|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
CHILDREN'S MIRACLE NETWORK CLASSICNovember 13, 2010Roland ThatcherLAKE BUENA VISTA, FLORIDA MARK STEVENS: Okay. Roland Thatcher, got a four-stroke lead heading into the final round. If you could talk a little bit about your round today, and then your thoughts going into the final day with the lead. ROLAND THATCHER: Well, I got off to a slow start making a bogeying the first hole and a really slow finish doubling 17 an bogeying 18, but most of the time when you have a day like that, it's going to be a pretty poor one, but fortunately for me I sand wedged six birdies into the middle 15 holes, and that kept the round respectable. Obviously standing on 17 tee at 21 under, pretty disappointed to end up at 18, but I still got a good chance tomorrow to go out and post a sub-70 round and should have a good chance to win the golf tournament. MARK STEVENS: Okay. Questions? Q. Roland, if you could just kind of take us through the 17 hole there and your approach. ROLAND THATCHER: Yeah. Actually, you know, shoot, I did the hard part. The hard part is that tee shot, and I hit a great tee shot, 300-plus straight down the middle, had everything going for me there. I was in between the number, I was in between the 6 and the 7, and unfortunately for me there, I didn't commit to the shot I had chosen. That's one thing I've been doing really well all week, but I did not do very well in that fairway. And I chose a 6-iron, and I just kind of quit on the swing. And it was a poor shot. I honestly did not think it was going to be far enough right to end up in the hazard, but bounded down that hill and ended up down in the mud. A lie that you have to play. It was sitting up enough still to play. I just misjudged it. Had to crawl down in there quite a bit. The footing wasn't quite as solid as it looked. So there was a lot of other variables going on in that. But when all was said and done, after hitting over the green, I was getting the next one up-and-down, I made a 6 in a situation where I really only made two bogeys up to that point for the week. And then haul off with a weak swing at 18 and make another bogey. It was a pretty brutal finish. Q. You still got a four-shot lead, but for a while there you were kind of running away with it. Do you think you lost concentration or anything? ROLAND THATCHER: I don't think the situation made me lose concentration more than anything else. It wasn't because I had a lead of whatever many strokes it was at the time. It wasn't that. It was more due to the actual numbers and the club choice and just me not resetting myself to make the swing I need to make. Q. When Chris was in here just a minute ago, he complimented just about everything you were doing, but he kind of just sat there and said, "he's making all these long putts today." You know, talk about your putting this week and being able to make those 10 and 15-footers. ROLAND THATCHER: Yeah. I really made almost every makeable putt I had for a while today. And that was, you know, it's still unexpected. I've never been a fantastic putter by any stretch, but this week they're working. I'm seeing the lines real well, and I'm able to make the stroke that I've got in my head. And if I could keep doing that tomorrow, I've got a pretty good chance for more putts to go in. Q. Is it safe to say you're in a better position maybe now than you were a year ago? ROLAND THATCHER: Yeah. You know, yes and no. A year ago I missed the cut. I came into this event 119th on the Money List. I missed the cut quite badly, and I had a pretty stressful weekend watching scores and constantly hitting "refresh" on the computer. So in a way I'm in a much better situation because I control my own destiny, and that's a quality thing. And I have a chance to win a tournament, which is huge. But there's still a lot of questions about tomorrow and my finish tomorrow and where that ends up on the Money List in the overall scheme of things. So I know if I go out and play well tomorrow, if I shoot something in sub-70, I've got a pretty good chance to get one of those top two spots for me and pretty good chance to win the tournament. Q. You literally sat there and refreshed the page all day Sunday? ROLAND THATCHER: Yeah. All day Saturday and Sunday. My wife left the house. She actually called my best friend at the time to come over and basically baby-sit me. She couldn't deal with it anymore. I didn't blame her either. That was probably not the best way to handle it, but I probably hit "refresh" every three minutes for the better part of four hours that day. Worst thing I could have ever done is I found one of the links through pgatour.com that had the live projected money up to date, and that was probably a bad -- because I was going up and down. I dropped down to 124 a few times and keeping my card by like a thousand dollars or something. So I was not in a good mental frame of mind at that point. But ended up only falling two spots and grabbed the 121st spot, and I couldn't have been happier. Q. Was there any point, though, where you after hitting "refresh" for the 287th time, did you say what am I doing; this is crazy. I need to walk away for a couple of hours? ROLAND THATCHER: Yeah. I walked away for all of about a minute and a half and then walked right back. Yeah. At least this week, regardless of what happens tomorrow, I'm in charge of it. I don't need to be sitting there -- it's a very uncomfortable situation to be really rooting against your friends is what it really comes down to. As crass as that sounds, that's what I was doing last year, and this year all I need to be doing is rooting for me. Q. Does it help, too, that with you it's really fairly well cut and dry? Once you're done, you're either in or you're not. ROLAND THATCHER: Right. Q. And this weekend last year was just -- ROLAND THATCHER: Yeah. Definitely. I mean at the end of tomorrow's round I'm going to know for sure what my opportunities are for next year. MARK STEVENS: Anything else? Okay. Thanks a lot, Roland. Good luck tomorrow. ROLAND THATCHER: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|