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U.S. BANK CHAMPIONSHIP IN MILWAUKEEJuly 18, 2008Gavin ColesMILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN STEWART MOORE: We'd like to welcome Gavin Coles to the interview room here at the U.S. Bank Championship after a great second round 62, the low round of the week so far. Obviously caught on fire out there, and you had some moments of pretty good play this year. Obviously you were in contention in Memphis at the Stanford St. Jude Championship. You won on the Nationwide Tour. What seems to be going well for you today? You just mentioned your putting. GAVIN COLES: Well, I've been playing good tee to green and not getting anything out of my rounds the last three weeks. Today the putter decided it would behave itself. It found the hole a few times, and consequently I made a few birdies. I'm not hitting it a long way away from the flag, either. I'm hitting it close a fair few times. It's nice. STEWART MOORE: A lot of players have talked about the quality of greens this week and the speed being just that perfect speed where once you start rolling the ball you can make a lot of putts. GAVIN COLES: Yeah, I think today more so than yesterday. The last few weeks the greens have been a little bit slower and I've definitely struggled with my pace on the greens, and today I left a couple short. I definitely think the greens, the faster they get, the better I tend to putt on them. I don't mind if the rain decides to stay away, and it gets firmer and faster as the week goes on. I just like the course the way it's playing right now. Q. Could you go over some of your birdies, especially the last one? STEWART MOORE: Why don't we just go through your card, just the birdies. GAVIN COLES: All right, well, I started on No. 10, and I actually holed a bunker shot on No. 10. Q. How far? GAVIN COLES: I was like pin high in the left bunker, so not very far away at all. I don't know, 40 feet, 50 feet. And then on 13, the par-4, I made about -- I don't know, how far was that one? I can tell you here. It says it was 18 feet, three inches. The next hole was 19 feet, four inches on 14. I just hit a little 6-iron up there and I hit it pin high and made it straight across the green there. And then 15 I drove it in the rough on the right and had to just chip it down the fairway, and I had 60 yards left and I hit my lob wedge to three feet. Then I two-putted 18 from about 19 feet for a birdie. It might have been 25 feet, but 19 sounds better (laughter). I birdied the 2nd hole, I hit it to about seven feet and made a birdie there. No. 4, I drove it in the rough again and hit a really nice shot onto the green there about 30 feet away, and I made a nice 30-footer there. I just hit my rescue club out of the rough. I had like 200 yards or something, so that seems to come out and run good. Then I made like a 15-footer on the last for a birdie. STEWART MOORE: You hit driver on 9, too, right? GAVIN COLES: No, I actually hit 3-wood. It seems strange to have only made 116 feet worth of putts, and then you go through it and I feel like I made a bunch. Q. Holing out from the bunker on your first hole, is that like an omen that really gets you going? GAVIN COLES: No, generally if you would have seen the lie I had for my second shot I was pretty happy to get in the bunker. It was just one of those bunker shots, I had a nice uphill lie, and all I had to do was land it somewhere near the fringe and the green there and it just trickled in the hole and fell in the front. It was just the shot that you pitch and it went in. Q. This isn't the British Open but you've got two Australians and a Swede in the top four. Are you kind of surprised that all these international golfers are coming to Milwaukee and going to the top of the leaderboard? GAVIN COLES: I think if you have a look at every PGA TOUR event that's played and you look at when the greens are firm and the courses are fast, you'll see the international players are way up there. And when the greens are a bit slower and they're a bit softer, the Americans are up there. I don't know if that's something for the Ryder Cup setup, but it seems to me that that's the way it seems to -- it goes. When the greens are a little bit slower and a little bit softer there's a lot of Americans at the top. Q. Do you feel happy when there's a lot of people from -- a lot of international players doing well in a tournament? GAVIN COLES: I don't know, I think -- you know, it's like you go out there and play, and you look at where all the Aussies are, it doesn't matter which tournament you're playing, you look at where they're playing and how they're doing. As I said, the conditions generally dictate -- in Australia we grew up with firm, fast conditions, and you come over here and it's -- the fairways are watered and they throw a lot of seed around and grow the grass up and make it a bit softer, and you go out and try to shoot as low as you can. Q. If you look at the leaderboard, besides you there's a lot of guys ranked 300th, 400th, 500th in the world up on the leaderboard. And I'm wondering if there's something about this course, obviously it's opposite the British Open so the field isn't quite as strong, but is there something about this place where people who have struggled can kind of find their games here and make a lot of birdies? GAVIN COLES: I think that's just any week. Any week on Tour, the guys who play this Tour, it doesn't matter where they're ranked in the world, they might be going through a slump and all of a sudden they find something one day and the course happens to suit them and they read the greens well and they go in and that's what happens. You know, I don't think it's just Milwaukee, it's obviously the top 50 or 60 players are playing -- apart from Kenny Perry, of course (laughter), they're all playing over in the British Open. The field is probably not as strong as it maybe could be. It's a great course to play. It's fun. We don't play a lot of courses that the trees are actually in play. Q. This is completely off topic, but I'm curious, do you play with your glasses on? GAVIN COLES: Yeah. Q. Not a whole lot of people do that. Most people have contacts. I'm kind of curious if you find it difficult. GAVIN COLES: Well, it's sort of like this. When you've only got one eye that's a bit weird, and I just couldn't be bothered to get up in the morning and put one in. It doesn't interest me. Putting one in? What am I going to put one in for? Q. So one eye is 20/20 -- GAVIN COLES: This one is not very good. Q. What's the other one? GAVIN COLES: Well, this is the very first lens, I think, that you go to when you can't see in my right eye, and my left eye is all right, nothing wrong with it, maybe a little bit of astigmatism. I don't know about you, but having astigmatism and one of those little things and trying to put it in, getting it the right level, doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me. Q. Most guys, when you're swinging the club, lose focus of the ball or something. GAVIN COLES: I don't know, there's plenty of guys that play out there with sunglasses on. You get used to it. STEWART MOORE: Thanks, Gavin. End of FastScripts |
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