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VALERO TEXAS OPEN

September 21, 2005

Ryan Moore

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Obviously first appearance in this event coming off a 2nd place finish at the Bell Canadian Open. You're a newcomer out here, just a couple thoughts about playing in your first Valero Texas Open.

RYAN MOORE: Well, I mean, obviously I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to be at any event I can get in right now, and they were kind enough to give me an exemption here, so I'd like to make it worth it.

It was kind of a last minute thing, late last week, for me to even get in here, so it was not a guarantee at any point in time for me. But obviously it's a great event; I've enjoyed it so far. It's a good golf course, and I've got to go make some putts just like every other week.

Q. This is your first time on this course?

RYAN MOORE: Yes.

Q. What kind of advance discussion have you heard from other players regarding this course? It's got kind of a notorious reputation for being tough to walk.

RYAN MOORE: Yeah, I had heard that quite a bit from other guys. You know, it doesn't bother me too much. I'm young, I guess. I should be used to it, right? I can handle it. I live in Vegas for about the last five years, so I can handle the 100 degree heat or so. I'm not a big fan of humidity, but I can deal with it.

Q. There might be a little humidity here later in the week.

RYAN MOORE: If you can get me to sweat, that's a lot of humidity, I'll tell you that much. It can be 110 in Vegas and I don't sweat.

Q. Have you had a chance to how much have you played this week out there?

RYAN MOORE: I played Monday. I got in late Monday, I missed a couple holes at the Pro Am, but I got out there and played 14 or 15 holes, and then I played yesterday.

Q. What are your initial thoughts of the course?

RYAN MOORE: It's a good track. You've just got to hit it in the fairway and get it on the greens and give yourself a bunch of opportunities for birdie. The greens are receptive enough that if you get shorter irons in, you've got some good chances for birdies. Obviously you have to hit it close.

The greens are actually all very smooth. For Bermuda, I'm personally not a big fan, I grew up in the northwest, so I'm bentgrass and poa annua, so Bermuda is always an adjustment, and these are rolling great.

Q. I guess the last few years here, Phil Stambaugh and I were talking yesterday about the fact that a lot of the older golfers have won here, Tommy Armour and Bart Bryant, Loren Roberts. We talk about how tough the course is, what an endurance test, but the younger guys aren't the ones that have dominated.

RYAN MOORE: Well, hopefully I can change that. We'll see what I can do about that. Any week, everybody is so talented, no matter how old they are, everybody can play. It's just a matter of whoever's week it is.

You can definitely get it going on this course, and I kind of found that late in my practice round here yesterday, I kind of got in a little rhythm, birdied about five of my last eight holes that I played, which was good and encouraging for me. I haven't had a lot of those stretches lately. I've been playing kind of steady, but on a course like that you want to get out there and make some birdies, and to do that you've got to hit it in the fairways and get on the greens, which is what a lot of those guys do well. They give themselves a lot of looks at birdie.

Q. The reputation of the course, the assaults on the records. Tommy Armour had a sensational PGA TOUR record four rounds here and then last year Bart Bryant shot a 60 out here. Has that also been part of the discussion out here as far as this course can be had?

RYAN MOORE: I hadn't heard that too much from other players, and to be honest, I hadn't asked a lot of guys about it or hadn't heard a lot of talk. I had seen some of the scores, 19 under or something won last year, so pretty much just got to go out there and shoot some numbers. It's playing that seems to be every week out here on Tour. You can't just go well, except for the Canadian, which I love those kind of tournaments where you've got to scrap it and fight it, and 5 under winning a Tour event is pretty unheard of.

I love that kind of golf, but, you know, this is good golf, too. You've just got to go make birdies. The course is definitely more scorable for that. It gives you more room to even the rough isn't overly penalizing. If you get it in the rough you still have a good chance of getting it on the green and stopping the ball. That's a big part of being able to score, if you hit it in the rough and still have a chance of getting it up there. The majors and the last few weeks, you hit it in the rough, there wasn't a prayer of getting it on the green, you just had to get it up and down from 40 or 50 yards.

Q. The players this week, the hurricane is kind of floating around out there maybe impacting us on the weekend. Golf is such a focused game as it is anyway. Do you find it one of those things that's kind of in the back of your mind as you're teeing off on Thursday that maybe there's some weather?

RYAN MOORE: Yeah, I heard it wasn't coming until Friday.

Q. Or Saturday.

RYAN MOORE: I'm not sure. I heard late Friday it's supposed to get pretty breezy or something, which I'm going early Friday, so maybe I'm fortunate and I'm going to miss it, but who knows, maybe it'll come first thing Friday morning.

It's just something that's just out of your control. One thing I try and worry about is things I can control, and pretty much that's just me. That's all I can control out there, so I'm not trying to worry about all that other stuff, other players, weather, course even, I'm just trying to go out there and do what I can do. That's the way I've found that I play my best golf. I don't worry about that all that other stuff.

Q. This week with the Presidents Cup going on, look at some of the golfers on the American squad and a lot of the younger talents, you being one of those, Vaughn Taylor, Ben Crane; the hottest players, like Jason Bohn, are really the younger players right now. Do you see that happening as far as talent coming along on the American side?

RYAN MOORE: I definitely see it. There's a lot of great players. Well, they're still a little bit older to me. I'm the young one, even today. 25 or 26, that's pretty old. But there's a lot of really good players.

I see the teams in the future having a lot of these guys on the team. You know, obviously that's one of my goals. That's one of my biggest goals is to be on one of those teams in the near future. I'm not thinking about five years down the road; I want to be on next year. I'm scrambling to play the best golf I can just to be able to represent my country. That's huge.

Q. You notice that somebody mentioned the other day that the younger players coming in are coming off the Nationwide Tour. Of course you're coming earlier than that. There's really no fear in younger golfers these days, not a whole lot of fear out there. Why is that do you think, that you guys are coming on and attacking without worrying about things?

RYAN MOORE: I don't know, it's funny; I've got a little story for that. My other buddy Michael Putnam, who's in the tournament, we're like high school rivals from Washington, and he just graduated this year from Pepperdine, actually grew up playing in Connecticut, a few weeks ago got a Top 5 there. But he was playing with Harrison Frazar the other day, who's a little bit older, maybe early 30s or something. But he's just like, "What is it with all you young guys, aim at the pin every single time? That's not how I learned to play golf. I learned you hit it in the fairway, hit it to the middle of the green, try to make a 20 foot putt," because Michael started out birdieing six out of his first nine holes when he was playing with him. He was just going off, it was pretty funny.

A course like this, this is one where you have to be aggressive. You've got to go out there and make birdies. You can't hit it to 25 feet all the time. You've got to try and stick it in there four or five feet. A major championship that's not the case. Well, maybe Augusta a little bit because that's a little bit more of a scoring championship than a U.S. Open or a PGA or British Open.

Q. I'm just wondering about the mindset of no intimidation factor.

RYAN MOORE: I don't really know. That's golf. I'm not worried about all those other guys, like I said. That's not my concern. That's their deal. That's them. All I can control is me. I'm just going out there and trying to play the best golf I can against the golf course. If that is very confident, that's how I want to play. I want to be out there knowing I can attack and I can go beat these guys.

I almost proved it in Canada; I was right there, had a chance, missed a couple putts coming down the line that would have been pretty crucial, and it just slid by. But I'm trying to be confident. I don't want them to look at me and say, "Oh, this guy, he shouldn't even be here." I want them to say, "I've got to worry about this guy because he doesn't care, he's just out here to play." I think that's the mindset of a lot of these guys out here, and that's how you should be. If you're not that way, you're not going to win; it's that simple. Somebody out there is going to be acting like that or thinking like that, and they'll win.

Q. Are you on pace, where you want to be right now?

RYAN MOORE: Well, I'd love to have a couple more million and have a Top 30 locked in for the TOUR Championship, but, you know, I'm moving in the right direction. I'm up to like $512,000 this year, so that's that puts me at around 130th right now.

I'd definitely like a few more good finishes or obviously just go win, and that eliminates everything. That's my goal. That's my first priority. The Money List is my second concern.

Once I'm out of it, I'm definitely last week I birdied two out of my last three holes my final round to probably jump up double my paycheck, and that's huge. I even hit it in the water on the 16th hole and made a birdie somehow (laughter). I don't really know how that happened. I made a 40 footer. I'm always fighting, always scrapping, because those shots are so important.

Q. Is that the biggest lesson so far you've learned on the Tour in the brief time is that every shot is almost actually a paycheck shot?

RYAN MOORE: Yeah, that's a little different. That's a little adjustment. I mean, I can't say as an amateur I was ever out there throwing away shots coming down the stretch, saying, "Oh, it doesn't matter." I'm obviously trying to play my best every tournament. If I'm nine back going into the final round, I still think I can go shoot 57 and win the tournament. Why not? You've got to think that way going out there, and that's what I'm always doing.

Q. Do you feel like there are some holes out there that you can take some risk on, that if you need to, be a little bit more risky in your game?

RYAN MOORE: Out here?

Q. Out here, or is it pretty much a conservative

RYAN MOORE: There's that one drivable par 4 maybe around I think No. 7 that's about 310 or so, and that's drivable. There's just a lot of trouble there, and I know I can get it on the green, but earlier in the week probably not just because it's not worth it to make a double bogey on a hole I can hit a 5 iron and a sand wedge to five feet and make a birdie.

But later in the week if you're four or five back, that eagle could just be huge, and a bogey is not going to cost you that much really

Q. You're prepared to go for that?

RYAN MOORE: Absolutely. I hit the shots in the practice round to see if I was capable and I know I can do it; it's just a matter of the timing of it. It's probably not worth it to cost yourself a shot or two before the cut. I'm sure the cut will be probably pretty low, 4 or 5 under, I don't know what it was last year, but that will be a guess of what it will be, if not more. It'll be under.

Q. It depends on conditions, I guess. When the wind lays down here, it makes all the difference in the world.

RYAN MOORE: Last couple of days, it's been just a little light breeze.

End of FastScripts.

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