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VALERO TEXAS OPEN

September 22, 2005

Bart Bryant

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Bart, defense of your title to get off to a nice start with 33 32, 65. A couple thoughts about your round today.

BART BRYANT: Well, you know, if somebody would have said you can have 65, you know, I would have been happy with that. It's a good solid start. It's a good round. A little disappointing in the fact I parred the last seven holes, which 6, 7, 8, 9, in fact, when I was playing with Larry, he birdied four of them. They're birdie holes and I didn't get any birdies so I felt like a left a couple out there. I made some nice putts earlier and I played solid, so it's a nice start. I may have to do something a little more special than I did today to be there in the end.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Can you just run through the five birdies? They claim in clusters with three in your first five holes and then No. 1 and 2 on the front side.

BART BRYANT: I started on 10 today. I birdied 12 from about I hit it probably to about 10 or 11 feet there. Let's see, 10 feet. I made it on 12 from about 10 feet.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: You hit what in there?

BART BRYANT: I hit a 9 iron, hit a driver off the tee, a 9 iron in, real good shot.

12, I hit a 3 wood off the tee and I hit a wedge in there ten feet and made a nice putt.

13, a little par 3 down the hill, hit a sand wedge. The pin was right on the front today, so it's playing about 120, but it's so far downhill you have to take off about 15 yards. I hit it to about 14 feet, made a real good putt.

Then 14, par 5, I ripped a drive down there, hit a 5 iron to somewhere about 18, 19 feet, something like that, hit a great putt, thought I made it but just didn't go in. So it was a good, solid start, real good start.

I had a couple more opportunities, didn't make them. Got around to 1 and 2 and made a couple nice 10 , 12 footers. I didn't do anything really exciting, just everything I was supposed to early on, and then of course the last seven holes I just couldn't get it in the hole. I really had a problem with my speed today. For some reason I was leaving a lot of putts short. I'm going to have to go out on the practice tee.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Did you hit wedge into 1?

BART BRYANT: No. 1, yes, I had a 60 degree sand wedge. I only had about 90 to the pin or something.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: And your putt was how far?

BART BRYANT: Putt was about ten feet.

No. 2, I actually made it from about 17 feet.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: And you hit what into there?

BART BRYANT: And I hit an 8 iron into there.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Obviously good memories coming back to a place to defend for the first time. You're very familiar with the course and everything, but your win earlier this year at the Memorial obviously catapulted your year.

BART BRYANT: It's fun to come back for media day having won at the Memorial I think for the folks here and for me, as well. I have a lot of good feelings coming back here, a lot of good memories. I'm really comfortable with the golf course, and I like that my game suits it pretty well, so it's a place I like to come and feel I have a chance to do well.

Q. What is it about the golf course because obviously Duffy has won here twice and Justin has won back to back and now you're in contention again.

BART BRYANT: It's not a real long hitters' golf course, which is good for me. You can kind of get the ball running down the fairways. You're going to have a lot of medium to short irons in, which is kind of my strength, so you get it in play, a lot of medium to short irons, and then because you have a lot of medium to short irons, everybody out here is going to get a lot of good looks at birdies, and you tend to have those 10 to 15 footers, and I've gotten much better from that range over the last couple years. I feel more comfortable there, although I didn't putt great from there today.

I think a guy that is good from that range is always going to do well because everybody is going to get good looks at birdies. It's just that type of golf course.

Q. With the level you guys play at, Bart, it is such a mental game. Is it just one more thing that mentally it's right for you and you come back to a course where obviously you've had success? You've already gone through the winning thing and the only thing is it kind of a mental pacifier or something to come back to this course where you do have good memories and your mental process is good going in?

BART BRYANT: I think so. Obviously this is my first time to defend, but I've had other tournaments where I've played well, Top 10s or whatever, and you come back and you kind of go off those past experiences with positive shots that you've seen that kind of have been bred in your mind.

Conversely to that, there's other places where you go where you think, "I'm going to play good here one of these days. No, okay, well, I'll be back." So it works both ways.

Q. Just talk about the final seven hole stretch where you just kept coming up short like you said and it just wasn't there.

BART BRYANT: My irons were okay but didn't get them real close until finally 8 and 9, I think I hit it probably seven feet and 10 or 11 feet. And both of them I hit way too easy, which is terrible. I'm going to have to get on the putting green and work on that. You get an easy putt like that, you want to give it a good chance of going in.

Q. Are you superstitious enough to want to go to the restaurants you went to last year or try to wear the shirts you wore last year? Are you into any of that?

BART BRYANT: Not really (smiling). If I had to do that I'd probably get Whataburger every night. That's where I hung out last year. I've got my family with me this year.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Thanks, Bart.

End of FastScripts.

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