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VALERO TEXAS OPEN


September 24, 2005


Woody Austin


SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Woody, thank you for joining us for a few minutes. Great back nine today, a little eagle and finished up with that birdie for a 31. First time you've ever had the lead going into the final round.

WOODY AUSTIN: Yes, good to finally have the lead.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: How does it feel?

WOODY AUSTIN: Different obviously. I won't know obviously until tomorrow. It's all new, but it's all new in a good way, so there's nothing wrong with that.

Q. How about the final group?

WOODY AUSTIN: I've played in one final group, and that was just this year at Hartford. I was trying to defend. I haven't had too many of these.

Q. So you're obviously playing well?

WOODY AUSTIN: I'm starting to play better, yeah.

Q. On the 14th you had a 202 yard shot to two feet to kind of get you going. Can you talk about that?

WOODY AUSTIN: That was the turning point in the round for me. I haven't played good on the front nine all week, and the back nine has been real good to me. I thought I hit a pretty good drive, but I guess I pulled it a little bit there, and I got a good bounce. It hit the side of a tree and came out to the corner of the fairway, and I just hit a perfect 6 iron they said that almost went in. It was like a foot and a half. Those are the eagle putts you think you can make (laughter). That just really jump started my round.

Q. There was a lot of trepidation coming into today with the wind and the heat. It got up to about 103 today. Apparently the wind wasn't quite as much a factor as everyone thought it would be. Can you talk about that?

WOODY AUSTIN: Obviously the wind is tough. The golf course isn't so hard that the wind is going to make it unplayable, it's just going to make it harder. The guys that are playing good are still going to shoot good scores. I think that's why you still saw the good scores, because it's a very playable golf course.

If you're playing well, irregardless of the win, you're going to play well. The greens aren't stupid fast, they're not crazy, the pin placements aren't crazy, the rough isn't crazy. All the wind does is just make it play harder, but it doesn't make it play unplayable or stupid, I guess.

I need it to play that way. I don't want it to be a putting contest. I like it to be tough.

Q. This tournament now, I guess there's several guys within three strokes of the lead going into tomorrow. You actually are probably about the headline name of that group, recognizable, as far as well, you laugh about that, but you look at Mark Wilson and Bob Heintz; these guys have never broken through on the Tour. Can you talk about that, the fact that you're kind of headlining this group?

WOODY AUSTIN: Well, that's nice to know. I played with Bob today and he played great. He was one of those people that his score was not indicative of the way he played. He played from tee to green well, and he was just real tentative on the greens. The greens are pretty quick and he was just a little tentative with a few putts. He played awesome. I don't see him going anywhere. He'll be fine.

Obviously Robert Gamez has won in the past. He hasn't won in the recent past, but he's won twice and he knows how to play. He's also the hometown boy, so that ought to be interesting tomorrow.

Q. You look at guys like Mark Wilson and Bob Heintz, Mark Wilson in particular, a young kid, never been in this position before. Can you talk about what he's probably thinking? You've been there before.

WOODY AUSTIN: From what I understand, he made a couple bogeys coming in. I was shocked when they said I was leading because he was at 15 at one point no, 14 at one point, so I'm sure he's probably a little disappointed, but I would assume when he comes out tomorrow he'll probably be pretty excited and he's probably got to calm himself down and say I did it yesterday and I can do it today. As long as he stays calm he'll do well.

Q. Is that the same philosophy you had when you were in contention the first time?

WOODY AUSTIN: Again, it's going to depend on the conditions or whatever. When I won my first, it was at the Buick in Flint, and you knew you had to go low no matter what.

That day I was just trying to make as many birdies as I could, and it worked out. If the conditions are the way they are tomorrow, it may just be hang in there, hang in there and see how it turns out. Because even though it wasn't as hard today, tomorrow could be harder even if the wind is the same because the greens are more dried out, everything is more dried out. No matter what they do to saturate them, they're still dried out because they didn't get a ton of rain.

The golf course is going to be a little bit faster, a little bit tougher, and then you throw in the mix of Sunday. Sunday is always tougher than Saturday.

Everybody on Saturday, like you were saying, the scores weren't all that bad because everybody knows on Saturday that's their chance to move, so everybody plays pretty aggressive, not too worried about going backwards because they're like, if I don't go forward I don't have a chance. You get to Sunday, and they're like, I don't want to make that mistake, so it's an entirely different mindset from Saturday to Sunday, so I just think I hope the conditions are the same, and if they are, just play solid and let it take care of itself.

Q. Forecast for tomorrow, 104 degrees. How do you what do you do, slam down the

WOODY AUSTIN: Just keep drinking. I grew up in Florida, so the heat is only going to get you if you just don't drink anything. As long as you drink your fluids, you should be okay. I mean, I'm 41 and out of shape and I still seem to be all right. I mean, as long as you drink, you should be okay.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Woody.

End of FastScripts.

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