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U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 16, 2011

Alexandre Rocha

BETHESDA, MARYLAND

Q. Tell us about your round.
ALEXANDRE ROCHA: Well what part of it? The beginning, the middle or the end?

Q. Go over the round.
ALEXANDRE ROCHA: I must say before anything else that my first tee shot ever in a Major championship was the 10th hole out here at Congressional. It's a 4-iron over the water the whole time. I've never, ever, ever been so nervous in my life. Ever. The only thing I could feel was my heartbeat go off my chest but nothing else, no other body parts. And something clicked after that. I was walking down the hole thinking you just got done with the worst part, the most difficult part was that first tee shot, and for whatever reason that really calmed me down.
And from the second hole on -- the 11th hole, my second hole, onwards, I was in perfect control of my emotions out there, and therefore my ball flight, which was great. I haven't been doing that this year. So it's a nice positive for me.
I had four birdies and two bogeys. The bogeys came before the birdies did, but it didn't do anything to my psyche or my confidence. I kept on trucking. And I'm not really sure how it is that I just did that. But here I am.

Q. Tell us about the condition of the course, what were your thoughts on the course?
ALEXANDRE ROCHA: You know, it's great. It's the U.S. Open, so it's always going to be tough and it's supposed to be tough. But it's extremely fair, which I've never played a Major before, let alone a U.S. Open, but from what I gather, it can get sometimes or it has gotten sometimes in the past a little tricky. It's absolutely just in front of you. It's fair as can be. You hit a good shot and you'll be rewarded with a par, the occasional birdie. If you hit a bad shot, you pay and that's how it should be, this is the U.S. Open. It's phenomenal.

Q. When did you first practice on this course?
ALEXANDRE ROCHA: Tuesday morning.

Q. Was it your first time on?
ALEXANDRE ROCHA: It was my first time on, yes.

Q. Your impression of the course when you first saw it, were you surprised that it was as playable as it was?
ALEXANDRE ROCHA: I must say, yes. It really helped calm me down, also, because I've come in here this week on my rookie on the PGA Tour, and not really far from playing well, but I haven't really put the puzzle together. It's either my driving that's not good or my putting that's not good on any given day. Today, I had everything on. And I think what happened is that I was calm and one of the reasons that I was calm is when I saw the course, I thought it isn't the blood bath that I was expecting. It's a great golf course. And it's a very, very hard golf course. But it's very, very, very fair. And I can deal with that. I feel safe out there. I feel like it's all on me. If I miss a shot, I'll pay for it. If I don't miss a shot, I won't have any trouble. Obviously that's not possible, you're going to play, you're going to miss shots. But the point being that it's all on you, which makes me feel that I have maybe a little bit more control over what's going on.

Q. You said you're playing in your first major. Talk about your emotions, say, a month ago or two weeks ago, especially with what is made of the USGA setups, they can be such monsters, and there's so much made about making it the toughest test of golf. Was it like you came here and said, oh, this isn't so bad?
ALEXANDRE ROCHA: Well, I want to make sure that I don't come across wrong. This course out there, it is brutal, right? It is the toughest test in golf. There's no question about it. And over the course of four days, you'll see that it will play as such, I think.
The weather being a little overcast and the sun not being able to bake things out kind of made it a little bit friendlier today. But needless to say, guys that are playing well are shooting good scores out there because they're golfing their ball properly on my given day. But what you said, it's not true that I showed up on Tuesday morning and said, oh, this is nice. Yes, it's nice, but I fully understood and I felt like it was a brutal test of golf. Very, very hard, but fair. I keep going back to fair because if a course is unfair then the golfer doesn't necessarily feel like if he has control of his ball flight that he still can score well, because you're depending upon different bounces and basically luck breaks or lack thereof. But if the course is fair, it's all on you. If you feel like you're playing well, then you can play the course. Which I think they got it spot on, the USGA, spot on, it's phenomenal, it's great.

Q. Y.E. Yang was talking about just how dangerous it is to get behind and then have to try to catch up on a U.S. Open type of course. 2-under par, I mean, just talk about your thoughts about going into tomorrow and being in a position where you don't feel like you have to make up ground?
ALEXANDRE ROCHA: It's a huge bonus to begin with. If I were to sit here and tell you that I'm in great position for the rest of the week because I'm looking at the top of the leaderboard and -- I've never won a tournament. This would be my first, I would be lying right to your face. For people to have the know-how or the pedigree to be sitting here, I'm talking about the McIlroys and Mickelsons of the world and Donalds that can sit here and say yes, I shot 2-under par, I'm in great position, I don't have to make up any ground. I am in great position, I don't have to make up any ground, but what I did well today is I didn't let that get in my way. I was very aware of the golf course and each shot. I don't think I've ever played a round that I was so into each and every shot that I hit.
The conditions or the fact that this is my first major or the fact that there are 40,000 people out there watching forced me into actually going back to that clichÃ©, I've never been able to achieve in my life, not even once, but today I did, a shot at a time, a hole at a time. I hear people say that. This is a cliche. I'm getting tired of listening to this. Today, it wasn't that I set out to do that, but I was forced in that. So now I can sit here and tell you that I know what it feels to play like that. It's great. The trick is how do you do it again and again? But, hey, one day at a time, we'll get there.

Q. What did it feel like to see your name on the leaderboard when you were coming in?
ALEXANDRE ROCHA: I didn't look. I saw -- at the end of each hole, there's a miniature scoreboard that tells you where you are or what your score is, and I looked, I glanced at those a couple of times, but I didn't really look at the leaderboard during the round, at all.

Q. Think you'll sleep well tonight?
ALEXANDRE ROCHA: Oh, yes, I have an 11-month-old baby, and yes, I'll sleep very well tonight.

Q. How long do you think this is going to linger with you, your first round, breaking par, you don't want to rest on your laurels, you still have three rounds to go, how do you keep it going?
ALEXANDRE ROCHA: Well, I tell you, I was walking -- Andres Gonzales and Bubba Dickerson were my group today and Andres, that's also my first major. And my first shot, which is also the 10th hole, was also his first major shot ever. So as we're walking down the fairway there on 10th, I said, you know, no matter what happens for the rest of the day, we've accomplished today that no one can ever take away from us forever, which is the fact that on our very first championship golf shot, being probably one of the hardest on the course, we both hit incredible shots. That's going to stay with us for the rest of our lives.
Now, fast forward five hours later, and I'm sitting in front of you having shot under par on my very first major championship, and the U.S. Open at that. Nobody is ever going to take that away from me. No matter what happens for the rest of the week, this is something I'm going to take with me forever. It can't be changed. I can only enjoy, look back and draw from it. I don't -- people don't write their life stories in a day. But all you can do is write a chapter at a time. And this is what I did today. I wrote one chapter. If I don't write anything the rest of the week, I forgive myself for that, because this round, nobody is going to take that away from me.

Q. You're very competitive?
ALEXANDRE ROCHA: Oh, yes.

Q. What's your swing thoughts that you're thinking about tonight in your round tomorrow?
ALEXANDRE ROCHA: I don't know. If I'm going to be perfectly honest with you, I'm sure at some point I'm going to be sitting there watching the highlights and thinking a little bit about it, and I'm probably going to get a little bit nervous. I expect to be nervous when I show up tomorrow morning. But, you know, not in a way that I can't really handle it or deal with it.
I'm 33 years old and I've played golf all over the world and that has to count for something, you know, as far as experience is concerned. So maybe this is an opportunity for me to really learn something, here, which is how to handle a heavy pressure.

Q. (Inaudible.)
ALEXANDRE ROCHA: We'll see about that come the end of the week. Pressure. I've done it today. And this is the toughest place to do it. There is no other -- the majors. I've never played one and I thought I was extremely happy and proud of the way today I accomplished dealing with pressure, which is something, by the way, that has been my Achilles tendon on my rookie season on the PGA TOUR. I haven't coped well under pressure on the regular Tour events. But for some reason I did it today, which I'm extremely happy with. So I'm more satisfied and actually relieved than I am stressed at the moment.

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