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

BUICK CHAMPIONSHIP

August 25, 2005

Kevin Sutherland

CROMWELL, CONNECTICUT

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Kevin Sutherland, currently our leader in the clubhouse for the first round of the Buick Championship. Off to a great start, 5 under 65, 31 on the back. Great way to finish. Start with some opening comments on a good day for you.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Yeah, I played well. Had, you know, a strange start to the day. My caddie, I got here and found out that my caddie had to go home. His son had to have emergency surgery, and he had arranged for someone to caddie for me. Kind of like the start of the day was like, wow. I felt really bad. So I kind of just went out there and played.

Hit the ball really well, you know, made some putts. I had some key up and downs early in the round on 4 and 5. Kind of kept the round going. Ended up birdie ing 6. The backside, I hit the ball really well. I had a lot of good chances. Shot, what, 4 under on that side.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Yeah, 4 under. You're a West Coast guy, but paired with a couple former University of Hartford players. Talk about that today.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: You know, I was aware of that before I even got to the first tee, which I thought was great. You know, a few people out watching. I really enjoy playing with Tim and Jerry. Though it was great. You know, they obviously had some fans out there rooting for them. I think they started rooting for me a little bit, too. They kind of adopted me in the end.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: You all three played really well.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: We all played really well, yeah. We were kidding around with Jerry, who putted most of the backside with a 3 iron. That's the way it goes. So we had a good time. We had a lot of laughs. It was just a very enjoyable group.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Questions.

Q. What happened with the caddie? Did you get a local knowledge guy?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: No, no, he's a guy that's been out here for a while. He was supposed to caddie for Carlos Franco. I guess Carlos withdrew for whatever reason, so he was just here. Worked out well for both of us actually.

Bobby, I'm looking forward to talking to him, making sure everything is okay at home. Bobby is a friend of mine. Caddied for me all year. From Sacramento. I've known Bobby a long time. Obviously, I want to make sure everything is all right.

Q. Jerry broke his putter?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Yeah, you know, he threw it in the back pretty hard. I've seen guys throw it in harder. It just hit right and the weights came out, you know. That was all she wrote.

Q. Talk about your season, what kind of season you had coming into this.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Yeah, I played pretty well early in the year. The West Coast, I played I was very happy with how I was playing. Very pleased. I was hitting the ball really well. Seemed like every day I went out there, I was giving myself a lot of good chances for birdie. Then I just kind of went into you know, it wasn't like it was horrible, I wasn't making a lot of cuts. I wasn't playing that well. I kept finishing around 30th, roughly. I just wasn't hitting the ball well enough. I just wasn't giving myself enough opportunities. My putting hasn't been great, but I was putting a lot of pressure on my putter, putting a lot of putts from 35 feet or 40 feet for birdie. You're just not going to make birdie putts from there all the time.

But just last week at Reno, I really started to feel like I started hitting the ball well again. Started feeling kind of like it did earlier in the year. When I came here, I came here very optimistic about how I was hitting the ball, and it showed today. I played very well today. I was very pleased with how I hit it.

Q. Was the adjustment something minor or a little more substantial?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: It was very minor. I just really actually, I've been playing out of a closed stance which is kind of a drill for me, keep my lower body from spinning out a little bit, get the club out in front of me, so it's behind me. Kind of a drill. I've been kind of playing that way the last couple weeks.

A little bit more patience on the swing has been the key, not being in such a rush to hit the ball, just kind of waiting a little bit. That's what I was doing last week and that's what I did today. That's what I was doing earlier in the year. Sometimes it can be really simple.

Q. You've played this course, your eighth straight year. It's been such a dry summer here in Connecticut. How was the course playing compared to other years?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: You know, it's playing well. I know it's been really hot and everybody came here saying that the course was not going to be in very good shape, all that. But I tell you what, the course is in good shape. The fairways are fine, the greens are really good. They may not be as quick as they have been in the past, but they're still very good. You would not know just from looking at the course that the course was, you know, struggling, hurt by heat. It's actually I think in very good shape.

I thought yesterday afternoon, we played on Wednesday, I played late, at 1:30 in the ProAm, I thought the course, it was playing really fast and hard. The greens were firm. It really looked like it would play like on a Sunday afternoon. But they obviously put some water on it this morning because it was completely different. They needed to. The course looked like it was about to die.

To answer your question, the course is in very good shape.

Q. You've had good finishes here in the past. Does this particular TPC course suit your eye more than others?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Yeah, I like this course. I like this course a lot. I think it's a very good course. I love 15, 16, 17 and 18, too. But, you know, 15, a big bowl. Last year, attendance was down a little bit. The years before, they get so many people that all those hillsides are just packed with people. You know, great atmosphere. So I really like this course. I like those holes particularly.

Q. What is your caddie's name, his son's name?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: His name is Bobby Siravo. He has two sons. I'm not sure which one it is. I haven't talked to Bobby. There was a message I guess on my cell phone this morning. I didn't turn my cell phone on so I didn't get the message. I didn't know about it till I got to the driving range really.

Q. Roughly how old are his children?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Ben is the oldest, and he is about three or four. I'm assuming it's Ben. I don't know that for a fact, though.

Q. What was your reaction when you showed up?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I was concerned. He's talked to a couple of the caddies out here just to kind of I'm not a hundred percent sure of what everything is, something to do with a septic something in his hip. I don't know. They were really concerned about it getting into his blood system and stuff. That's why they had to do surgery right away. I don't know what that means. I'm not a doctor. I just know they needed to do surgery right away.

Q. How did you adjust not having a caddie unknown to you?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I wasn't so much concerned about that as much as I was just about, you know, him being a friend of mine and his family, you know, obviously there was a concern. I was more concerned about that than I was about having a caddie for the round. That wasn't much of a concern.

Q. How close to your tee time did you find out?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: About an hour. I got just when I walked out of the locker room, maybe 50 minutes. I walked out of the locker room about 50 minutes before my tee time.

Q. The new caddie was hanging around?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Bobby had talked to him last night and had arranged that. He was there waiting for me. He was under the impression that I already knew. I had my cell phone turned off. I didn't turn it on this morning at 6:00 in the morning. So I didn't get the message from Bobby.

Q. What is your caddie's name?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Andy. I don't know his last name.

Q. You said Bobby went back to Sacramento?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: He went back this morning, yeah.

Q. Do you rely a lot on the caddie? Do you normally ask him to help you read putts?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I don't have him read putts very much. We've done a little bit of clubbing. Andy did a great job with that today. He really caught on fast, knew kind of what was going on. He's been out here a long time, so he's very experienced. He did a really good job today.

Q. Is it hard to think about those kind of things in the round if you're distracted or concerned or is it easy to focus?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I think early in the round I had a hard time focusing a little bit. But as the round went on, I started becoming a little bit more at ease with it. I think sometimes having the experience of being out here a while helped, too. I was able to kind of play through it a little bit. I'm looking forward to calling him. I'm assuming everything is okay. This is an assumption.

Q. You would be calling fairly soon?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Yeah, I'm going to call soon, probably right after we're done here.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: If we could touch on the backside, four birdies in the last six holes, starting with 13, par 5.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: 13 was straight downwind, hit a driver and a 5 iron on the par 5. Hit it just right of the green, chipped it up to three feet.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Par 4, 14.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: 3 wood off the tee there. Hit a sand wedge to three or four inches, tap in. Walked upped and tapped it in really.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Short par 4, 15.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Hit a 3 wood on the green. I hit it about 25 feet from the hole, 2 putted for birdie.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: 17.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: 17, hit a 3 wood off the tee and hit an 8 iron to 15 feet, made that.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Thank you, Kevin.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: You're welcome.

End of FastScripts.

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297