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MASTERS TOURNAMENT


April 10, 2008


Jerry Kelly


AUGUSTA, GEORGIA

Q. Can you just talk about your round?
JERRY KELLY: You know, the front side is just typical Augusta fashion, two close ones for birdie.

Q. 2 and 3, right?
JERRY KELLY: Yeah, and then the next thing you know, 4 and 5, you make bogey. So you're playing solid, getting it under par, and then the next thing you know you're over par.
I've done it enough on that front side. It's tough. You've got to be patient and get them on the back. You know, you'd like to get it under par on the front, and that's when you know you can have a real good round. I just stuck to my game plan, pretty solid.
I started missing the driver a little bit on the back. The short, snappy putts are tough. These greens are really fun right now. That's plenty of grass on them, but man, it's really short.
I had some short birdie putts and I had work coming back, and I was playing for speed all the way through. It's just a fairly solid golf course, I guess (laughing).

Q. A fairly good example of you being patient, you got a couple over and just were not trying to get them back all at once.
JERRY KELLY: Yeah, I've learned to take your lumps around here and just keep going. I knew I was hitting it well, I knew I was putting well. All you can do is just keep working. There's no way you can go after this golf course. The only time you do that is the back nine on Sunday when you're down. Even then it's suspect.

Q. Your shot on 4 looked really good and came up just a hair short. Was that the wind?
JERRY KELLY: Yeah, I mean, you try and bring it in, the wind is coming a little left to right. Freddie got the same thing. We both turned it in and hit it real solid. Both of us were six inches away from having perfect shots.
That's the nature of this golf course. If I really wanted to be sure, I would have hit the utility like Anders did, but I would have had to hit a high cut, and then I could have landed on the back and gone ten yards over. You take what you can get.
I hit a perfect shot and ended up with bogey. I hit a good sand shot, rolled up, came all the way back, I hit a good putt, and then I still had a five-footer downhill slider for bogey.

Q. You hit a lot of good shots in the first four holes.
JERRY KELLY: Yeah, and then the 5th hole I got caught with mud on the ball. I didn't make a good swing because of it, but the mud shot it dead right. And then I hit a great pitch shot. That thing was crawling, and ends up crawling 20 feet by.

Q. Even par today is better than most people would have thought.
JERRY KELLY: Yeah, with these conditions you'd think without the wind blowing, but it's all about the greens this year, you know? They're tough. They're firm. There's some good pin placements that you just can't go after. You just can't say enough about this course, you know?

Q. Are you trying to say there's 18 sucker pins out there today?
JERRY KELLY: I'll tell you what, the one that's not a sucker pin I played the worst, 16. It's the easiest pin on the planet. I mean, you just whiff it to the right and you've got a chance of making a hole-in-one, and I pierce it up in the air and it carries with the wind, and I've got no chance.

Q. Are you good with your position?
JERRY KELLY: Yeah, I mean, I'd love to be under par, but I think I made a nice comeback today. Twice even. You're always happy with even par around here, and keep yourself in contention, and who knows what happens on the last day. I showed myself that last year.
Yeah, just keep playing the exact same way. I'm striking it well enough, and now I just have to hit the right slopes, I don't know.

Q. Anders had some problems on -- was it 6?
JERRY KELLY: He said he got laughed at on his first putt on the 2nd hole, and he goes, "I was shaking over every putt from then. I felt like Bambi on ice." It was beautiful. Then he hits that last putt up there, short, "nice putt."
I like him a lot. We joke around quite a bit. He's a good guy. That's just a Masters rookie day. It's just really tough.
What I told him is going up 15, he makes birdie there, gets it back to 7, that I'd take a Top 10 in a heartbeat. Chip away, if you're 2-under, 2-under, 3-under, you've got a chance to win, you know?

Q. Like Curtis Strange.
JERRY KELLY: You just have to understand what this course does to you, and if you get things going, you can really turn a really bad round around and still have an unbelievable finish. That's what majors are.
I didn't learn that until last year, I suppose, so I can't give him a hard time. I always tried to get them all back in majors, and look what I always did.

Q. Did you make any changes in equipment coming in here?
JERRY KELLY: Not just coming in here, no.

Q. Before?
JERRY KELLY: Yeah. I've made -- I switched irons towards the end of last year. I went to some cavity backs, the CG Reds, just so I could play the West Coast in the bad weather. Didn't help; still couldn't play the West Coast in the bad weather. But I can definitely spin it and get it up in the air a little more when it's cold out than I used to.
Same putter, put a new 3-wood, new utility in probably, three weeks ago or so.

Q. Nothing for this event, though?
JERRY KELLY: Nothing for this event. I'm pretty confident with what I've got. I don't feel like I have to make any changes. I just have to play my game. Give me an extra 20 yards and maybe I can vary things and go after it a little bit more, but me, I just have to take what this place gives me.

Q. One more Anders question. You said he got laughed at over a putt. What happened on that putt?
JERRY KELLY: It was just the crowd. He was up above it, looking at it over here, and he tried to play it along the ridge line and had it fall, just hammered it along the ridge line, 30 feet down there. The thing is, coming up 17, he goes, "It's a little rough getting laughed at my second hole of the day. I was a little nervous after that." He's just not used to -- nobody is used to it until you've played it. There's nothing you can play to get used to this.

Q. How remarkable does that make Fuzzy Zoeller winning in his first appearance in your mind?
JERRY KELLY: Oh, yeah. The only person who could do it is somebody like Fuzzy. You know, the way today's game is played and the mentality of today's game, I don't think that rookies can come in here and win because it's, I'm going to make this one. It's always trying to force yourself on the golf course.

End of FastScripts




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