KEMPER INSURANCE OPEN

May 25, 2001

Lee Porter

LEE PORTER: I got here at 9:00 this morning and worked for about an hour and a half on it. And really loosened it up and didn't really bother me at all today, so hopefully the soreness is behind me.

LEE PORTER: I didn't think a whole lot really about being the leader. And I've played with small galleries before. Actually earlier this year, I forget what tournament it was, all three of us made birdies on the hole. There wasn't a single person there besides the scorer. It was kind of eerie out there, especially as dark as it was getting, and it's probably getting worse now. But it felt like we were playing a late round in Scotland or somewhere.

LEE PORTER: It was really weird on the first hole. The first part of your question, Mark McCumber told me pretty much riding back, back in the van that he was not going to come back. And I figured Chris would come back. He wasn't playing that poorly, he only had two bad holes starting off. Playing a onesome for one hole was kind of weird, and luckily the officials asked if one of the fellows in front of me would be willing to drop back, and Rick Fehr is a very good friend of mine and was nice enough to do that, which I think helped a lot. Playing a onesome in back of a threesome, in that situation probably wouldn't have been that easy.

LEE PORTER: Yes, it was, I finished the second hole as a onesome, and then two ball starting on three. I hit two shots on 2, and was hitting my third shot on 2.

LEE PORTER: Right, it was a couple of shots.

LEE PORTER: No. No I don't think that works out here. I may have sometimes before.

LEE PORTER: I guess that would be starting on 16, probably the easiest thing to do is go through the ones that were up-and-down. I got it up-and-down on 17. 2 probably was not a legitimate birdie opportunity.

6 was not. And 8 was not.

LEE PORTER: Yeah, it was. Like I said earlier, with the dark conditions I really had a tough time seeing the lines on the greens, and -- which was unfortunate, but I'm very glad -- I was able to get finished today.

LEE PORTER: 12, actually I did not hit a very good tee shot, hit it in the left rough and a 5-iron to about 12 feet and made that one. 14, I hit an L-wedge from I think 69 yards, something like that. I hit it a little bit back of the hole and spun back about three feet short of the hole. 15, I hit a 6-iron from 194 that landed probably had about an 8-footer there.