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FUNAI GOLF CLASSIC AT WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT

October 20, 2005

Hunter Haas

LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLORIDA

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Hunter, for joining us for a few minutes here in the media center at the Funai Classic. Great start to the week, and we finally got someone at 9 under. We've had how many 8s. Just talk about the round out there, your round.

HUNTER HAAS: Well, let me see the card first. I signed it but I didn't really look at it like that.

I played really solid all day, one 5. I think that's the lowest round I've shot in competition.

You know, I drove the ball pretty well, and I hit the ball solid. I hit a lot of greens today. I don't think I missed but maybe one green, and it was on the fringe. I think I made a birdie on that hole.

I putted well, took my glove off told the guys outside, I took my glove off, I usually putt with my glove on, and it's so humid it's irritating and frustrating if I didn't have any talcum powder with it, but I took it off on the 3rd hole and started making putts, and my speed was really good all day after that.

Q. Are you thinking of making a change to no glove?

HUNTER HAAS: You know, I started putting with a glove on in Reno in 2001, and I've done it on and off maybe a few putts, taking it off. But not like the rest of a round.

It's been a while since I've played in this hot, humid, almost raining weather. Yeah, it might be a pretty good choice to do the rest of the way.

Q. Speaking of raining, with the hurricane out there, is there any thought to making hay while there's sunshine?

HUNTER HAAS: Are they going to cancel the tournament after today?

Q. I don't know, but there's a hurricane out there.

HUNTER HAAS: I don't think it's going to get up here, personally, from what I've paid a lot of attention to all the channels, and they're showing this big hook. I see it going farther west or just dropping out and phasing out. So when it hits, it's going to hit south Florida and barely be just some heavy wind and heavy rain. That's what I think is going to happen. But I'm not a weather man, so I'm probably wrong.

There isn't any sense of needing to do something I know they cancelled the Nationwide event in Miami, and some of the guys I talked to, we thought maybe they cancelled it too soon. But they could have at least tried to get two days in. I don't know, maybe I'm not thinking of the thousands of people that are going to be helping the event out, and it's not going to be beneficial for the people that are with the tournament and the sponsors.

But if it is coming this way, it's very serious from what we've seen in the latest happenings, and it's not good. I've got a rental car so I can head north. I'll have to get a map to take some back roads, but I think I can make it.

Q. You did have the advantage of ball in hand and lift, clean and place today looking toward the weather coming. How much did that help?

HUNTER HAAS: You know, I think a couple of my birdies were out of the rough. To be honest, the rough over on the Palm is not a cake walk. It's not easy. You can draw some nasty lies. In the practice round a couple of them I couldn't get to the green. But the ones I did hit in the rough, it was pretty thin, it was like somebody's balding head. I walked up, and it was like, yeah, I can get this out, and I ended up hitting a close shot, a couple nice shots and made a couple birdies out of the rough.

But the ball in hand, everybody has got it. I didn't have a whole lot of bad lies when I was in the fairway. There might have been a little dirt or something on there, but it wasn't that bad. It is beneficial. Scores might be a couple shots lower, but bottom line, the greens on the Palm are a little softer, and people are going to be throwing darts.

Q. I just wonder if you could assess your season so far. I'm looking here, you're 166, and whether you've still got a St. Louis Cardinals bottom of the 9th three run homer in you here. Or I guess it was top of the 9th.

HUNTER HAAS: Well, I followed that. I don't follow baseball, but I saw Houston well, use college football, Notre Dame getting beat by USC at the end. My season has been mediocre at best. It's just not anything I would wish upon anybody, but there's a lot of people that wish they were in my spot. It's a grind out here.

You know, I wish I'd have a million dollars in the bank and have my card locked up and just out here playing, just trying to make some more money or get a victory, you know, and sometimes things work out in funny ways. Maybe this is the week.

It's a struggle out here when you're not fully exempt and it determines you're getting to start. You're just hoping to get a start. If you're not picking the tournaments you're playing, you're playing what you can, and there might be a stretch where a guy like myself might play six or seven weeks in a row because you know you're not going to get the eighth, ninth and tenth start. Physically and mentally it's a grind, more so than a guy who's played out here for three or four years, five years, ten years, and knows his schedule and knows the 22 tournaments he's going to play this year.

Q. (Inaudible).

HUNTER HAAS: This year? No, Hawaii, Sony. I think I played three tournaments on the West Coast.

Q. How did you get your card?

HUNTER HAAS: Top 20 Nationwide last year.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: You started on 1 with a birdie.

HUNTER HAAS: Hit it in the left rough, hit a Rescue club on the green and two putted, ran my first putt eight feet by.

Birdie on 3, par 3, 8 iron, ShotLink probably has all the numbers

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: They don't. We didn't have it.

HUNTER HAAS: 8 iron probably to three feet (laughter). No, actually I think I was about 20 feet.

4, hit the fairway, hit the green with a wedge, ten footer, birdie. All these putts went in dead center, too, guys.

6, par 4, 3 wood, right rough, drew a nice lie, almost holed it, bounced right over the hole. I hit a 9 iron, and I made about an 18 footer.

7, par 5, driver, right rough, 7 iron, front bunker, sand wedge bunker shot to about a foot.

No. 11, par 5, driver in the fairway, 3 wood, front bunker, lob wedge to two feet bunker shot to two feet.

13, par 4, driver, sand wedge to six feet.

15, par 4, driveway right off a cart path, got fire ants so I got relief, hit 9 iron to the back fringe. I think that was the only green I missed. And I rolled it in from the fringe, from 25 feet.

17, par 4, driver, sand wedge to six or seven feet.

Q. Fire ants?

HUNTER HAAS: Yeah, it was just around a tree and there was a bunch of fire ants, mounds. The ball was sitting on like a fire ant bed.

Q. (Inaudible).

HUNTER HAAS: When you know you're under that hump, is that what you're saying? Fall Finish time, start of the Fall Finish, last eight, nine, ten tournaments. That's when you're picking up that Q school entry form, filling that out again, which sucks. That's it right there, when you pick up that Q school entry form and you tell yourself, you know, you'd better fill it out. I don't know how to explain what that feeling is like, but it sucks.

It was a week early, so the grind started a week early.

When you're looking at the numbers and the money and where you're at, it's about that time when you're starting to look at it and trying to figure it out and do the math and crunch the numbers and what you need to be and what you need to finish. That's when you realize it. A guy that plays well, he might look on the Money List to see if he's Top 30 or not, but they don't care. They're playing good every week.

Q. (Inaudible).

HUNTER HAAS: I don't know, I started last week at 7 under in the first round and this week 9 under. I don't know.

Q. Has your attitude changed?

HUNTER HAAS: Yeah, it might be a little more different, might be a little more free. I'm not putting as much pressure on myself. It sounds weird, doesn't it? I'm planning on going to Q school, second stage, in a couple weeks. But I'm out here just playing the best I can. Maybe that's a new way to look at it, but it seems to be working for me the last two Thursdays.

Q. Ryan Moore was just in here, and you had a lot of amateur and collegiate success and things like that. Could you just talk about the difference when you're playing for fun essentially and for the feeling of the game and just you talked about the grind and the physical part of this playing on this Tour. Do we not appreciate the difference, how hard it is?

HUNTER HAAS: Do amateurs not appreciate

Q. Do the fans and people think that a good amateur player should walk right out here and do well?

HUNTER HAAS: No, it's very hard. This many guys have done it, PH, JL, RM now. I mean, you know the initials I'm talking about, T. Woods. It's right here. Not many people can do it. It's very tough. Maybe I'm missing one or two guys. It's very tough. For a guy to come out and play well right out of college, you know, he was probably drinking beer having parties, hanging out and shooting the breeze with his buddies. Yeah, my frat buddy, you can come caddie for me. It's totally different. It's a profession out here.

I got my card right out of college, but as soon as I got out here, I got slapped in the face really quick and learned my lesson. I had some good advice from some other Tour pros and friends, and that helped me out along the way, but for I think what you're asking is is Ryan Moore what he's doing, his amateur career, and now he's turned it into his professional career in, what, ten events? It's pretty awesome.

Q. When you hear the hype about (inaudible), are you skeptical of it? Do you feel like that's a media creation, that we're all underestimating how hard it is?

HUNTER HAAS: No, I don't think that's there's going to be some young players out here, but week in and week out, you have too many good players and too many veterans that can get it done. You've got your Steve Lowery, guys like that. They're older what's the average age on Tour right now, 36? I don't know, I have no idea, probably something like that.

Q. Average age of winners (inaudible).

HUNTER HAAS: Well, Tiger is getting older (laughter).

Charles Howell hasn't won many tournaments, Sean O'Hair, he's young, he won, got his first win. It's just so competitive out here. I don't see five or six 22 year olds coming in and taking over I don't think. I don't see it happening. It's too tough of a game, too tough of a Tour.

End of FastScripts.

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