THE INTERNATIONAL

August 5, 2003

Briny Baird

BRINY BAIRD: I'm very pleased with the success and the year I've had so far and how things have been going with the media. Canon was already and is already donating money to the National Center for Missing Children. They decided to try to put the two together and they came up an idea to put it on the golf ball and they proposed it to my agent and myself and said, what do you think about this, and it was a very easy decision to say yes to.

Q. (Inaudible.)

BRINY BAIRD: It's been excellent. I've gotten all positive responses, people just saying it's a great thing to do, and it is. You can just sum it up in those words: It's just a really good thing to do. It's really easy for myself to do it. It doesn't take any effort, and it was just a great idea that someone came up with.

Q. Who approached you?

BRINY BAIRD: Someone from Canon. It's called the Canon For Kids Program.

Q. (Inaudible.)

BRINY BAIRD: There was a girl that was found but it was unrelated to the golf bag. The girl I had on, I think her name was Catherine Dudley (ph) the week of the Byron Nelson. She was found and it was completely unrelated to the golf bag. The father called and got in touch where my agent to make sure that I had gotten the news and that he was thankful for everything that we did, even though it was unrelated. It was the week of the Byron Nelson. You can problem find it just to make sure but I think that's the correct name.

Q. Have you heard from any of the other parents?

BRINY BAIRD: Yeah, I had lunch -- the lady came out, her boy was missing. It was the week of the Western, and she called up and said they wanted to come out and the police officer who was investigating the case tried to bring her out on Tuesday; he couldn't bring her out there. She doesn't have a car which made it all that much more kind of depressing, the story. The lady obviously does not have much money. It's probably even harder for her -- I don't know if you have to pay to try to -- how to go about trying to find your child, but it's been three years. The officers agreed to bring her out. So they brought her out on Thursday and she was there when I was wrapping up my round. It was kind of ironic, I'm getting upset with the way I'm playing, I was like 6- or 7-over par finishing and I obviously recognized her and knew that it was her. Todd was out there, I saw Todd, the media guy, and saw her standing next to him, and thought, gee, here I am, what nerve do I have to get upset with the way I played, and this lady wants to just come out and say thank you in person. Nothing more than that, just thank you. She was a Spanish lady, her English was good. It was fun to talk to her. Turns outs we go inside and we have lunch inside, the three of us. Her name was Arocelli (ph).

Q. Inaudible?

BRINY BAIRD: There's the sheet that I have back at my hotel room and I've got two or three sentences on each person, whether it's wardrobe, doesn't matter, and I didn't even look at it last night. I forgot to look at it.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: The best way to get the photo is to go and take a picture of his bag. I might be able to get one through the Internet for you.

Q. How and why did they select you to do this?

BRINY BAIRD: I was already with Canon. It's called the Canon For Kids Program. There's only two people, I think maybe three now. There was only two people at the time that were with Canon, myself and Davis Love. I don't know why they chose me.

Q. Anything in your background or your life?

BRINY BAIRD: No.

Q. (Inaudible.)

BRINY BAIRD: Canon will donate $100 for every birdie I make for the entire year and $200 for every eagle and in a will add up to $40,000 or $50,000 that I will donate to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Q. What's been the players' response?

BRINY BAIRD: Everything I've heard from the players and it has not been just one or two, I've been approached by eight to ten different players, which is unusual, unless it's a really good friend of yours. I've had several people that I would not consider great friends, just because we don't know each other that well, come up and say, "That's a really, good thing you're doing."

The way I look at it, it's so easy for my to do. I don't feel like I'm really making an effort to do anything, other than just it was a great idea that was approached, and yeah, I agreed to do it, but it's not like I'm up there doing back-breaking work. Sometimes it's kind of embarrassing that people tell what you a great thing that is, but you have to try to put things in perspective. It's really easy for myself to do.

Q. How many times and for how long --

BRINY BAIRD: It started at Hilton Head. The birdies and the eagles starts from the beginning of the year, but the first time they were able to get a picture and figure out the best way to do it where it actually looked presentable on a golf back was Hilton Head.

Q. How long ago?

BRINY BAIRD: April, the week after the Masters. Every week I play. It arrives Monday in the locker room -- probably 12. It arrives Monday in the locker room by FedEx in an envelope. It's never not been there. I was here yesterday and it was here. I just open it up and put it in.

Q. (Inaudible.)

BRINY BAIRD: By far.

Q. Are you surprised by how rewarding it turned out to be?

BRINY BAIRD: My agent told me some things, like we are going to release some stuff to the Associated Press, and I'm like, what is my agent thinking? I thought he was just blowing the whole thing out of proportion, just hoping that the media would pick up on it, it would get some good media exposure, it's got a lot. The phone number, 1-800-THE-LOST gets mentioned a lot, and the more people that know the phone number, to me that's more important than the girl's picture because the chances are that it will be recognized by someone that sees it. It's possible.

A professional photographer took pictures -- before all of this was done, I had put every single person in the bag when I was home and they were done digitally.

Q. Has this helped your game?

BRINY BAIRD: No, I don't think it helped my game. Just coincidental that I maybe started playing.

Q. Seems you should be feeling better about yourself, this is an important thing.

BRINY BAIRD: Oh, definitely. Yeah, there's times I look over there --

Q. Take this and run with it.

BRINY BAIRD: Sometimes I look over at my golf bag, when I'm playing terrible and sometimes I'm like, hey, that could easily be my kid on there, my daughter that we just had five months ago. Or it could be someone that I know on there, a brother when I was younger. And then other times I look over there when things are going well and I'm like, oh, God that's so sad. Sometimes that can have the reverse effect at times, you get kind of, oh, you see this little girl on that's on there this week, things like that. But for the most part, you look at it and it's a really good thing to do.

Q. Speaking of golf -- what's going good?

BRINY BAIRD: Everything. Sometimes the ball goes in the hole a little faster some weeks than others. You really can't put a finger on it, timely putting. Last week I drove the ball really well. I didn't make any bogeys my second, third or fourth round last week. That's pretty hard to do. So when you're going to do that you're going to play really well.

The week before, just took two weeks off just coming into these last two weeks, so being nice and rested -- I didn't play the British or Milwaukee the week before. So maybe just being nice and rested did me some good.

Q. Is it time to win?

BRINY BAIRD: Oh, it's definitely time to win. Am I going to lose sleep over not winning? No. But, yeah, it would be great to win, no doubt.

Q. Do you have a lot of experience playing in altitude?

BRINY BAIRD: No, I don't have that much experience. I've played the U.S. Amateur when I was here. This is my third or fourth time I've played in this tournament.

Q. Do you have a handle on pulling the right club?

BRINY BAIRD: No, I don't think -- I don't think anybody does. Like when I just walked off the golf course just now, it's amazing that people shoot the scores they shoot out here and makes as many birdies as they do because the greens are firm, they are fast. There's really small quadrants on these greens so you have to be really precise with you where hit it on your distance control and you're playing 8 to 12 percent thinner air, so makes it tough. I think it's an advantage to people that have probably played here more. Although Rich Beem did not play here that many times and he did all right last year.

Q. Said it's tough, but is it fun, do you enjoy playing it?

BRINY BAIRD: Oh, yeah. I could have easily skipped this week and gone home and prepared that way for the PGA. This week is fun. There's more than just golf is fun. The food here is great. The atmosphere is really, really nice. The weather, it's 92 degrees but you don't really break a sweat out there and it's nice. I like playing the week before a tournament. I don't like taking -- obviously, I played got last two weeks and had to two weeks off before that. Normally I like to play leading up to a tournament I'd like to play well in. It's funner if you have a bad week and pick up. What other event can you do that?

Q. (Inaudible.)

BRINY BAIRD: Definitely can't make an 8. If you make an 8, you're cheating the wrong way.

Q. Do you remember anything from last year?

BRINY BAIRD: Windy.

Q. Any unusual club selection?

BRINY BAIRD: Yeah, I think I hit 3-wood, sand wedge into 17 last year. The weather was ridiculous. Some people got caught in the wrong way -- it must have been early then late. Anybody who played late on Friday last year was, forget about it. I guess 70 guys in each wave, there could not have been more than 20 guys who made the cut in that wave. It was as windy as I've ever played in and that's not good on a place that's firm.

Q. That was win-induced?

BRINY BAIRD: Oh, yeah, thin air, doesn't matter if it's thin, thick, whatever.

End of FastScripts....