U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 18, 1997

J.J. Henry

J.J. HENRY: Yeah, there's no doubt. I tried to play conservative off the start. I parred my first three holes. I bogeyed four, birdied five, bogeyed six, birdied seven and eight to make the turn at 1-under. And then on the back nine, I birdied 11 and 18. All pars on the back. So I really hit it well today. I mean, hit a lot of fairways, which is a key out here. The rough is really -- if you hit it in the rough, it's a half-shot penalty. I hit some 3-woods off the tee where there were holes. Where I could be aggressive, I was. I made probably about a 4-footer for birdie on 11, and I birdied 18. I made about a 5-footer on 18. So it wasn't like I was making, you know, all kinds of putts. I hit it pretty solid today.

J.J. HENRY: Let's see. I birdied 5 from about 10 feet, and I birdied 7 from about 12 feet and 8 from about 12 feet. So I didn't really -- I had some other good opportunities, but I'm very, very happy with 69.

J.J. HENRY: 18, I hit a driver and a 9-iron, just right at the hole, to about 5 feet right at the hole. I had a nice little right-to-left downhill putt and knocked it right in.

J.J. HENRY: Yeah. One of my strengths is I hit the ball fairly long, so it works to my advantage out here. You know, if I'm able to keep it in the fairways, I'm going to have not so much a shorter iron but shorter than many people in the field. So it was wet out there, and it played a lot more difficult. But I felt if I could keep it in the fairway, it would work to my advantage.

J.J. HENRY: It's very thick, and with the rain and the moisture, it was even thicker. The grass would really grab the club because it was so wet and moist, especially early in the morning before it started to dry out.

J.J. HENRY: Yeah. I go to TCU. I'll be a senior at TCU this year. I was like honorable mention All-American '96, and I won the Connecticut Amateur in '94 and '95.

J.J. HENRY: We won Golf World's tournament this year, and we also won the WAC (Western Athletic Conference), and we were ranked, I want to say, third in the country.

J.J. HENRY: No, we never played in that one. We played in the Preview which is at Conway Farms last year.

J.J. HENRY: We didn't win that.

J.J. HENRY: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

J.J. HENRY: Yeah, it's great.

J.J. HENRY: Not really. I was going to take one shot at a time, and like I said, just hit the fairways. I actually got a new set of irons about a week and a half ago -- two weeks ago, I switched clubs, and it's really made a world of difference for me. I don't know if it's -- it might be confidence more than anything else. But I got some new irons, and I really feel comfortable with them, and I feel like I can hit it a lot closer. It's worked good for me.