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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 27, 2005

Tim Herron

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA

CHRIS REIMER: Tim Herron, thanks for joining us. Normally 4:55 on a Sunday of THE PLAYERS Championship, it would be nice to be at the top of the leader board, but I assume it's not bad to be where you are right now.

TIM HERRON: Not too bad. It would be nice to know what's going on a little bit, but there's nothing you can do about Mother Nature. The problem that we have is there's a lot of talk that gets talked in the locker room about what should be done, how we should do it, and that sometimes gets frustrating.

You know, they're trying to do the best -- run the best tournament they can, and you've just got to play by the rules, I guess, whatever those rules might be.

Q. What do you think should be done, Commissioner?

TIM HERRON: I'm the Commissioner now, huh? I mean, I don't know. I don't know if I believe in playing until Tuesday, but I guess the board voted on that during the tournament, Friday I think they voted on that. So I think that's kind of different, to vote on something while play has already been played. They're going to tell us to do something, you're going to have to do it. An opinion is just an opinion. I'm not a Commissioner.

Q. What are the other suggestions in the locker room?

TIM HERRON: Well, a lot of people -- people are just frustrated. They don't know if they should book a flight for tomorrow or Tuesday, or no one is really giving us that -- are we really going until Tuesday or are we going to be able to get in all the round tomorrow, so no one really knows.

But the Tour, in our by-laws or regulations or whatever, says you cannot start a tournament on Tuesday, but for this one you can. They changed the rule.

Q. Do you think if you're going to play 54 holes the players need to know before they go out for the third round that it's going to be a 54-hole tournament?

TIM HERRON: I think they'll give us a clue tomorrow morning, I don't know, but it would be nice tonight or whatever to know.

You know, I know what they're trying to do. They consider it -- people consider it the fifth major, so they're trying to play 72 holes.

Q. Do you think it should go 72?

TIM HERRON: Yes and no. It depends on how well I play tomorrow morning (laughter). I don't know, I mean, I don't think it should go until Tuesday. That's my opinion, basically. But if we can get in 72 by tomorrow, then fair game.

Q. What's it like playing when it's just stopping and sitting around for hours and then going back out? How tough is that on you?

TIM HERRON: Well, I think this is the hard past about our job. A lot of people say golfers have it good, blah, blah, blah, but this is -- it's hard to stop and restart and keep the right frame of mind.

But it's part of the territory. I've been doing it for ten years. This isn't my first and hopefully not my last rain delay.

Q. If there's no more rain, can it be finished tomorrow?

TIM HERRON: I don't know. We're going to talk to the commissioner about that. Has anyone seen him (laughter)? We're looking for him, too.

Q. Mathematically with 82 players, there's probably no way you can get around twice tomorrow.

TIM HERRON: Probably not with repairing. I think they're saying we're going to start at 7:15. If we get any more rain tonight -- are we done with rain? Is it coming again? If we get a few inches, we're not going to be able to have -- this is my opinion again. I don't think we're going to have the course ready by 7:15 in the morning.

Q. Not to look too far ahead, and I don't even know if you're scheduled to go to Atlanta, but what happens to the guys that are going up to that tournament with this kind of scenario?

TIM HERRON: Well, I guess it's not that far away. Maybe you could drive or fly. What do you mean? They're planning on probably playing the Pro-Am on Wednesday, unless we decide to go to Wednesday, and then we're really in for it, I think. We don't want to ruin the sponsor's day on Wednesday.

Q. I guess to talk a little bit about your day today, have you ever had six birdies in a row before, and can you comment on what kind of a zone you felt you were in at that point?

TIM HERRON: Well, like I said to you earlier, I think we teed off at 7:30, I think I was still asleep. That probably helped (laughter). I finally woke up when the sixth one came and made double.

No, I mean, fresh greens, good greens, hit a great shot on 8, didn't get to see it because the sun was right there. I was just kind of rolling with it. Like I said, I've been out here long enough to where I've missed my share of putts, and I'm not afraid to make my share of putts, so you kind of have to go with the streak because you don't get them too often. You can't be ashamed or feeling guilty that you're making bombs from everywhere.

It was fun, and I'm just hoping -- the putter felt great. How many holes did I play, like three or four holes after, and didn't make anything but still rolling it pretty well. Hopefully the two inches of rain is not going to screw up the speed of the greens.

Q. The forecast tomorrow is for maybe 25, 30 mile an hour winds, which would obviously make the course play a lot more difficult. How much could that make the course change when it's so wet?

TIM HERRON: At least it won't feel like it's out of control because it is wet, so where you actually hit it is where the ball is probably going to actually land and stop. Guys that are hitting it well, it's going to help, and it's -- create a little less gap -- more gap between guys that are probably not hitting it as well.

Q. When were you when the siren went off?

TIM HERRON: Like right next to the horn (laughter). Micky Bradley almost blew out my eardrum. He said it's 15 miles away, I think we're going to blow it, and then I turned around and it scared the living --

Q. Did you hole out before that?

TIM HERRON: Yeah, I holed out on the 5th tee.

Q. Is there sort of a consensus forming from the players in the locker room about enough is enough, let's just make this 54?

TIM HERRON: Yeah, a little bit, but that's not our call. If they would have wanted us to form an opinion or whatever, they probably would have made a questionnaire or a census and took our vote or something. You know, they had four guys vote that are on the board that have been elected, and that's their call, they want to play 72.

Q. Was there any debate about should the field have been cut to the nearest to 60 because they knew this weather was coming and that way you could get 36 in tomorrow?

TIM HERRON: Yeah, but I don't know if you're going to get that feeling of the fifth major if you do that, if you're cutting people out of it.

If you're playing 72 holes, guys at 1-under par and you think -- considering it a major have a good chance of actually winning the golf tournament. They can still win the golf tournament. A lot of majors have the ten-shot rule or whatever --

Q. That's a good point. What day does it feel like to you?

TIM HERRON: I don't know. Is there a day for this? It feels like Easter. That's what day it feels like, a holy day (laughter).

End of FastScripts.

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