ADVIL WESTERN OPEN

July 6, 2001

Mark Wilson

MARK WILSON: It is just golf. On this Tour you get paid more when you are on top. The Tour I play on, there's plenty of great players. It's just that we haven't played well at the right time and you can put many of us out here and I feel somewhat comfortable because I have played -- this is my fifth tournament out here, and getting more comfortable each time. If the putts are going in --(inaudible) I played 4 PGA TOUR events and the U.S. Open,.

MARK WILSON: Two times I have played in Milwaukee I made the cut on the number in 99 and made it by one shot last year so I guess this would be the closest -- what is leading right now? It's the closest. I am just going to have fun. I guess it's maybe been a little easier, each time I play in Milwaukee I keep thinking I have got a Top-10 this week to go out the next week. Well I am in the next week with a sponsor exemption so I can just enjoy this one and this feels like a bonus.

MARK WILSON: No. I played so many rounds of golf since turning pro that it's starting to get a little easier, still it is very difficult. I am just trying to take one shot at a time do the best I can on each shot. So far most of them turned out okay.

MARK WILSON: 3, 15 feet. Made it. 4, was about 20 feet. 5 I had about 15-foot for eagle but I missed but a tap-in. 7 was about six feet. 8, four feet. 11 was about four feet. 17 I made it from the fringe, probably a 35-footer and that's it, I guess.

MARK WILSON: At first I was thinking about it. I looked at my caddie and said I don't think there is any reason not to putt this because it was about six feet off the green but just it was perfect, there were no ball marks in my way or anything. So I figured might as well just putt it.

MARK WILSON: I just played so many that maybe (inaudible) I play decent. I don't know. Last week I was in Myrtle Beach and I had to the lead there after two rounds. In the Hooters event I shot 72, 75 on the weekend to finish 12th so that was a bummer then I come in on Monday and qualify. It is just a weird game. I mean, I think the main thing that is improving is my putting, it is a little bit more consistent. I changed my gripe, a gripe that I don't think I have ever seen anybody use. I interlock my fingers like this over the club. It gets me square. I feel a lot more comfortable on the 3, 4 footers than I am used to. I think if anything that might be it.

MARK WILSON: I came up with it myself. I was in my hotel room after struggling for another day on the greens and I wasn't going to make the cut in a tournament so I figured I'd take it out and try it. It worked pretty good.

MARK WILSON: New Mexico, buydot.com event.

MARK WILSON: Yeah, that's what kind of looks like. But I am not praying that it is going to go. I feel like it is going to go in.

MARK WILSON: Yeah, I have been using it for about seven, eight months now. I don't think I am switching ever again because it just squares me up a lot better.

MARK WILSON: I have to play well at the right time of year, (inaudible) at Q-School that's really the best time or play well on the weekend like here, something like that. I don't feel that my game is up with the top-notch players are but I think I can be a consistent cut-maker out here and contend every once in a while and -- but if I can get out here and have a full year out here then I could work on my game and improve those things I will feel more comfortable then I can move up to maybe to be one of the better players out here.

MARK WILSON: I think it might be financial a little bit. I have good backers, but on the mini Tour if you finish fifth whatever you may make $3,500 but you spent 15 hundred that week. You kind of feel that you have got to play each week to kind of break even and make some money. I think if anything that is what happens to all of us guys, instead of taking six weeks off to maybe work on something and make it happen in your golf game, you feel you have got to keep playing and you never know when you might win and that might be worth 20,000 that week or something. Financially if anything, it is. But I have great backers, it is just myself I want to sort of make money for them because they stuck their neck out for me.

MARK WILSON: Just friends usually of my father's and family members.

MARK WILSON: No, I have got plenty of money. That's not what I am getting at. If anything, I feel like I have got keep playing sometimes when I'd rather take some weeks off.

MARK WILSON: I kind of do. I was a math major in college so I like numbers a lot, and both my parents were accountants so I enjoy that side of it and almost get too wrapped up in that. It is something I enjoy doing. I'd rather take care of it myself than hand it to someone else.

MARK WILSON: I always thought he was above the rest of us; maybe that's the reason I lost that much. 92 U.S. junior. It is fun to watch. Coverage came on yesterday, we taped it and we watched it when we got home. (Inaudible) I love watching him play. He hits shots that (inaudible) I shot 67 on this course, I don't know what he shot today but it shows that I can get it around. We can all get it around in different ways.

MARK WILSON: I have to realize that it comes down to Q-School there and there's so many more good young players, our scores keep getting lower. When I first played I think it was about 1-over was getting to the first stage. On a same golf course say last year was 5-under, just the players are getting better and better so it is just a matter of timing and Steve Stricker didn't make it right a way either.

MARK WILSON: A little bit, I have been thinking about maybe doing something else this year, but.

MARK WILSON: I guess for an hour after a bad round. I don't know. I have a good degree from North Carolina. I think I can do plenty with it. I like doing this for now.

MARK WILSON: Math, B.A. bachelor of Arts. That's what tough about golf, I can come out tomorrow and the putts I made early today maybe lip out and 3-putt or something; all of a sudden it is 75. It is just the way golf goes. That's why I am trying to take it one shot at a time.