U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 14, 1996

Davis Love III

DAVIS LOVE III: General comment - it was a pretty solid day. I hit the ball really well. Not perfect, but I hit the ball really well. I only missed a few fairways, and only missed a few greens. I missed a few on the green that were in the wrong places, but made good 2-putts. I didn't really have a whole lot of makeable -- what you call makeable birdie putts, but I had a lot of, you know, fairly easy 2-putts for pars. So pretty much a good U.S. Open day where you are not -- yesterday I scrambled around a bunch and had to get up-and-down. Today it was a lot more solid, even though it was two strokes different. My walking observer is here - he is nodding his head here. (nodding head affirmatively). "Much better." It was definitely a battle yesterday. Today it was a good solid day.

DAVIS LOVE III: Only birdie was 16. 1-iron off the tee, a 7-iron to about ten feet. It was my only uphill birdie putt all day, so a lot of pressure on me, but I made it. I hit it close a few times, but it just never really had one. They were all breaking a foot.

DAVIS LOVE III: Saves, the best -- I guess the best one, number 5, drove it in the rough; hit it short of the green in the rough just past the trap; chipped it up about a foot; made a good pitch out of the rough there and then the only other green I missed -- missed the fairway at 14 and then hit it just in the right fringe, not in the deep stuff, and chipped it down there about a foot.

DAVIS LOVE III: No, we were just going off the clock. We had been on since the 14th tee.

DAVIS LOVE III: I think really the only difference for me was the greens were better in the morning than they were yesterday afternoon. I don't -- I would say the greens are maybe a foot faster, you know, ten inches to a foot faster, which is to be expected. They could probably get to them a lot better today than they could yesterday to cut them. Really, pretty much the same conditions. The ball in the fairway -- the fairways. Most of them are going to have a tough time drying out. I mean, I had, you know, 4, 5 of them today that had mud on them, and that was about the same as yesterday. So I don't think the fairways changed a lot, but the greens got a tad faster. Obviously, 7:50 tee time, they were going to be smoother than they were at 12 o'clock yesterday.

DAVIS LOVE III: Who knows. If the conditions stay exactly the way they are now, I would say, you know, a few under par. But if it's gets a little harder, par is going to be a good score.

DAVIS LOVE III: Well, every birdie putt I had all day was, you know, either a 30 -- 20, 30, 40-footer, that you can't really take a run at, or I'd hit it in, 6-footer and it would be breaking a foot and you can't really try to make it. It seemed like last two days if I hit a really good shot in there, I was on the wrong side of the hole or I was putting downhill or I had a big break - something funny about it. Finally, I had one, you know, ten or twelve feet inside left, straight up the hill and you start drooling when you hit something like that, you just don't want to, you know, try too hard. You just want to get up there and hit it. I hit a real good putt, so you just feel like you don't want to let opportunities like that go to waste because you don't get too many of them.

DAVIS LOVE III: Not much. Maybe -- there was a couple that yesterday that were a little "iffy," but you know, they were trying to find high spots and, you know, the firmer spots. The only one that I remember yesterday I didn't like was 17, but, you know, these greens, if you put them on the greens, they are going to be hard pins, so there is not really a whole lot of easy ones out there. So I think they are doing a pretty good job with a very challenging set of greens.