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SONY OPEN IN HAWAII

January 15, 2005

Brett Quigley

HONOLULU, HAWAII

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Brett Quigley, thanks for joining us. First three rounds have been very solid here at the Sony Open in Hawaii. You put yourself in a great position to win your first PGA TOUR event tomorrow. Let's start out with maybe thoughts of possibly winning your first event.

BRETT QUIGLEY: Of course, it would be unbelievable. It's certainly the ultimate goal for me out here. But just go and try to have fun tomorrow. I've done a pretty good job of doing that, and a great pairing again with Azinger and just had fun. I got a new caddie this year and keeping it light. Not beating myself up.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: You had a couple of interesting holes out there, one of them being 16. If you could talk about that; you had a run-in with the TV compound.

BRETT QUIGLEY: It's a tough tee shot into the sun there and I never really had a good lie. I felt like I made a good swing and the ball went straight right. It was 80 yards off-line in the TV compound and made an unbelievable 4 there.

I kept saying to my caddie, Scotty, I said, "This is going to be a good 4," and didn't look like it the whole time. Made a nice 15-footer and got out of there with one.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: A little obstruction and you were able to take a drop.

BRETT QUIGLEY: Where it entered, the nearest point, I still had 220 to the pin or 225, just trying to get it out in the fairway and fortunately got it up-and-down.

Q. The start of your round, with the way 3 turned out and then the short putt on 4, after that, it seemed like you really kept it together. Two holes back-to-back like that, I wonder if that could get under your skin?

BRETT QUIGLEY: Yes and no. It's funny, I remember I was caddying for Dana, I couldn't have been 13 or 14, and Dana missed a short, short putt, couldn't have been two feet and I was devastated. I mean, I was going to cry, it was the worst thing I had ever seen. And he kind of looked at me and said, "I've missed shorter than that, don't worry about that."

I said the same thing to Scotty after I missed a short one on 4. I only thing about missing the short one is I had longer coming back for the par putt. With the greens being this fast, this much wind, I have a tendency to be too aggressive with the putts and did there.

Q. Isn't that what you've had to work on your whole career, not getting down on yourself?

BRETT QUIGLEY: Yeah.

Q. You're famous for that, at least in the Rhode Island clan, of beating yourself up.

BRETT QUIGLEY: Yeah, I think expectations get in the way. I'm probably the hardest -- definitely the hardest on myself than anyone else. You know, my dad and Dana and Fax are always telling me that you're better than you think you are, so kind of get -- let yourself go. Certainly trying to do that. Certainly that's one of my goals this year.

Q. Why did you have to change the caddie? Was he adding to that frustration?

BRETT QUIGLEY: No. I had a caddie for four years, actually I used my dad a little bit last year, and my dad is going to caddie for Dana a little bit this year and my dad has caddied or.

I can't blame my caddie for that; that's all internal. The guy that I've got now, we've got a good relationship and just keep it easy. I don't need a lot of help out there. I just need numbers. I don't have my guy reading the putt for me. I want to be responsible for my own misfortune or good fortune.

So it's more of just having fun, keeping it light out there, talking about sports, talking about cars, motorcycles, whatever it is. Just kind of get my mind away from golf and, then when it's time to hit the shot, I'm there.

Q. Outside of today, when you talk about that short putt, was there a situation this week where you know -- maybe I shouldn't say the old -- but assuming the old Brett Quigley would have maybe taken it a little differently?

BRETT QUIGLEY: There's nothing that stands out, but just for me, for me it sounds simple but having fun. I mean, I haven't hit it great this week. If you look at the stats, I'm sure they are not the too much anything, but I haven't judged anything. I haven't attached any meaning to anything, and that's when I play well. I just go and play and if I hit it in the junk, go find it and find a way to get back to the fairway. If I hit it in the compound on 16, go find it, hit it back on the fairway and make par.

Q. Now that you've talked about this, like 12 days that row, but the amount of golf that you've played, is there part of you when you come out this year, that you can try and treat this round like you did those?

BRETT QUIGLEY: That's a big thing for me. I think that's dead-on, try to treat a tour round like I'm playing with Dana, like I'm playing with my buddies or my dad. But I think we all have a tendency out here, it's oh, my gosh, it's a PGA TOUR event, we've got to be serious, you have to do this, you have to do that, you have to play perfect. In reality, it's not even close to that. I mean, you look at the way I played the last three days, certainly it has not been spot-on golf, but it's been pretty effective.

Q. That being said, you're going to play with Maruyama tomorrow. He's kind of a little bit of fun, and you speak fluent Japanese; right?

BRETT QUIGLEY: That's the great thing about Shigeki, he's always smiling. It's just a matter of how big his smile is. That will be fun tomorrow.

Q. No doubt what that roar was when you were going up 5?

BRETT QUIGLEY: I didn't know. I guess he doubled 1. I looked at the leaderboard, how can he be 8-under after four? He just made a hole-in-one. But it was certainly an accessible pin there.

Q. Talk to your dad or Dana today?

BRETT QUIGLEY: Yeah, Dana is actually over here. I'm a little disappointed in him, he flew early, 5:30 this morning. He didn't play. I told him, he's letting his fans down. He ought to know better than to schedule an afternoon flight and play in the morning so he can fly. I'll talk to my dad and Dana tonight both, I'm sure.

Q. What will you talk about?

BRETT QUIGLEY: Just making fun of them. Dana give me a lot of grief yesterday forgiving him some flak on TV. He said in one interview I threw he and my dad and under the bus with one shot.

Q. What did you say? Let's make it two days in a row.

BRETT QUIGLEY: Just giving them flak. We have a big running commentary to see who the best bunker player is in the family, and Dana and I always say we're tied for first. And yesterday I said I thought I moved to No. 1 after making the bunker shot. He didn't agree. He said he's made a bunker shot to win the tournament and I haven't done that yet.

Q. You made a point of how you hit the ball high today. I know that you can hit it low if you want; right?

BRETT QUIGLEY: I hit it great on 17. I hit a knee-high 5-iron in there. That was a great shot.

But playing in the wind a bunch in Florida, you just play and just go ahead and swing it and trust that it's going to do what it's going to do. It was great playing with Zinger. The ball isn't 15 feet off the ground the whole way and it's a driver. It's awesome. It's a great way to play. It's fun, like the Tale of Two Cities; me going over the wind and him going under the wind.

Q. As hard as you were on yourself, do you ever get paired with Steve Flesch?

BRETT QUIGLEY: Is he hard on himself? (Laughter.) I've played a lot with Flesch, actually before he came on TOUR, we played a lot together. It's a sick game. We're always trying for perfection and we never achieve it, so we all can be our own worst enemy. Some guys handle it better than others.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Let's go over your card. You started out with a bogey on 3.

BRETT QUIGLEY: I don't know why I'm making these bogeys starting out. I don't like doing it, but I guess it relaxes me. I hit a bad tee shot in the right rough and had to chip it out, 20-footer, horrible putt and made a nice 4-footer for bogey.

6, I hit about a foot on an 8-iron, left rough there. That probably made the round there, that shot-making birdie and getting back in the picture.

9, good drive, just hung it in the right rough there and laid it right in front of the green, chipped it ten feet and made it.

Q. What was the putt on 4?

BRETT QUIGLEY: Three feet, two and a half feet. Second one was four and a half feet, five feet. Those are always fun. Get the blood pumped.

10, I hit a good drive, just went a little more wind than I thought. Hit it in the left rough; hit a horrible chip through the green and made about a 12-footer from the fringe.

Hit a great 7-iron on 11 to about five feet and made the putt.

15, hit it in the fairway, and there's a tree in the right and was kind of blocked out by it. Wanted to hit a 9-iron but with the way the green is on the left, you can hit it out of bounds there pretty easy, and I took a wedge to go over the tree but didn't reach the green. Hit a fair chip six feet and missed it.

Q. I was curious about the clan reminding you that you're better than that and trying to encourage you. In the years, seven or eight years now that you've been on TOUR, and I'm thinking there might have been one good year, but mostly it's around 100 on the Money List, sometimes on the edge. Was there part of that you said the same thing; were you ever satisfied with just keeping your card, or were you beating yourself up by saying, "Why am I continually in this position"?

BRETT QUIGLEY: I've never been satisfied with my position. It's funny, Paul Azinger was talking about underachievers and overachievers today, and he kind of looked at me, and didn't call me an underachiever, but he kind of looked at me like, 'you know you are, aren't you'?

This winter, I know I've been out here eight years, but I said it's about time I give myself a good chance to see what I can do and not keep holding myself back.

Q. This is going to sound like a loaded question, and believe me, I don't mean it that way. But Briny last year was talking about, he'd rather be in contention every week than just catch lightning in a bottle, shoot a 62 on Sunday and win. So I'm asking a couple of people this week, if you could only qualify for one of these two tournaments, would it be TOUR Championship or Kapalua? How do you feel about that?

BRETT QUIGLEY: That's a good question.

Q. You're the only one who's said that so far.

BRETT QUIGLEY: Obviously, if you haven't won and you get in THE TOUR Championship, you've played great all year.

I'd much rather win. To me, winning is the ultimate. Maybe I shouldn't be result-oriented, but certainly that's one thing I want to do as far as an accomplishment. And in order to do that, I've got to stay in my process. But I would love to play Mercedes every year. And I'm not knocking THE TOUR Championship, but if I go that means you've won every year and that's a heck of an accomplishment.

Q. Usually one leads to the other.

BRETT QUIGLEY: I'll take my chances getting in the TOUR Championship after winning.

Q. How far was the putt on 16?

BRETT QUIGLEY: Probably 15 feet. I don't know, I just knew I was going to make it. I never really thought -- sometimes you can stand over a 3-footer and know you have no chance; and stand over a 15-footer and know it's going to go in. I just knew I was going to make the putt for par to salvage it.

Q. What did you have out of the bunker on 18, not yardage, but what kind of shot did you have?

BRETT QUIGLEY: I had an easy shot. Just hit a horrible shot and chunked a 2-iron. That easily could have been on the green, a normal shot. I hit a horrible shot. It happens. Chunked it, heavy.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Brett Quigley, thanks.

End of FastScripts.

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