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MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 6, 2006

Arron Oberholser

AUGUSTA, GEORGIA

BILLY MORRIS: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We're delighted to have Arron Oberholser with us. Arron had a very fine 69 today. And what would you like, would you like to say a few words, an opening statement or would you like to go to questions?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: We can just go right to questions.

Q. Yesterday you were saying that you were just you had no feeling that you were going to do well this week, that you were just going to take the experience in and you know you'll be back here again. How has that changed from yesterday to today?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Nothing has changed to be very honest with you. It's the first round of a major championship and the golf course, the golf course will dictate the scores as the week goes on. I believe that if we don't get rain the rest of this week, this golf course will get firmer and faster. So my expectations are the same; I don't have any, basically. No one expects me to win this championship. I don't expect myself to win this championship. I have goals, sure. But they are very small ones. Baby steps, basically. I mean, this isn't going to be my last Masters for sure. So learning the golf course is paramount. Member play, which is the one time I have played it, is a lot different than tournament play out here.

Q. How difficult was it today?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: It was tough. You know, I was watching the board most of the day, and I didn't see a lot of people making huge moves. I just think that's indicative of the way the golf course is playing. It's very difficult. When it plays like this, you know, at the same time, I think the conditions for scoring are very good today because there was not a lot of wind, at all. I thought that if you hit solid shots, you were going to be rewarded. You just had to know where to put it on the green. You just had to know where not to hit it more actually than where to hit it.

So if you can just keep it below the hole, you're in good shape.

Q. Different schools of thought about what you were saying before, about not expecting to win. A lot of players will say, if I don't expect to win, I'm not going to enter a tournament. Do you go into tournaments maybe that's just a bravado thing. Do you go into most tournaments

ARRON OBERHOLSER: I can swallow my ego. Maybe some guys can't. But this place will wreck egos, which is why I'm not coming to this place thinking anything but just taking it as a learning experience. Because just as easy as I shot 69 today, I can go out and not play so great tomorrow and hit some of the same shots and just put myself in the wrong spots and you're playing for 5.

Q. Do you ever go into tournaments expecting to win, any tournaments or is this different here?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: No. I never go into a tournament expecting to win. I don't go into the AT&T expecting to win.

Q. So this is a similar feel?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: I go into every tournament the same way. No expectations, just go play.

Q. Even though you say your expectations are not high, did what happened yesterday with the hole in one and your grandfather and starting off the way you did today, are you thinking in the back of your mind, maybe this is going to be a good week for me?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: No.

Q. No?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: No.

Q. Speaking of ego wrecking moments, you had a tough Saturday at THE PLAYERS Championship on the last two holes. Do you forget things like that pretty easily or do you learn from experiences like that and use it as a building block?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: I try to you know, I gave it some thought that night and it was tough that night. But perspective helps a lot with everything. If you just realize, well, I'll be back here; if I put myself in this position once, I can do it again. You've just got to realize that you'll be back. There's another year, another tournament, there's the next week. You can't you're going to give yourself chances, and that's what I believe. I might not do it the first time, I might not do it the second time, it might take me four or five times. But if I continue to put myself in position, once in awhile, it's going to happen.

Q. Obviously you're a rookie here, you've heard stories about this place, and playing it now, do you think the quote, shot integrity, has been put back into the course? In other words, what Hootie Johnson was trying to accomplish, when you played it today, is it, "wow, this is the course it was supposed to be"?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Well, I don't know the course I don't know what it's supposed to be since this is my first go around, so I have no recollection of what it used to be because I was never here. All I have to go on is TV and history.

I think that the way it played today was I think the way that the membership and the committee wants it to play. I think when it's wet, that certain one or two percent of the field, they are the ones that really have the best shot of winning. But when it plays like this, you bring a lot more players into the mix and this is what we are all hoping for is that it stays like this for the rest of the week. So guys like myself that are medium length hitters and Tim Clark, David Toms, Jim Furyk, all those guys have a shot.

Q. Standing on that first tee, which you may not know, but some of us who have been here, it seems to have been moved halfway to someplace, to the Atlantic Ocean, is that intimidating or, "my God, what am I getting into" as you start this tournament?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Well, like I said before, I have no reference of what it used to be like. So for me, it's great, because I'm coming here just totally new. So I don't have there's no room for me to gripe or complain because I've never seen it the way it used to be, so I don't know what it's like.

Q. Was it a good thing being able to kind of draft off Vijay out there today?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Vijay is great for me Vijay is great to play with. I love playing with Vijay, because his swing tempo and my swing tempo are very similar. We both have kind of languid swings. When you have a good visual reference like that it's great to play with a guy like that. He's slow moving. He moves about the course very methodically and not too quickly. You can feed off a guy like that and I kind of fed off it today a little bit and started to hit some good shots and made a few putts and played the par 5s really well today.

Q. If I understand correctly you bitterly waved the white towel on No. 4 yesterday in the practice round?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: I did.

Q. That was a pretty tough putt, wasn't it?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: It was straight uphill about a cup outside on the left, maybe a cup out on the left. I hit a good putt and I didn't think it was going to go in but it really seemed to just put on the right hand turn signal right there about the last two or three feet and just kind of fell on the edge. So I had a feeling, I laughed when I made the putt because I was hitting 3 wood into that thing yesterday with the other wind. Today I hit my rescue, like a rescue club.

Q. What was the shot into 15?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: 15, I had 235, 238, it was like 240 ish to the pin and the putt was like 12 feet.

Q. Some people have talked about the creativity being lost because the golf course is more narrow and dictates the shot. Is that still out there?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: The creativity? Oh, yeah, absolutely, yeah, I think the creativity is still out there. I just think you're hitting it with a longer iron in your hand. I think one of the greatest things about this place that I can see so far is how many options around the greens you have. You can do it several different ways around the greens to make par, and that's fantastic. I mean, the creativity hasn't been lost at all. I just think that what the changes have done is I think that it's really it's really helped the medium hitter. The guy who hits it accurate around in these conditions around 285 to 300 yards, you know, like myself, it's really helped us out. Because if you hit the fairways, then you can do what you want to do with the golf ball.

BILLY MORRIS: Very good. Thank you very much and good luck to you this week.

End of FastScripts.

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