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EDS BYRON NELSON CHAMPIONSHIP

May 12, 2006

Arron Oberholser

IRVING, TEXAS

TODD BUDNICK: We welcome Arron Oberholser after a 10 under 60 in the second round of the EDS Byron Nelson Championship, moves you to 6 under for the tournament.

Arron, no bogeys today, ten birdies, a chance for 59, a very nice day out there for you, a lot of fun.

ARRON OBERHOLSER: It was a lot of fun. I had two good playing partners in Chris DiMarco and Mark Brooks. I enjoy playing with both of them. I especially enjoy playing with Chris. Chris and I are kind of cut from the same cloth; we're both part Italian and we like to talk and we have a good time together when we play together. He's just a great guy. He's one of my favorite guys to play with out here.

He makes it very comfortable, and I'm comfortable playing with him, and I hope he feels the same way. But it was nice it was a good pairing for me.

TODD BUDNICK: It's been a very good season for you. This is your 11th straight cut and you won your first tournament earlier at AT & T. Just talk about this season so far for you.

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Well, I think I'm improving. My consistency is getting better. I'm focusing more on the mental aspect of the game than I have been. I'm learning I know the golf courses now, this being my fourth year. So it's just been I'm settling in, I'm finding it more comfortable out here, and I'm starting to feel like I did when I played on the Nationwide Tour and the Canadian Tour.

TODD BUDNICK: Let's walk back to No. 18, and at that point did you know you had a chance when you got to the tee at 18

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Absolutely. From the tee shot all the way into the putt I knew I had a chance for 59 and it made me smile. It's a great feeling.

TODD BUDNICK: Walk us through that hole.

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Well, the tee shot I wasn't really nervous on the tee shot, although I didn't hit you couldn't tell by the way I hit it. But I absolutely hit the worst chunk pop up 3 wood of my life, not that I hit a lot of those, but that one was bad. And it left me 236 yards to the hole on 18 with a perfect lie in the middle of the fairway.

But a cart kind of disturbed me coming up the path to the right and I was set in my routine and I was focused, and I look up there and in my vision I see this cart coming and they weren't stopping. So I backed off. I was fine with it. I just told my caddie, I said I'm just going to let him come all the way through. So he saw we were on the tee and stopped. But I still didn't feel quite right. Got up there, didn't make a very good swing, popped it up, more of a nervous swing than I had anticipated.

And then I got to the shot in the fairway, and I was still very calm, felt great, just cherishing the fact that I had a shot at 59. It's really cool to have a shot at 59.

Woosley, my caddie, Dave Woosley, my caddie, he kind of maybe could sense that I was getting a little bit uptight, so he asked me about my girlfriend and how is she doing, and I said, she's doing fine, and we started talking about that. So that kind of took my mind off of it. It freed me up to make a good golf swing, and I hit a 3 iron from like 236 to like 15 feet right of the hole.

And then walking to the green, man, I had a smile from ear to ear. It's just so cool. I mean, it's the best nervous you can be because it's exciting. It's the same you're just soaking it in. Like a putt to win a golf tournament. Sure, when you get there, you want to be focused and ready to hit the putt. But up to that, man, you don't have a lot of opportunities out here like that, soak it up, enjoy the moment. It was really cool. I highly recommend it to everybody.

TODD BUDNICK: And the putt, you read it a little bit high?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Yeah, I read it high and I think I pushed it a little bit. If I didn't give it enough it was going to snap at the hole. I didn't want to hit it hard because it was downhill. I figured I'm just going to leave it out to the right and if it hits a bump or something it can maybe kick it to the left, but I didn't want it to snap in front of the hole. I hung it out there a little too much and didn't hit anything and curled down. 60 is not bad.

Q. It looked like you knew right when you hit the putt that it wasn't going in?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Well, I knew that it was too high. I knew that I kind of pushed it. I didn't hit my line exactly. But I think that was more of just a reaction to not want to have it miss low, give it a chance, and I just pushed it a little too much, just didn't hit it quite like I wanted to.

Q. You brought it up, and we were talking about was that more nerve wracking than having a putt to win a tournament?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: No, it was the exact same feeling. I've been in both situations. The feeling is pretty much identical.

Q. We were wondering if this was more nerve wracking because this happens less than having a putt to win a tournament?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Yeah, you're right, but no, it's the same feeling.

Q. You knew on 18 that you had a chance to shoot 59. When you were in the middle of the round and you're reeling stuff off, are you thinking, hey, we may really be onto something here?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Yeah, it crept in for sure on about No. 12. After I made the birdie on 12, I thought, man, I have a chance to shoot 59 if I can make a birdie here, birdie here. You're plotting it through your head, if I can get one here and here. But it quickly went away because I went, come on, Arron, just hit good shots.

Q. Are you from the one shot at a time kind of philosophy?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Sure, we're all one shot at a time kind of guys when we're playing well. Yeah, when you're going and you're just raining in putts from everywhere, if it doesn't come across your mind, you're a robot, a programmed robot, and I don't think there's anybody like that out here, not even Tiger.

Q. Faldo is retired, right?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: I don't know, is he?

Q. Back to the feeling on the putt for 59, did you find yourself grinding harder than usual?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: No, same thing.

Q. Breathing differently?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Just a deep breath before I took it back because I was a little more nervous than you would be for a 15 footer for 68. You know, I just went with it. Same routine, same everything, tried to do the same cadence, same timing.

Q. Any explanation for how you found a 60 one day after shooting 74 yesterday?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Nope. Question of the cosmos. If I had the secret I'd bottle it and be in Bermuda right now hanging out in my mansion. I'd sell it.

Q. I didn't know if there was something you latched onto yesterday that you didn't like.

ARRON OBERHOLSER: As far as a swing thing or a putting thing?

Q. Or like a change in the wind or something?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Well, I think the wind today, it was up and down. It would die and then it would come up. It was actually kind of a tricky wind and a wind that I'm unfamiliar with on these golf courses, both yesterday and today. Today wasn't the normal wind, either. So it was just what I latched onto, to answer your question, between yesterday and today was I just found something in my golf swing that I just was going to try to see if it would help me be a little bit more consistent at the bottom of my golf swing, which would, in turn, create a more consistent trajectory, and it worked.

Q. What was it?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: I can't tell you.

Q. Oh, come on.

ARRON OBERHOLSER: I'm not going to tell you. That ruins it because then someone else is going to go out there and shoot 60.

Q. It could screw up the other player.

ARRON OBERHOLSER: No, I keep that stuff to myself.

Q. Are you a guy who shot a lot of low scores as a junior?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: No. Where I grew up low scores were hard to come by. You had bumpy poa annua, 20 mile an hour northwest winds in the afternoon in San Mateo and San Francisco. If you shot 68 in high school with the balata ball and the old equipment, man, you golfed your ball, on greens that had had 80, 90 rounds that day or more. It was a tough go.

I think my low rounds as a junior golfer were probably I think I might have shot 64 a couple of times, but that's it. I mean, I was always a steady 68, 69, 70 shooter.

Q. Regardless of score, what would you have considered one or two of the best rounds you've played at any level before today?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Period?

Q. Yeah, I mean, maybe a 69 in a 50 mile an hour wind would have been it.

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Before today? The 73 I shot at the Shin Han Korea Championship when I won. It was 40 miles an hour raining sideways on a 7,300 yard golf course, and I was using a putter that I borrowed the day before. That was a pretty good round. That was a great round actually.

And I shot 64 with three eagles the last round of the Western Intercollegiate to nip Tiger and Joel Kribel in college at Pasatiempo in '96. Those rounds stick out in my mind.

Q. You got the course record at Cottonwood today. Do you have any others even in casual rounds that you're aware of?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: I don't know if it still stands, it probably doesn't, but in 99 or 98 I shot 64 at the new Half Moon Bay back when I was living at home, not on the Arnold Palmer design but the other links course. I shot 64 out there. I don't know if it still stands. I doubt it. If the wind isn't blowing, it's a pretty benign golf course.

Q. Was there a close miss out there on any of the other holes that could have been a 59, or the closest miss you might have had?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Nope. I got everything out of the round today. I got everything out of the round today. There wasn't one thing that I can go, you know what, I could have done it better.

Q. Was this a great putting round?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Yeah, it was a fabulous putting round. It was arguably the best putting round of my PGA TOUR career, without a doubt.

Q. After a 60, what do you work on tonight before tomorrow's round?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: I'm going to go over to the trailer, I'm going to go exercise, I'm going to go ice my back and get some therapy because I've been struggling a little bit with a bad back, and then I'm going to go home and probably just order room service because I think it's getting late.

Q. Is the girlfriend the normal topic to change the mood?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: No, but he just my caddie knows her real well because she came to the Masters this year and walked around all 72 holes, and she plays golf, too. So we were hoping that she was playing well at Kingsmill today.

TODD BUDNICK: Let's see if you can remember all ten. No. 1.

ARRON OBERHOLSER: 1, driver, 4 iron just off the back fringe to about 15 feet and made it.

5, driver in the left rough, pitching wedge into the it stayed actually on like the little swale right there on the slope, and I made a great putt there up and over the ridge from about 25, 30 feet, I think.

6, I hit 5 wood off the tee and a little bump 9 iron to the back of that green to about ten feet and made that.

8, I hit 3 wood and another little bump 9 iron to the back of that green to about six feet, made that. Six or seven feet, made that.

10, I hit driver and a pitching wedge to about 25 feet behind the hole, made that.

11, I hit driver, 3 wood in the front bunker, sand shot, not a very good one, to about 20 feet, made that.

12, 5 iron to about eight feet, made that.

13, driver, pitching wedge to about 25, 30 feet, made that.

16, driver, 4 iron just over the bunker, chip up to about a foot and a half, tapped that in.

17, 6 iron to about 25 feet, 30 feet, made that.

I made a few seagoers today.

Q. Putt at 18 was, what?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: 15 feet.

TODD BUDNICK: Thank you. Arron.

End of FastScripts.

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