talk a little bit about the day and then we'll go into questions.

JUSTIN ROSE: You summed it up really. It's a battling, grinding sort of day. The course is playing very, very difficult. There was a lot of cross winds today so it was difficult to get the ball close to the flag. It kind of didn't matter for me because when I managed to miss the green I had a good up and down or managed to chip in. That was the key for me today. My short game kept me in there. On a day like today when you're not going to hit every green, the emphasis comes on the short game, and it came through for me today.

Q. (Inaudible.)

JUSTIN ROSE: You just want the good bits, right? The wind was hard off the left and I missed it I let it bleed on the wind and I missed the green right, quite considerably right. I was probably 40 yards from the flag all in all. There was a tree right between me and the hole, but where I had to sort of land the ball was right of the flag because of the way the green is banked. It was 10, 15 feet right of the flag to swing in. I didn't really focus too much on that. If I landed it on the green, it was going to feed down to the hole. I needed to get it high and soft to let it land on the green. Basically the green was doing all the work for me as long as I played it nicely.

Q. You had two chip ins today. How much of that is skill and how much of that is luck?

JUSTIN ROSE: I think obviously the skill is the practicing part, the right angle of attack. They were both out of heavy sort of lies where you had to really make sure you kept the club accelerating.

But also you need to learn how to read a lie. You need to learn whether it's going to come out soft or come out hot or if you're going to catch more of the ball or if it's going to feel more like a bunker shot. I guess that's the skill part. The finer points are whether you read the green perfectly because you don't really read the green like it's a putt. You have some idea of the break, but the luck is whether it hits the lip or goes in, you know.

Q. (Inaudible.)

JUSTIN ROSE: On 11, yeah. No, completely different shots. 11 I was just off the green, it was a bit more delicate, whereas 16 I had to open up the blade and I could swing a lot harder.

Q. The first time you played this course you shot 63, but I've got to assume today's round was a better round?

JUSTIN ROSE: Well, yeah, in terms of I led the golf tournament after 63 and today I'm leading the golf tournament after 69. It's equally as good. It's a completely different round of golf. 63 was probably played in perfect weather with the course playing shorter and easier whereas today it played as tough as it could play I would have thought. I'll wait and see about tomorrow first, I don't know. But yeah, it was a pleasing round for sure.

Q. Because of your experience back home, do you feel like against a field like this you have a bit of an edge psychologically or physically, with these conditions?

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, sure, I'm just thinking about it, really. We managed to do well in the Aussie Championship every year. We don't seem to be able to win that anymore, so I don't know whether it's an advantage or not. Certainly I grew up playing in these conditions a lot. I'd like to think when I see the wind blowing and when it's tough, it doesn't dull me. But I think it's a mental challenge more than a physical challenge, for sure.

Q. Mentally you walked off of 16 and the guy who was at that point leading the tournament had gotten a hole in one. I don't know if you were aware of that. At the time did that you weren't aware of that, so psychologically that was no effect?

JUSTIN ROSE: Who made a hole in one?

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Robert Allenby.

JUSTIN ROSE: No, I didn't know that, so I guess it's a non issue. I don't think at this stage of the game anything like that really affects your thinking. It's less than the halfway point at that stage and you're really focusing on what you can do because in the second round you're trying to build a three , four , five , six , seven , eight shot lead. If it's Sunday afternoon and a guy does that and you're one behind it impacts you, but not at this stage, no.

Q. You've held some big second round leads before, The Masters, Memorial, Wentworth. Did you learn anything from those experiences that you can take into tomorrow?

JUSTIN ROSE: I think the key for me is just to be free, really realize that you're a million miles away from winning the golf tournament. You're on your way, but you're only halfway there. So to think of winning right now is pointless. That's maybe what had happened in the past; those thoughts crept into my mind too early. Yeah, I have learned from that. Keeping it free and easy, that's what you want to try to do.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Can we go through your round?

JUSTIN ROSE: 1st hole, 5 wood off the tee and then a sand wedge to two feet.

3, I hit 5 iron which actually hit the flag, finished six feet away.

Bogey on 7, I hit a decent tee shot and misjudged the wind with my layup and sort of plugged it in a fairway bunker which I was planning to carry, so I had to sort of hack back out into the fairway and knocked it on the green, two putts from ten feet.

On 9, I hit a good shot second shot, but it came up short of the green for some reason. The wind seemed to knock it down, and then I three putted from the fringe from about 35 feet.

Birdie on 11, I hit 6 iron I was only probably 15 feet from the flag, pitched in out of the rough with a lob wedge.

16, missed a 4 iron right.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you.

End of FastScripts.