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BUICK INVITATIONAL


January 20, 2005


Dean Wilson


LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Dean, thank you for joining us for a few minutes in the media center. Great start to the week. I know it was the North Course, but you still ought to be very happy with that going into tomorrow

DEAN WILSON: Definitely.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Do you want to make just a couple of comments about the rounds.

DEAN WILSON: Nice, smooth round. Didn't get into too much trouble. I only had one par save on 16. Made a 20-footer for par. Got in trouble off the tee there, but other than that, can't ask for a smoother round of golf.

Q. Did you get in last week?

DEAN WILSON: Got in last week. Last week my Q-School number got in. I was an alternate starting the week and snuck in there after someone got hurt.

Q. Did that set you up a little bit?

DEAN WILSON: Yeah, definitely, any more experience that you can get with tournament rounds to start the year, good to get four rounds under my belt before coming here, definitely.

Q. Inaudible?

DEAN WILSON: Yeah, but like I said last week, those guys, it's their tournament. Sony is the sponsor, they can do whatever they want with the sponsor invites. If I need one again, I'll keep writing, and hopefully they will feel I can add to the field being from Hawaii.

Q. (Inaudible.)

DEAN WILSON: Since Monday.

Q. What's the key to your success out here today?

DEAN WILSON: Today I drove the ball well. I got it in the fairway. I missed maybe two fairways today and one of them was 18 and I made a birdie there. I put myself in position and fortunately made some putts along the way, too, so that was nice.

Q. Inaudible?

DEAN WILSON: Yeah, I guess so, being 9-under is a lot better than being 5-over going to the South Course. Probably a little more relaxed.

Q. Did you make any putts --

DEAN WILSON: You know what, 16 probably was about the same for par. But other than that, I think other than those two, about 20-footers. All the rest were relatively close, five feet or so, six feet.

Q. What's been your experience playing here?

DEAN WILSON: I played the last two years in the tournament. I made the cut both times and that's about it. I think I played the South Course in junior golf way back when, but I don't remember anything about that.

Q. (Inaudible.)

DEAN WILSON: I live in Las Vegas. I'm from Hawaii, but I live in Las Vegas now. It's a little easier for me to travel. Hawaii is a little too far.

Q. (Inaudible.)

DEAN WILSON: Yeah, you know, I had to go back to Q-School, so that got done right around the first week of December, spent one week in Las Vegas kind of cleaning everything up, and then went to Hawaii for the holidays, my family all lives there. So if I don't get to Hawaii for the holidays, I get in trouble with my mom. I was there all the way through the Sony.

So I was there for a month and had a lot of good weather.

Q. (Inaudible.)

DEAN WILSON: Enjoy is not a really good word. Yeah, unfortunately, I had to go back and I got my card through those courses, so I had good feelings about them. But you're just on edge at those two, it's so stuff because it's so penalizing. That Stadium Course, it gives you nightmares.

The best way for me to describe it is just like you're walking on an edge, you're trying so hard not to make mistakes that will result in a double-bogey or a triple-bogey, just playing defense all the way around for six days, and just an uneasy feeling all the way around until that last putt is holed.

Q. (Inaudible.)

DEAN WILSON: Yeah, maybe. Your first -- you know, just having the experience of, obviously, being in front of you guys, being around the galleries. I see TOUR rookies come out here and they are so intrigued with all of the TOUR vans, all of those little things that you get used to over the years. It's not, I would not say special, but we are not enthralled with it anymore. We are used to it and can get along with it. Seeing a guy like Ernie or Tiger walk by might be real intimidating for a rookie, but I'm a little more used to it, I would say.

Q. Can you expand on the momentum --

DEAN WILSON: Momentum of the round today? You know, I started off great. I ended up birdieing the first two holes, and that's always a nice feeling, you get it under par. And it just kind of carried on from there, and every time I had an opportunity, I didn't let it go by.

I took advantage of all of the par 5s that are birdies on all of those. It's really nice, because if you end up making par on those, you feel like you lose a shot to the field over there on that North Course. So everything kind of kept building and ended up today making three pretty good putts on the last three holes. So hopefully that will keep carrying over to tomorrow and the few days after that.

Q. (Inaudible.)

DEAN WILSON: Yeah, definitely, it's pretty exciting. The last time I was in the media room was probably with Colonial and Annika before we even teed off on the Tuesday morning. It's good to be on top of the leaderboard, or I think Tom finished at 10-under. So near the top is always exciting to get off to a good start.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Can we go through your nine birdies, starting on 1.

DEAN WILSON: Hit a good drive down there. I hit a 5-iron, just missed the green off the right but got it up-and-down around the left.

Next hole, I hit a good drive and had about 60 yards in and hit that to about four feet and made that, just a little 60-degree wedge.

5, hit another good drive. Had about 100 yards in I think and hit it to about 12 feet above the hole and made that.

8, I hit an 8-iron and a good drive again -- hit an 8-iron again to about five feet and made that.

9, I hit driver and 3-wood and just missed the green on the right and got that up-and-down. Made about another 4- or 5-footer.

10, I hit it down the fairway -- really excited about hitting it down the fairway, I keep saying that. I hit a 9-iron to about 12 feet, and got a good read off of Dick's put who was on the exact same line and made that.

14, the par 5, I hit a driver and a 3-wood, just missed the green on the left and got that up-and-down from about 50 or 60 feet.

17, hit a 6-iron to, I would say, about 12, 15 feet and made that.

18, drove it in the rough, hacked it out to about 130 yards, hit it about 20 feet or so and then made that one.

End of FastScripts.

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