home

jobs

	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

BOB HOPE CHRYSLER CLASSIC

January 27, 2005

Tim Herron

LA QUINTA, CALIFORNIA

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Tim, for joining us for a few minutes here in the media center at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. Great round today, 64.

TIM HERRON: Thanks.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: You've had a lot of success here in the past. Why don't you just talk about playing PGA West today and then we'll go into questions.

TIM HERRON: The golf course played good. They actually had a couple pretty good pin placements. It felt good to shoot 64 here. There's probably more holes here that are more disastrous than any of the other courses, so you can make probably more doubles here, so I'm kind of glad that I just made a bogey and made a bunch of birdies. It's nice to get off it until Sunday.

Q. Tim, obviously you're 12-under through 36 holes, still 54 holes to play. How do you pace yourself for this week, or do you? Do you just go full board as fast as you can as make as many birdies as you can?

TIM HERRON: You pace yourself. Birdies come in streaks. You have to be patient and if you have a couple bad holes, you just have to know that there's a lot more holes left. Just be patient, and hopefully the key is here to capitalize on the par 5s. If you're doing that, you're chipping the ball well and making your short putts, you're going to have a pretty good week.

Q. I think last year or two years ago maybe I asked you was there a par 5 in this rotation that you couldn't hit in two, and you couldn't think of one that you couldn't hit in two.

TIM HERRON: Yeah, it was playing faster a couple years ago. I don't know if I've gotten weaker, but the two courses have gotten -- the two courses I've played have gotten longer. I don't know if it's the temperature or what. Once it gets probably in the 70s, you know, the courses might get a little shorter, but everything is really lush. I wouldn't say it's wet, but the grass is really lush, so you're not getting a ton of roll.

Q. We've had a lot of rain.

TIM HERRON: Yeah.

Q. You mentioned that you're glad you're not seeing this course until Sunday. A couple of years ago on a Sunday you had a major problem on this course. Does that ever play back in your mind or how you approach it, or do you just say that was then and this is now?

TIM HERRON: Pretty much what you said. Of course it's always going to be there. But you have to approach it, just kind of move on with life, you know.

What happened two years ago, you know, you come to the Bob Hope for the nice weather, the low shooting, and on Sunday we got some weather in, the greens got really firm, couldn't hold a lot of the greens, and it played totally different. I think I played this course either first or second, so four or five days later, this course was playing so much faster, it was just a different deal. You know, it was blowing a good 30 miles an hour that day. I just look at it as kind of bad luck.

Q. That said, would you rather have played this course maybe a little closer to Sunday so maybe the conditions would be pretty similar one round to the next?

TIM HERRON: No. I mean, if we keep the same weather, it should be fine, you know. It was actually perfect conditions for Mike Weir to win that year because I think I had a five-shot lead, and the only chance he was really going to get close to me was having some weather came in, and that's what happened and I made a quadruple and pretty much lost the tournament.

But you know what, I shot 29-under for four rounds, and that's what I try to remember. I think there's only been one other guy -- there's been one other guy do it and then another guy that shot 31-under, so you've got to look at it that way.

Q. On that same line, I mean, you know it's going to be 29, 30, 31 at the end of Sunday. Do you feel like you have to shoot a 64, or can you shoot 67-67-67 across the board?

TIM HERRON: I think you can. You're trying to go as low -- if you're getting your momentum, you're trying to go as low as you can. If you feel like everything is kind of in your wheel house you'd better shoot as low as you possibly can because there might be that one day where things aren't going in or your yardages aren't right or something. It's just important to stay patient.

What's nice about this tournament is actually you're not playing with other pros, so you pretty much play your own game, and that's probably the best thing for me, is just playing my own game, not watching any other pros playing or what they're doing. I'm just doing it my own way.

Q. I had a question about your World Ranking. I think that you're inside the 64 for the match play, right?

TIM HERRON: I have no idea. I finished the year at 52, and I started the year at 64. I didn't know there were that many tournaments in the off-season (laughter). That's kind of what happened. You know, I don't even look at the World Ranking anymore. I've been on the bubble for like three years, right in there.

If you want my opinion about the World stuff, I think a lot of guys are starting to just say, you know, it's a World Tour event, and so be it. I mean, this is the Tour. The PGA TOUR is the No. 1 Tour in the world, and this is the Tour that I'll support. If I get an event, fine, but if not, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

Q. That's what I was going to ask you. I think you're 63 right now, but you're not going to be checking over the next couple of weeks necessarily?

TIM HERRON: I've been doing that for five years, and the more you look at it, the higher your ranking starts going. So I don't even look at it. They can tell me if I'm in or not. I'll just commit to it five weeks down the line.

Q. The World Rankings aside and kind of all the nuance of that, the event itself, is that something you really, really want to be in, or you'll just take it as it comes, the match play?

TIM HERRON: I'll take it as it comes. It's one of those tournaments where you can shoot 64 and get beat, but it is also a tournament where you shoot 74 and win, too. So there's two ways of looking at it. You know, you've got to have some luck on your side to win that tournament. I mean, you've got to play well every day.

Q. Well, it's interesting, too, because if you were at that kind of ranking, 63, 62, whatever, obviously you would draw a Tiger or Mickelson or Retief or whatever, and I know you've been out here a long time and that's not your goal to play them in match play, but it is an interesting opportunity because there's almost no-lose for the guy who's the 63 guy or whatever.

TIM HERRON: Exactly, and the way the match play has been going, 64 has pretty good odds right now, 63 or 64.

How it works out is, who knows, it might be 67, 68 get in, I don't know. It depends on who comes. I don't look at that much, either.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Can we go over your card?

TIM HERRON: We started on 10. Do you want to hear about my pars?

Q. Just birdies and eagles.

TIM HERRON: I hit 11 in two, had about a 40-footer and two-putted, made about a five-footer.

12, I parred.

13, I made about a 20-footer up the hill left to right.

14, I hit it in the left rough, laid up kind of pretty far short and had like 145, hit an 8-iron in there three feet.

Then 16, hit it about ten feet, made that for birdie.

18, I mis-hit short right of the green in two, chipped it up there probably about eight feet, made that for birdie.

Then 1, hit a good drive just in the left rough and pulled my 8-iron, hit a decent chip, just didn't run down there and did a 360 lip-out for bogey.

Then 2, I came back with a birdie, hit it just over the green in two and chipped it up there about a foot and a half.

Then I birdied -- no, then I made an eagle on 6, the par 5. I hit driver, 3-wood to about seven feet.

Then I birdied 8, I would say that was five feet.

My eagle putt I swear was shorter than the one on 8, but whatever. And then that's it.

I made a good two-putt on the last hole, made probably about a seven-footer for par.

Hope to see you the rest of the week.

End of FastScripts.

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297