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BARCLAYS SCOTTISH OPEN

July 10, 2005

Tim Clark

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND

SCOTT CROCKETT: Tim, the trophy has been delivered to and the check is signed; you must be absolutely delighted with your performance.

TIM CLARK: Yes, obviously a tough day out there. You knew you had to shoot a good score today to win. And Maarten was a bit unfortunate with some of his putts, but certainly the quality of golf we were playing kept us both going.

SCOTT CROCKETT: Can you sum up how it feels to be the Barclays Scottish Open Champion?

TIM CLARK: Obviously I'm extremely honored to win the Scottish title. I have a couple of South African Opens, and this is certainly one of those that I hold right up there. I've been here now four years and enjoyed every trip here and had a few good tournaments. I think I've had probably a third and a fifth. I've always felt could play well on this course, and certainly my game is as good as it's been in a long time coming in here, so I hoped to play well.

SCOTT CROCKETT: A great start, you birdied the first.

TIM CLARK: Yeah, the ball is going a lot further this year than it has in the fairways. I had a sand wedge to the hole and hit it to about 12 feet and made the putt. A great way to get started.

3, the par 5, I knocked it on the green there from the trap with a 3 iron. Lucky to get a lie in the bunker where I could go at the green, and, you know, pulled off a great shot.

8, I hit a wedge there to, I guess, about three, four feet.

11, the dropped shot, a tough hole, playing about 220 yards and didn't quite I didn't want to go long, so I left myself a really tough 2 putt, and you know, just one of those things.

13, again I put myself in trouble off the tee into the fairway bunker. Laid up with a wedge to about 171 yards and hit a 6 iron again about ten feet and made a good putt there.

SCOTT CROCKETT: If you started well, you finished even better. Tell us about the last.

TIM CLARK: Yeah, I just didn't want to leave myself a tickish put there for the win, so obviously I wanted to get it as close as possible, if not make it. And with a couple feet to go, I was really relieved to see it go in.

SCOTT CROCKETT: How long was your putt?

TIM CLARK: Oh, no idea. About 25 feet.

Q. How worried were you when your drive was in the air at the 13th?

TIM CLARK: Really don't have time to worry about it when the ball is in the air. It was going right, and when I saw it going in the bunker, I thought, "That's not going to be very good there at all." Like I said I could get a wedge on it and know I won't have more than a 6 or 7 iron, so I wasn't too worried there.

Q. Is this a bigger win that your South African titles?

TIM CLARK: Certainly with the quality of the field. But no, I don't know, it's always great to win your home title, and like I say, this is a tournament I respect a lot, all of the great winners, and in terms of the field, yeah, certainly it is a big win.

Q. Were you watching the leaderboard?

TIM CLARK: No, I like to see what's going on and see what I have to do. I guess really the only one making a move was Darren today. I saw he had finished on 17 which, you know, pretty much made it easy. I had to par the last few holes and hopefully make a birdie in there. Someone finished on 16, I might have gotten a little bit defensive, which you really don't want to do on those last few holes, so that sort of made me hit the shots I needed to hit.

Q. Did I see you talking to George O'Grady earlier in the week about rejoining the European Tour?

TIM CLARK: I'm not sure when I'm going to be back.

Q. Did you think the 13th was the pivotal hole?

TIM CLARK: Yeah, that could have really, you know, could have found myself two shots back right there. And I think we tied up, you know, and again, he just played so well today. The first two holes, he had no more than a total of two feet for his putts, so they were both tap ins. I knew I was going to have a tough day. He seemed to be very comfortable out there. Just unfortunate, he had two putts he hit hole, like on 13, really, really unlucky.

Q. Is this your first big win outside South Africa?

TIM CLARK: I won on the Nationwide Tour. But this is my first big win, yeah.

Q. This must give you confidence for next week?

TIM CLARK: I think any time you play well, it builds your confidence. Obviously I had a good U.S. Open a few weeks ago, and you can't just look at wins. Obviously I've played good golf and not won tournaments.

Now to know that I can win, obviously it is going to mean a great deal. I think I can now look to win more and more tournaments. I found myself in contention a lot more this year than in years gone by, and to know that I can play under the pressure and needing to play well, certainly is very pleasing.

Q. How many bogeys did you have this week?

TIM CLARK: I think I made six, four on Thursday and Friday and only two on the weekend.

Q. When will you go to St. Andrews?

TIM CLARK: I'm probably going to go tomorrow. I think I'm probably going to spend the night in Glasgow with some friends and head down to St. Andrews tomorrow.

SCOTT CROCKETT: I think you might find you have a lot more friends in Glasgow than you though you had. (Laughter.) Many congratulations, well done.

End of FastScripts.

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