U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 23, 1996

Robert Floyd

ROBERT FLOYD: 10 I hit it in the left bunker and had pretty much no shot and I left it in there and blasted it out and conceeded his birdie. 10 he would have won with a par. 11 I missed about an 8 footer for birdie to get back to 3 up. 12 we both parred. 13 he made about a 12-footer for par to stay two down. 14 I hit my second shot that buried on the lip of the bunker, and he hit it to the front of the green, chipped up about 8 feet. I had about 30 feet and missed. And he made his to go one down. I made about a 4-footer for par on 15 to keep it one down. 16 I hit two awful shots; hit a tee ball way right that fortunately hit something or someone -- not fortunately hit someone, but bounced out and I had a pretty wide open shot and hit it in the bunker there and made bogey and conceded his birdie. 17 was the best two shots of my day and that's what you like to see. That's what I did on 17 is hit a 2-iron and 9-iron about a foot and a half. And 18 I hit a good tee shot and the second shot wasn't particularly good, but I was trying to keep it left and I was able to do that and I was really happy with my third shot. I had an awful lie in the rough. I was able to get it probably about 10 feet.

ROBERT FLOYD: Yes.

ROBERT FLOYD: Yes.

ROBERT FLOYD: 9-iron.

ROBERT FLOYD: Two feet at the most.

ROBERT FLOYD: Yeah, I've talked to him every night so far.

ROBERT FLOYD: No, he doesn't tell me what I should or shouldn't do. Obviously I've played golf long enough, and he's not criticizing nor critiquing what I'm doing on the golf course. He gives me advice, mentally, obviously. And obviously I take it. But he's not sitting with a video camera and videotape.

ROBERT FLOYD: He's pulling for me. None of my family critiques me. If anyone critiques me it's my mom and she knows the least amount about the game. (Laughter.)

ROBERT FLOYD: I actually, when I got up there, he had given me a putt earlier in the match, maybe twice that length. And when I got up there I kind of looked at him and he didn't give it to me. I was surprised he wasn't going to give it to me. I probably would have made him putt it on the 17 hole, all square. He picked it up right before he putted. No, I wasn't surprised.

ROBERT FLOYD: I guess it's going to be fun. I don't know, there's a lot at stake to be playing a teammate. That's unfortunate. But I've played a lot of good friends this year. ^ Joey Snyder and I senior pretty good friends and Jason Enloe and I are pretty close. I've played those two guys. And it's always tough when you're playing somebody you like. But it's golf and he'll be trying to win as much as I am.

ROBERT FLOYD: I love it. He gets all the attention, and let's you go out and play golf. I'm sure Joel will say the same thing. At Stanford Tiger gets the publicity week in and week out. Sometimes it's frustrating. You feel you deserve more publicity.

ROBERT FLOYD: To a certain extent. Obviously Tiger is under the microscope at least a hundred times more than I have ever been. I know what it's like to a certain extent. I couldn't fathom what it would be like. They've been talking about him winning his third Amateur ever since he won his second, and that's got to be tough. I said the other day he's handling it beautifully. He's got so many distractions this week, and he's able to go out and play, obviously very good.

ROBERT FLOYD: It's one of those things, you can tolerate the slow play when you're three up. But when it gets up to one up and even, you start getting frustrated. I was hot in the 17th fairway. I think it took 2 minutes and 30 seconds to hit the shot. And I had talked to the official way before the match and he said as long as you're under the allotted time, he can't put the clock on him. Obviously I was playing too fast, so he could take as much time as he wanted, because we were right behind the group in front of us.

ROBERT FLOYD: I was about 12 years old and him and my dad played a lot of golf together back then. And it was my most memorable nontournament moment. And obviously anytime you get to play with someone like that, and someone as competitive as that, it's a lot of fun. Him and I had a little game and it's just fun to watch him compete, whether it's in golf, basketball or jacks.

ROBERT FLOYD: Yeah. Michael thinks he's a better player than I am, or did then.

ROBERT FLOYD: It wasn't for money. It was for lunch.

ROBERT FLOYD: Yes.

ROBERT FLOYD: He's playing in Boston. And mom, everyone is staying away. They're all superstitious to a point that they're not going to mess up any sort of routine. I'm on my own.

ROBERT FLOYD: That's right.

ROBERT FLOYD: Right.

ROBERT FLOYD: Actually it's pretty much spring I played one. Steve pretty much played 2 and 3 all year. Me and Steve alternated 2 and 3 in the fall and Josh McCumber played 1 most of the fall. And then in the spring I played 1, I think, in every tournament and Steve alternated with Josh 2 and 3. So Steve has pretty much been the 2 player. He had a good year too last year.

ROBERT FLOYD: Yeah, he shot at the harder golf course. I said you've got the easy golf course tomorrow. Go out and get them. He kind of sighed. He wasn't happy, obviously. And then he went out and shot 66, which was, knowing you have to, pretty amazing.

ROBERT FLOYD: Yeah, it does. There's obviously a lot of good mid-amateurs here, too. It just so happened that it came out like that. It's just part of the draw, because any one of us could have lost at any given point. I think it says a lot about those two teams, the west coast and the east coast.

ROBERT FLOYD: I think it's very odd. We were talking about trying to split it up so we wouldn't have to play teammates until the finals, maybe. I don't think the USGA is going for that.