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U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP


August 26, 2001


Bubba Dickerson


ATLANTA, GEORGIA

RAND JERRIS: It's a distinct pleasure to introduce the 2001 United States Amateur Champion, Ben, Bubba Dickerson. Bubba, congratulations on your fine play today.

BUBBA DICKERSON: Thank you, appreciate it.

RAND JERRIS: On this trophy that's sitting here between us, the name of Bob Jones appears five times. Arnold Palmer's name, Jack Nicklaus's names. Your name is going to be the next one added to that trophy. How does that make you feel.

BUBBA DICKERSON: It makes me feel just overwhelmed. I really don't have the words to describe the way I feel right now.

RAND JERRIS: Can you tell us your thoughts as you came to the 18th tee, perhaps one of the most difficult holes on the course? And in such an important situation you, came to 18 and hit a very impressive shot. What was going through your head before you hit that?

BUBBA DICKERSON: I was just trying to pick a good club. I hit a pretty good shot this morning with a 4-iron, and it came up a little short left in the bunker. The wind was helping a little more this afternoon and I was debating on whether to hit the 3 or the 4. It was a dead, in between clubs and I just wasn't sure. And I walked to the front of the tee and threw up the grass a little bit and it seemed like it would help my fade a little, just a little. And I went with the 4 because I figured if I was short, par would be easier to get from the front of the pin than above the hole. And I couldn't hit a better 4-iron and it just barely made it to the green and ended up perfect.

Q. What did you have to the hole?

BUBBA DICKERSON: I had 230 to the hole.

Q. You played 18 quite a bit this week. And it's been a good hole for you. Does it set up nicely for your shot, or do you feel more comfortable in a tight situation than maybe some of those other guys?

BUBBA DICKERSON: Well, I think the key was I've had the tee on 18 every time out. And I didn't have -- I didn't give the guys a chance to hit a good shot before me. I think that you got 230 yards, somebody hits a good shot, then it kind of putts the pressure on. And I have had the tee and I've hit good shots every time. I think that's just put pressure on the other guys, and that's kind of just made me a little more relaxed on that tee than my opponents.

Q. Especially with that pin location where it was, and the shape of your shot, did you have a real good feeling about that knowing that you're going to probably fade it a little bit?

BUBBA DICKERSON: Yeah, I did. But, you know, the only place you -- or, at least, the only place I didn't want to be was right of the pin because you didn't have a chance. So I was wanting to fade it in there, but I was not wanting to overcook it in there with the wind. And I was just trying to keep it left of the hole and work it in there a little bit, but not a lot.

Q. What were you thinking when you were 5-down early? What sort of thought process at that point?

BUBBA DICKERSON: Well, I just -- one of the things that popped in my mind was, I watched Tiger play Trip at TPC, and he was six down with probably 17 holes to play and then he was 6-down after 18 against Steve Scott. And he came back both times and won the championship. So I knew that it was a long day and that my turn to score would come around on some holes where I could score and that we would be pretty close going down the stretch.

Q. Was there a margin after the first 18 holes that you would have been happy with if somebody had said when you were down 5 you could cut it to 2 or 3 would you have been content with that?

BUBBA DICKERSON: When I was down 5, 2 was what I was shooting for. I was just wanting to get down 2. And that's what it would have been if he wouldn't have overcooked that chip on 18. He hit a poor chip. It probably wasn't a very difficult chip. And he just hit it too hard and had a downhill putt and it was a tough one. But 2-down was where I wanted to be after 18 after being 5-down.

Q. And when it turned out to be 1-down, did you feel like at that point that it's a tie match, that 1-up doesn't really even exist?

BUBBA DICKERSON: I felt like I was still 1-down, but --

Q. Psychologically?

BUBBA DICKERSON: But I felt like I was -- my game was coming around a little bit on the last six holes on the back nine, the first 18, the last six holes. I started hitting the ball better. And that was more -- that was giving me more confidence than the fact that I was only 1-down.

Q. 17 is where you actually wrapped this championship up. If you think back, you made three birdies in four matches on 17 and you parred it the other time. That's where you won this thing.

BUBBA DICKERSON: Yeah. 17 has been my hole all week. It's a funny thing because there's a tree that sticks out to the left there right off the tee. And it really don't set up good to my eye for my driver because I fade the ball. But I just kind of set up a little squarer and just try to hit it straight all week off that tee and I've been hitting good drives there. And that's definitely been my hole.

Q. Well, you own that hole all right. Bubba, really the stretch between 15 and 18, not many 20-year-olds are mature enough to make their moves on that or anything. But do you have a conscious effort, are you trained between your dad and buddy and anybody else that's helped you, do you get into a mindset when it gets down to the last three or four holes?

BUBBA DICKERSON: Yeah. I think that everyone has worked with me on playing smarter on the tougher holes and just trying to take what I can get. I just -- I'm really confident on my driver. And on a hard hole you got to drive the ball good, first off. And then I'm just trying to hit it in the middle of the green and if I make a putt, great. If I make par, that's great too. But usually on tough hole you can't lose it with a par.

Q. The experience last year, obviously, playing the longer match, the 36 hole match, and then even longer at Public Links, how significant was that today in terms of, again, the mental framework of how you went through the day after getting down early?

BUBBA DICKERSON: I really didn't think about the Public Links too much today because I lost that match. And I wanted to win today. So I tried to keep that out of my mind as much as possible and I really just didn't think about it too much. I was just trying to win the match.

Q. Jack and Tiger count this as a major. Do you plan on doing that?

BUBBA DICKERSON: I'll take it as a major. I'm sure coach will take it as a major too.

Q. And again, as he mentioned, when you think of the names that are on there, and probably 98 percent of the great ones are on there, tell us a little bit more your thoughts, especially the course where Bobby Jones learned how to play golf. Did you think about that often this week?

BUBBA DICKERSON: It was definitely one of my goals that I wanted to get on that trophy. I think that it's every amateur golfer's dream to be on the U.S. Am trophy. And I thought about it my whole life, not just this week.

Q. Last person to win the Western and the Amateur was Tiger Woods. So what's that mean to you?

BUBBA DICKERSON: It means a lot with the career he's having. If I can have just half the one he's having I'll feel good.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about how you learned how to play golf and when you first heard about Bobby Jones?

BUBBA DICKERSON: What's that?

Q. When did you learn to play golf? How old were you?

BUBBA DICKERSON: Actually, I was probably a toddler when I first picked up a club. My dad was a scratch golfer in the '70s and early '80s, actually probably throughout the '80's. And I grew up in the game. I know my first actual summer I spent at the golf course was eight, when I was eight years old. From then on I was at the golf course every summer, every day.

Q. What course were you at those days?

BUBBA DICKERSON: It's a small public course called Deerfield Lakes Golf Club in California. It's just south of Hilliard. Hilliard don't have a golf course.

Q. How big a town is Hilliard?

BUBBA DICKERSON: 3000 people. Small.

Q. How big?

BUBBA DICKERSON: One red light.

Q. How big news will this be back in Hilliard?

BUBBA DICKERSON: Be pretty big news.

Q. What were you thinking on 16? How ticked off were you at yourself, kind of gave him a hole there.

BUBBA DICKERSON: Well, you know, I would have broke my arm on that tree. I couldn't have finished the golf tournament so it was a bad lie and I wanted to hit it as hard as I could, so bad. But at the last minute my mind and muscles wouldn't let me go through and hit that tree with my arms and it was in the straw and I needed -- I was wanting to hit it thin and I hit it fat and it was a bad lie. But I felt like if I can make 5 on the hole, it might tie. And if I made 5 it would have tied. But I just put it out of my mind and just went to the next hole, which was 17.

Q. You made some pretty good up-and-down's all day. He chips in for eagle, he chips in for birdie early this morning. Is it hard not to get frustrated when it looked like you might have had a hole won or halved and he got the short game going?

BUBBA DICKERSON: Yeah, it was definitely a little tough. He was hitting a lot of shots just over the green. Just over the green. They were pretty close to the hole, but you got to think sometime he's going to hit a bad chip from over the green on a good golf course with fast greens. And he just kept hitting great shots from right there. And I don't think over the green ever hurt him all day.

Q. He didn't do it until 15, really.

BUBBA DICKERSON: 15?

Q. He left that one left in the rough.

BUBBA DICKERSON: Yeah, 15. He left that in the rough and that was virtually impossible. He would have had to land that in the rough and trickle it down, which I was expecting him to do. But finally it caught up with him there.

Q. The ability to shake off a bad hole like 16, go to 17, the experience that you have had playing these big time national events, did that play at all into the equation?

BUBBA DICKERSON: I think that every tournament that I played in my whole life has built up to this. The more experience, the better. I think that I learned from every tournament I play, whether I finish fiftieth or whether I finish first.

Q. You took the lead for the first time on the fifth hole of the second round. And then what happened on 6? Was it a miss-hit or just a misclub?

BUBBA DICKERSON: It was definitely a miss-hit. But I wasn't settled with the club. I was -- I'd been hitting 8-iron there all week to the middle front of the green. And this morning I hit 9-iron to the back middle of the green. So I just didn't want to hit 9 because the wind was a little bit into me and I was just trying to hit 8 too easy and I just dead quit on it and fatted it right in the lake.

Q. When you go back and look at your statistics today between the two of you, you're not hitting more than maybe 75 percent of the fairways or greens. Is that -- how do you look at that in terms of your level of play through the week? You probably have had better rounds this week.

BUBBA DICKERSON: Definitely I played my worst golf today. I don't know what I scored on both rounds, but I was going through my round this morning and I think on my own ball I was probably 2 over par and I haven't been worse than 2-under par all week in any match or any round except for the qualifying score, and that was 69. I shot 1-under so. I definitely didn't play my best today. But the greens are harder, they're faster, the rough is a little longer today, so it's different day.

Q. (Inaudible.)

BUBBA DICKERSON: Definitely.

Q. Is that the beauty of match play?

BUBBA DICKERSON: Definitely.

Q. The tough matches you had this week, do you think that set you up for the grind down the stretch? He didn't have to play 18 at all during match play and I think he played 17 once. You had gone to 18 a few times.

BUBBA DICKERSON: Yeah, I think that it helped me be more confident with my clubs on 18 probably than he was. And the more you play a hole, the more you get used to it. I think somebody in the first match finished early and they actually played out their holes and I thought, you know, that was a pretty good idea because I finished my match real early but I didn't play out the rest of the holes, which you can if you want to. And I thought that was a pretty good idea. But then the rest of the week I went to 18 anyway, so --

RAND JERRIS: Bubba, we noticed midway through the match that you changed shirts. Any particular significance to the shirt that you're wearing?

BUBBA DICKERSON: There's an a lot of significance to the shirt. This is the NCAA National Championship shirt the last day. This is also the last-day shirt at the Western Amateur Championship. So this shirt means a lot to me. And after nine holes, four down, I figured I better go change.

Q. Any reason why you didn't wear it to begin with?

BUBBA DICKERSON: Because I didn't want to smell bad at the end of the day. But, now, who cares.

Q. Had you worn it yesterday?

BUBBA DICKERSON: No, I didn't wear it yesterday. It's only a last round kind of thing.

Q. It's kind of like Tiger's red type of thing?

BUBBA DICKERSON: Yeah. I guess.

Q. You were going to save it until the final 18 today?

BUBBA DICKERSON: Um-hum. I was going to.

Q. When did you change again?

BUBBA DICKERSON: Changed after nine holes.

Q. I noticed you went and asked Mr. Holland?

BUBBA DICKERSON: I made sure it was legal. Yeah. I was pretty sure it was, but I just wanted to make sure.

Q. Did he say as long as you got to the tee on time?

BUBBA DICKERSON: He didn't even say that, he just said, yeah, if you want to.

Q. Did your dad ever play any amateur events? You said he was a scratch golfer.

BUBBA DICKERSON: No, he just played locally. He never really played any amateur, any big time amateur events.

Q. How old were you the first time you beat your dad?

BUBBA DICKERSON: I don't know. 11. 10. I don't know. I don't know.

Q. Did he teach you the golf swing or did you go to somebody else?

BUBBA DICKERSON: Yeah, he definitely taught me the golf swing. He's worked with me my whole life until three months ago. A guy back there named Dan Campbell -- I started working with three months ago. And we just looked at it on camera and my swing was good at a lot of spots, but at the top it was pretty bad, it was across the line. And me and my dad, that's where we wanted it was not across the line at the top, but we didn't know how to consistently stop it there. And Dan's really helped me get it a little tighter and better at the top.

Q. He's down locally in Hilliard?

BUBBA DICKERSON: He works out at White Oak Plantation in Florida. That's a real exclusive place, but he gives lessons out there to most people who want them.

RAND JERRIS: Well, Bubba, congratulations again and enjoy the trophy.

BUBBA DICKERSON: Thank you. Appreciate it.

End of FastScripts....

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