CANON GREATER HARTFORD OPEN

June 20, 2002

Briny Baird

JOHN BUSH: Okay, Briny, we'd like to thank you for coming by the interview room. Give us some general thoughts on how it went out there for you.

BRINY BAIRD: Today was a good day obviously. I played solid tee-to-green. Wasn't anything out of the ordinary except for 2 holes.

On 15, I hit a driver, which it's borderline a little too much club. The pin is only 5 on and it's sitting in a little bowl area where it's crowned really bad, and if you're not 16 feet of the hole, it's going to fall off to the left, right or off the back so my drive hit in there perfectly and stopped 3 feet from the hole. Obviously, a very good break. Ended up making eagle there.

And on 18, I hit a drive that was a little right. I thought it was out of bounds, hit a provisional, ended up getting a drop there. Hit a 5 in, into a little bowl, putted up the bowl and the ball went in the hole.

Other than that, everything was pretty simple. You know, fairways and greens, couple good par putts. Lag putting was a little suspect on some holes today, so I made some good 5-, 6-, 7-footers for par, but I hit it solid. I've been playing well the last month and don't really have anything to show for it, so I've been doing good.

JOHN BUSH: How far was that shot on 18 that you made?

BRINY BAIRD: 25 feet.

Q. 25 feet? How about your 2 birdies on the front, 4 and No. 6, can you go through those?

BRINY BAIRD: Number 4. I can't even find No. 1. Number 4 is one of the harder holes out here and I hit a really, really good drive, long, and I hit a good 7-iron to about 2 feet. So, I really didn't have much of a putt there. What else?

JOHN BUSH: 6.

BRINY BAIRD: 6 is a par 5. I don't know what 6 is.

Q. Around the corner with all the bunkers.

BRINY BAIRD: Yeah. I've got to visually find -- my mind is so sidetracked right now. I'm thinking what I'm going to do about lunch and then practice. All right. Driver, hit a good drive, hit a 3-wood into the left bunker. There was a hole -- it could have taken a kick to the right and it would have been up there close for an eagle, but it took a kick to the left in to the bunker, not a really hard bunker shot, and made it up and down. Made a 10-footer for birdie, nice bunker shot.

Q. Can you explain on 18 again? You hit it right?

BRINY BAIRD: 18, I hit it right of the right bunkers, and there's a fence up there. They played the fence just like they do the TV towers and the grandstands out here. Its called immoveable obstructions. You get relief from it and then you get a club length from there. For some reason, why that fence isn't out of the bounds, I don't know. I think it should be out of bounds. As you can see with my smile, I'm very happy it's not out of bounds.

Q. Did you go over the fence?

BRINY BAIRD: No. It was right up against the fence. Whenever those fences are out of bounds, there's an out-of-bounds marker so, you know, it's not a lucky break because you can hit it right on a lot of holes and not get in trouble. I assumed that it was out-of-bounds. The rules official, Dillard Pruitt, came over and said it's not, so I said, oh, all right.

Q. So you hit a 5-iron down?

BRINY BAIRD: Yeah. Off a suspect lie. My ball bounced around, fell off the green and then I putted it up over a slope from the fringe and it went in.

Q. So you were left of the green?

BRINY BAIRD: Pin-high, left of the green.

Q. First off, what's P.F. Chang's?

BRINY BAIRD: It's a chain restaurant, high-scale Chinese food. The inside -- for anybody that's ever been there, it's similar to an Outback as far as the food. It's nice, it's upscale, usually a lot of good-looking people inside them, and I think right now there's 66 all over the country. My agent knew the guy, and I'm now good friends with the guy that's the president of the company. I promise you if you like Chinese food -- it's American Chinese food, but it's the best Chinese food you will eat.

Q. That's in Phoenix?

BRINY BAIRD: That's where they started them.

Q. There's 2 in Phoenix.

BRINY BAIRD: Right. On the Tour -- there's not a golfer out on the Tour who doesn't know who P.F. Chang's is even before the hat. It was a favorite stop of a lot of the golfers. When they saw the hat, it was, no way, how did you get that deal? It was a jealousy deal.

Q. This was the first year?

BRINY BAIRD: This year. And people always want --

Q. Gift certificates?

BRINY BAIRD: Not so much gift certificates. What they want is to get in. If you go at 7 o'clock, minimum you're going to wait is an hour. And a lot of times it's an hour and 30, 40 minutes. It's just like when the Outback started out. They don't want the gift certificates as much they want on that list and I'm lucky enough I can call up and weasel my way into it.

Q. Talk a little bit about your dad. Obviously, your dad was a huge influence. Did he start you really early?

BRINY BAIRD: Yeah. Obviously, I had an access to the game of golf at an early age. Didn't cost anything to get golf balls, didn't cost anything to get clubs, we were a member at a country club. It was there if I showed an interest in it. I did show an interest in it. I didn't show any more interest in it than the other sports I played. Soccer was probably the sport I showed the most interest in. I probably made a wise decision in playing golf but, obviously, yeah, he had a big influence at an early age.

Q. Did he start you at 2, 3, 5?

BRINY BAIRD: They say I started at 3. I played in high school but didn't get serious -- and when I say serious, I mean year round. Even in college I knew -- I was going to Georgia Tech on a golf scholarship, and I took 6 months and didn't touch a club and played other sports, played football, played soccer. That was even after, you know, signing the letter of intent to attend college on a golf scholarship.

Q. Do you think that helps --

BRINY BAIRD: For sure, definitely. I think there's too many people out there right now -- too many fathers mainly, I don't think it's the mothers, I think it's the fathers, and they want so much for their kid to be great at golf because they see what Tiger Woods is doing, and golf is a really cool sport right now, and they push and they push.

You need some pushing. You know, my dad would shake his head when he saw me laying in bed about ten o'clock, and maybe hungover, and there was more times where he was like, you know, you don't need to go to the golf course. You've been the past 4 or 5 days. You need to stay at home. It's that stuff people have to realize, that it's a fine line between pushing your kid too much and not pushing enough.

Q. With the soccer games, have you been getting up early any of these days?

BRINY BAIRD: Tomorrow.

Q. Did you going to be --

BRINY BAIRD: 7:30.

Q. Have you been watching the --

BRINY BAIRD: Yeah. It's been hard with the times they've been on, but ESPN has done a good job. ESPN2 has been good at showing replays. I think ABC showed a replay last Saturday or the Saturday before. I got to watch us tie South Korea 1 -1. Actually, I take that back. I want to say that game was on a Sunday, and I had just got back from Westchester and I didn't go to bed.

Q. South Korea and Italy?

BRINY BAIRD: South Korea, United States. It was Monday because it was 4:30 it started in the morning -- or 2:30 in the morning, and I watched most of that game until about the 81st, 88th minute or something and then South Korea scored a goal to tie it.

Q. (Inaudible.)

BRINY BAIRD: No, it's fine. That's two-and-a-half hours later than I slept in this morning.

JOHN BUSH: Do you have a prediction?

BRINY BAIRD: Oh, the USA will win for sure. Positive thinking.

Q. Okay, Briny, thanks very much. Good luck the rest of the week.

BRINY BAIRD: Thank you very much.

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