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JOHN DEERE CLASSIC

July 7, 2005

Glen Hnatiuk

SILVIS, ILLINOIS

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Okay, Glenn Hnatiuk, bogey free, 6 under par 65 and a nice start to the 2005 John Deere Classic. Just checking here, Glenn, this is your best starting round of the year.

GLENN HNATIUK: Yeah.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Just a couple thoughts about how the course played and how you played today.

GLENN HNATIUK: Well, the course played pretty similar to Tuesday in the practice round, with the exception of a little bit of a wind direction change, but as far as the softness of the fairways and the greens, it's pretty comparable.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: You just want to take us through your round.

GLENN HNATIUK: Yeah, let's see, 2, I hit a drive and a Rescue about 20 feet in behind the hole to the fringe and two putted.

8, hit a 7 iron from the left bunker, probably to about 20, 25 feet and made it.

10, hit a little L wedge to kick in range I guess you could say.

14, hit a little L wedge to about the same distance, maybe two feet or so.

15, hit a wedge probably to about two feet.

And then 18, hit a wedge to about eight feet.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: We notice you've sort of struggled this year. This is a very nice round. Anything that you've done differently or any change in your swing that you saw this coming.

GLENN HNATIUK: Well, to be honest with you, at the beginning of the year I was still working on a swing change, and it wasn't too bad then, but just a few weeks after that I was starting to struggle and just kind of working on the same stuff, although I'm in kind of the middle of a swing change, I'm just kind of plugging away, and it's kind of a fine line to play at least decent or shooting 74 or 75. Of course you still have to bring your short game and your putting no matter how good you're playing. Today it just seemed to click.

Q. Is the swing change related to the elbow surgery?

GLENN HNATIUK: I wouldn't say it's related to it. I'm virtually pain free now. It feels a lot better. Obviously there were times last year and in past years where my elbow affected me and I wasn't able to do things as well, but the swing change, I wouldn't say it's related to my elbow surgery, I think it's just more something that's needed.

Q. Needed why?

GLENN HNATIUK: Well, for different reasons. For ball flight reasons, being able to move the ball a little bit better left to right or right to left. I've always been a left to right player, and my plane, my swing plane, had always shown that. So now I'm kind of changing the swing plane a little bit so I have a little more versatility with shots.

Q. Readers Digest condensed version, what have you changed?

GLENN HNATIUK: Well, like I said, probably swing plane more than anything. I'm getting the shaft kind of going down and underneath, and to easily explain it, it's probably feeling like I'm swinging from the inside but I'm not. The shaft is more on plane as opposed to my right shoulder always had kind of a tendency to kind of go out and then kind of come across the plane over the top a little bit, which always produced kind of a little over the top cut, which I still like to use, but I don't want to be condemned just to that shot.

Q. I think you have six tournaments left to make $400,000. Are you feeling a little pressure there?

GLENN HNATIUK: No. You know what, I've been so caught up in trying to make my swing right, I've never I know it's getting near to the end of my 20 tournaments, but I know that in the long run I'm going to become a better player. So whether that happens within that six tournaments, you know, that's great, and I expect it to, but if it doesn't, that's just kind of the way it goes and I'll kind of keep on grinding.

Q. Have you resolved yourself then at this point to thinking Q school in the fall?

GLENN HNATIUK: Yeah, that's definitely in the back of my mind, you know, the very back. But it's something that I may have to do. It's a decision I'll have to make in a month or two, whenever the applications come out.

But for now, it's one round at a time I guess you could say.

Q. It's been a while since a round in the 60s. Is there a point today where you felt this is the day that can be a round in the 60s?

GLENN HNATIUK: Well, yeah. I'll give you a good example. This is kind of the way my year has gone. No. 7, the par 3, I pulled a 6 iron and it was going at the right corner of that tree that sits over there where the pin is, and it hit the right corner and actually dropped down on the green probably to about ten feet.

Now, over the last four or five or six weeks, that ball would have ended up 20 yards in the hazard. I'm not saying I've been getting every break in the world, but when you're not playing well things just don't seem to go your way and vice versa. I mean, you've got to have some luck no matter how good you are.

Q. Seemed like you had some success today when you had wedge, lob wedge in your hand. Is that the strength of your game?

GLENN HNATIUK: It's something I've worked on. To be honest with you, it hadn't been the strength of my game. Even at the beginning of the round, I had sand wedge into No. 4 and hit it probably 30 feet, and then on 5, I hit a little 9 iron and hit that 20 feet, and also on No. 6, I had an L wedge and hit that about 20 feet, so I didn't start out flaming with short irons, but I was fortunate to finish off strongly.

Q. You mentioned that you were getting accustomed were the fairways firm?

GLENN HNATIUK: They're firming up a little bit. But what was it, 15, the long par 4, the balls are now running down and over that slope all the way to the bottom where you have a short iron, where at the beginning of the week they weren't. They're firming up a little bit but they're still kind of spongy.

Q. And the greens?

GLENN HNATIUK: The greens are probably a little bit more firm. There's some more than others. Like I think 9 is a little more firm because I don't know if it's necessarily exposed, it's down there in the trees, but there's a couple that are more firm than others, but for the most part they're somewhat similar. They're still rather soft but starting to release a little bit.

Q. How are they putting?

GLENN HNATIUK: They're putting good, but I was the second group off, so the front nine was perfect. You get to the back nine where there's a little bit more play on them, they're a little bit more spiked up and kind of bumpy, but they're good, real good.

Q. Slower than you're used to?

GLENN HNATIUK: Well, on some of them, yeah. It's almost like they're kind of gluey. They don't kind of roll out when you expect. Some of the putts on the front nine, like the back of No. 1 and the back of No. 4 where you're putting towards the water, it looks like you're putting uphill, but the ball actually kind of runs away. They're a little tricky in that respect. There's a few putts that I left short that I was kind of surprised.

Q. Easy to make those two footers, though?

GLENN HNATIUK: Yeah, that's a fun change.

Q. What's your take on Wie mania?

GLENN HNATIUK: Obviously she's this is the first time I've seen her, and I've seen her hit a couple shots on the range, I think, on Monday, and she looks like she's got a seriously good game. As far as playing in a tournament, you know, she's that good, and she's definitely a drawing card, so that's if it's a great thing for the tournament, then it's good.

Q. Is it going to take scores like this all four rounds to be there?

GLENN HNATIUK: With conditions like this, possibly well, no, I don't know. I think scores kind of tend to level out a little bit, unless one guy goes kind of crazy. You know, I don't think it's going to take mid 20s to win the tournament. But you never know. What won last year? 16, 15 or something?

Q. Yeah, 14, 16.

GLENN HNATIUK: It may end up being the same, mid to high teens.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Okay, Glenn, thank you very much. Good luck the rest of the week.

End of FastScripts.

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