	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

PGA GRAND SLAM OF GOLF

October 16, 2007

TUCKER'S TOWN, BERMUDA

JULIUS MASON: Here at the Mid Ocean Course in Bermuda, 25th PGA Grand Slam, Padraig Harrington 3-under; Angel Cabrera at 2-under, Jim Furyk plus-1, Zach Johnson plus-1, and with us right now Angel Cabrera. Congratulations on play today. Just opening thoughts on your round, please.
ANGEL CABRERA: Thank you very much. It was a good round. I hit the ball pretty solid all day. I didn't make as many putts as I should have but I'm pretty happy with my first round.

Q. Playing last week at Wentworth -- ?
ANGEL CABRERA: I'm not 100% but I think I will get up to 100%.

Q. Could you talk about playing this golf course, this is a new golf course for you, and did you play a practice round?
ANGEL CABRERA: Well, I didn't play the course much. Today I used driver and I drove the ball absolutely perfect today and that made it quite a lose easier.

Q. Have you ever played a tournament like this where it's very much exhibition and you still want to compete and play hard?
ANGEL CABRERA: I think it's a good exhibition tournament and we are able to show what we can do with a golf ball.

Q. Have you ever played with a microphone on? --
ANGEL CABRERA: No, I actually didn't realize it was on -- whatever I said, I said; I don't regret it.

Q. Could you just talk about the galleries and amount of people there? They seemed to be really charged up and into this event. Could you feel the people out there?
ANGEL CABRERA: Well, yeah, the crowds are very nice. There are lovely people over here. I was expecting good galleries.

Q. Which shot do you think that people will remember the most from your U.S. Open victory?
ANGEL CABRERA: The driver on the 18th.

Q. Do you think people when they think of you at Oakmont, they will think of the driver on 18 or the iron on 16?
ANGEL CABRERA: Driver on 18. It was one of best shots I've hit of my life.

Q. Because of the timing, coming off two bogeys?
ANGEL CABRERA: It was what I needed to win the U.S. Open.
JULIUS MASON: We'll excuse Angel. Thank you very much. Zach, some general comments on your round today.
ZACH JOHNSON: That's a good question. Up and down obviously; down and up. I didn't play great. Hit some very poor shots early on and as a result, made some bogeys and my putter speed was horrific and you know, once I kind of got -- I actually played decent. What was I, 3-over at one time, 1-over?
Yeah, so, there's some problems there. I played really well yesterday, which is frustrating to hit it the way I did today. I actually hit it very, very good yesterday. But today was another day and we have tomorrow.
JULIUS MASON: Jim, some opening comments.
JIM FURYK: I was disappointed. I had my chances on the front nine, had a couple birdies early, was putting really well and did a poor job on those short holes with my straight irons and I made some mistakes on the back and really I putted really poorly on the way in. I 3-putted on 16 and missed some good opportunities on 17 and 18. I'm four back and I really felt like, you know, I should have come IN a lot better than I did, but hopefully play a good round tomorrow.

Q. When did you get in?
JIM FURYK: Got in at 1:00 A.M. last night. The golf course is quite a bit different. The islands are obviously different but they are charming. And the golf course is pretty good, have a lot more straight shots into the greens here and you'll have a lot more short irons in your hands, and the greens here are so much harder than they were there.
The greens are a lot faster, so you can be more aggressive and the greens are very, very difficult and there are still not that many good pin placements, they are very hidden Todd. It was kind of a slap on the face me getting off the plane last night and just trying to get my feet under me to start the round and a lot of the pins are tucked and in bunkers and not really accessible in spots. So it was definitely -- didn't realize it would be playing that hard today.

Q. Best you can recall can you give us a quick time line of when you finished Sunday what you did Monday, when you got on the plane Monday, when you got here Monday?
JIM FURYK: Time-wise to get here? Landed at JFK, cleared customs, by the time we got to the plane, it was nine o'clock, about it was a long trip but -- then we had a charity Skins Game on Monday.

Q. Can you take us through your odyssey on the second hole and what were you facing there in the backyard?
ZACH JOHNSON: Well, yeah, first off, I had a decent drive and a second shot -- I don't understand how it went out-of-bounds. Basically I was up against a wall and my putt was to go beyond and I took my drop there and obviously had a 40-yard flop shot or whatever you would call it which wasn't a very full shot.
JIM FURYK: It spun back actually. It came back about that far.
ZACH JOHNSON: Did it really? I didn't even see my pitchmark. Then hit a pretty poor second shot, should have been a second but whatever.

Q. Do you know what would have happened if your ball had stopped on one of those concrete squares?
ZACH JOHNSON: The tiles and the walls are all considered one, like if you're on a cart path.
JULIUS MASON: Mr. Harrington, thanks for joining us, some opening brief comments and if you would not mind going through your card, birdies, bogeys and we'll go to Q&A. Thank you very much.
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: To be leading at this stage -- but that's not to be. Would have liked to have had the opportunity maybe to squeeze another couple out of the round, which would have been nice. Plus I didn't play very well, so I managed to hole the right putts at the right time. So obviously pleased where I am but I feel like I need to play a little better tee-to-green tomorrow because, you know, you can't rely on holing all of the putts that I did today.
JULIUS MASON: Let's go through your card, please.
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I hit it in the bunker on the third hole, long wedge out to the green and chipped it up.
Missed it pitching wedge to 18 feet and holed it.
Hole from 20 feet for birdie on 8. Par 11, hit 6-iron short right, and came out of the bunker shot, came up short but I holed a putt from about 15 feet.
The next hole, 5-iron to about 18 feet and holed the putt.
Hit a terrible chip probably six feet and missed it.
15, I missed it a bit left, over the back of the green and had about an 8-footer for bogey.
16, I hit 5-wood, lob-wedge to continue feet and got a nice read off Angel's putt and knocked it in.

Q. Did you do a good job of not letting the other players know that you were trying --
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I was struggling with my game so my head was very much down on working today. I wasn't feeling -- I saw a little bit of the nice coastline and scenery but in general it was very much a workman-like day when you're struggling a bit. Every shot was I was a bit worried. I know what I was thinking in my head, it was a tough day out there for me and luckily, as I said, the putts were dropping and it kept me right in there.

Q. Did you get in a full practice round yesterday and how difficult is it?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I played the Pro-Am yesterday so we got 18 holes.

Q. So this is the second time you've played the course?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: No, played 15 holes on Sunday, as well, or 15 and a half with the rain.
I played the golf course but the wind changed today. I quite like the golf course, three times you've played it and it's a big difference every time. That's always the sign of a good golf course, when it changes from day-to-day and it's never the same.

Q. Do you recall any putts early, that ran by the hole pretty good, do you remember greens like this, not real Bermuda grass but the amount of grain?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I think we have, yeah, I would think so. I think with condition and time, you get caught up that you feel like you can hole the putts. Certainly I ran my putt by six feet on 17, you know, because I was thinking I could hole it from the 20-foot. Yeah, you get a little bit caught up by the fact that the greens are very good and sometimes players hit gradually and if you get downgrain, downhill you're always going to have a difficult time.

Q. Not making your putts on a holiday, but does your holiday feel like a working vacation?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: It would feel a bit more like a holiday if I was a bit more in control of it. But when you're not in control, there's a lot of work to be done, so, yeah, it's a working vacation.

Q. What do you think of your trip so far to Bermuda?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Obviously haven't had much time to experience the island but it's lovely. The scenery is beautiful. It certainly feels like a place that I would come back to on a holiday. The people are very nice and everything is very easy, very convenient, obviously quite a small place. So, yeah, just seems like a nice place to stop off.

Q. Do you think there's any local knowledge you can pick up about the course?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I haven't spoken to anybody about going out on the golf course. When I played it on Sunday, I obviously received plenty of advice from some of the locals, but, no, I didn't certainly go and find anybody to give me that advice. But they were there watching, so, yeah, people would give me lines and things, yeah.
But as I said, the golf course changed with the wind and it wasn't the same as it was the last two days.

Q. Have you ever seen anybody play from someone's backyard?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, with were quite amused by the ruling that there was no out-of-bounds on the golf course and you could play from wherever you want so when it actually happened, it was different, different. That would have been incredibly unlucky to be out-of-bounds. You obviously just miss the green and it kicked back over the green and down the path. It would have been one of those that would have been unfair if it was out-of-bounds.
So, you know, I don't think the rest of us, we were -- I think we were happy to see things still in play -- you miss a bogey and it wasn't like he was given anything or he really wasn't. He's still in a tough situation.

Q. Anything like flying it over the clubhouse at Westchester?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Just ran off and doing other things. That's what nice about playing old-style golf courses, the ball does tend to get a few bad breaks around the greens, and you can end up 20-, 30-odd yards away where other greens, you tend to miss it by three or four yards.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297