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FRYS.COM OPEN

October 14, 2010

Ryuji Imada

SAN MARTIN, CALIFORNIA

MARK STEVENS: Thanks for joining us for a few minutes after a successful first round of Frys.com Open, 6 under, 65 today. I'm not sure how much experience you have had with this course. Maybe just talk a little bit about the round today and your thoughts on the course. Obviously it favors your game pretty well.
RYUJI IMADA: Well, it favors my game today. It is a tough golf course. You obviously got to drive it really well, just not today.
I also got a pretty good break on 15 and 16, which I missed the green from about 90 yards, hit it long on 15 in the fairway. And I put myself in a pretty bad spot. I did have a pretty good lie and was able to get up and down.
And on 16 pulled my 6-iron left and trickled into the rough and Pat -- Pat Perez was only about three feet away from me and Pat pretty much had no shot and my ball was sitting up pretty good.
And I was able to flop it up there about four feet, five feet, and I was able to make that. So that kept the round going, and they would finish it off with a birdie-birdie on 17 and 18, which is really nice.

Q. You are sitting at about, I think, it is 107 or 108.
RYUJI IMADA: 110.

Q. 110?
RYUJI IMADA: Yeah.

Q. You are obviously aware. How comfortable do you feel at that spot?
RYUJI IMADA: Not very comfortable. Obviously the number is going to be a little bit higher than what I'm at right now, I'm assuming. So really got to have a good week, and hopefully I can have a really enjoyable week next week in Vegas.

Q. Seven months ago down in San Diego you were playing well. Looks like a good start to the year. What happens in the interim? You give -- (indiscernible) wins that, but you were right there high on the leader board. Did you think you were going to go from there, or did it slip a little bit?
RYUJI IMADA: Oh, it slipped.

Q. Why?
RYUJI IMADA: It slipped quite a bit. I got hurt. My ribs, I had a little hairline fracture in my ribs. I wasn't able to practice much. I was able to hit balls. It is never going to heal unless I took some time off. I was told to take eight weeks off, but I was only -- I was only able to take four weeks off, which it's still there. I feel it. It is not completely healed, but the bone is healed but ligaments around it is just not healed.
So it is not hurting me at all to practice. But, you know, it's just -- I know it's there and I got to be really careful with it.

Q. Was it bad? Did you feel it -- a twinge every time you took a shot?
RYUJI IMADA: Early in the year I did. It probably happened last year.

Q. It did?
RYUJI IMADA: Yeah.

Q. So you played well in San Diego with it, huh?
RYUJI IMADA: Yeah. I was sitting south side of the rough and I was flinching a little bit. It is not to the point where I can't play golf, so I just kept playing.
And about -- I think March I took about three weeks off. I didn't even play Tampa which was really disappointing for me. But I had to take some time off.

Q. That's really a danger in the sport. I mean, like Demarco played for a long time with that back problem. Are guys just, like, afraid their window of opportunity, I guess, is not all that big and so they keep going? They would be better off taking six months off and you can play the team sport.
RYUJI IMADA: Sure.

Q. They put you --
RYUJI IMADA: You know, if you have a five, ten-year contract, you know, you can take a year off and still come back fresh. But in golf, you got -- you got one shot. You got one year to prove yourself unless you are a major winner or tournament winner. And I'm not a -- I didn't win last year, so I don't have that privilege to just, you know, play decent and come back next year. I got to play well.

Q. You got to play hurt, huh?
RYUJI IMADA: Sometimes you do.

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