U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 17, 2001

Vijay Singh

VIJAY SINGH: I just told my caddy, "Why do I have a round like that when I can't win?" Any round is a good one. I played good all week, just didn't make the putts, and today they decided to go in. And once the putt starts going in, you can be a little more aggressive. I took some of the flags on today, which I didn't do the first days, which paid off.

VIJAY SINGH: I know I'm playing better than I shot the first three days, and I'll go back home and analyze my shots. And say I only hit one bad shot or two bad shots. But the golf course will do it for you. You've got to be very smart where you put the ball, and where you miss it. And I was missing some in the wrong places.

VIJAY SINGH: I think the greens were a little bit softer. You could spin the ball on 1. Where the pin is, normally you would just hope it would stay on the green. I think I got lucky with the tee time, but that's not the time I want to play. But it was a fun day. I enjoyed it and I took it a little bit more casually, but seriously, and I had a little bit more fun out there, instead of grinding it.

VIJAY SINGH: He can't win every week. He's only human. It's going to be a fight out there. It's good to see that the other guys are taking charge as well. It's disappointing to a lot of people that Tiger is not in contention, but that's golf.

VIJAY SINGH: It depends -- they're difficult, but they're able to get to. And there are some birdie, generous pins out there, too. Tom Kite is shooting quite low as well. And I think the guy that needs to win up there has to shoot under par, a par round won't do it for him. They're all playing well. It's going to be nice to watch. I'm going to go back and relax and watch.

VIJAY SINGH: I left it short.

VIJAY SINGH: But I made two bogeys. I made bogey on 12 and 14. So if you made bogeys out there on the golf course like this, you're not going to shoot a 63, you needed a bogey-free round. I'm quite happy with what I did.

VIJAY SINGH: I birdied the 3rd hole. I had a 3-wood, sand wedge about 15 feet. 7 I hit a 4-iron, 9-iron about three feet. I birdied 10. I hit a 4-iron, sand wedge again about 8 feet. And on 11 about 15 feet. I bogeyed 12. I hit a driver, 9-iron in the bunker, plugged it, pitched it out about 20, 25-foot and putted. Hit a 3-wood, 5-iron in the bunker on 13, blasted out about 10 feet. 14 I hit a 5-iron in the front bunker, knocked it out, didn't hit the green, chipped out about five feet and made it. 15 I hit a 3-wood, 7-iron about 40 feet, maybe more. I hit a driver, 7-iron on 16 about ten feet. Hit a 3-wood, 9-iron on 17 about five feet. Driver, 7-iron on the last and 2-putted.

VIJAY SINGH: You know, it pays off to know the golf course. I don't know, maybe I took it too seriously when we started. You need to take it seriously, but I probably was a little bit too into it, analyzed too much. And when you do that, if you make a bad shot, then it's going to take the toll, and that's what happened. I should have enjoyed it more instead of taking it as seriously as I did. I wanted to win this so bad, that's probably why I didn't.