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U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 8, 2006

Mark James

HUTCHINSON, KANSAS

RAND JERRIS: Mark James, one under par, 69 today, 4 under for the championship.

Q. It looked like you were a little bit frustrated, especially with your putting early on.

MARK JAMES: The front nine was an absolute nightmare with the putter. I just started off the round and it was just like holding a piece of string. The ball's exploding off it in any direction, and gradually during the round the stroke got a lot better.

I actually ended up stroking it very well, but still couldn't hole any short ones but holed a few long ones. So overall it wasn't too bad, but I need to putt better. I putted very average all three rounds, and you don't finish top three putting like that. So I need to come practice.

Q. Do you prepare any differently when you know you're going to play with Tom Watson when he has this big crowd behind him, or is it just like another round of golf?

MARK JAMES: No. Makes no difference to me. I like playing with Tom. It's difficult for my wife to see what's going on, but, no, it makes no difference.

Q. How do you like your position going into tomorrow? And do you think the course is going to be laid out any differently, or pin positions are going to be different maybe in response to today's scores?

MARK JAMES: I don't think they can make it an awful lot tougher. I don't think even if 12 under wins I don't think it means that it was too easy. There's not that many people under par. So I think that with this course they have done a pretty good job. There comes a point where if you make a course too difficult you're making it silly.

We have seen what's happened to places like Winged Foot. It starts to get maybe I wasn't there, but maybe just across the borderline. I don't think they need to do that to us.

Q. Tom shot back to back 66s. You played with him today. What did you notice about him? Why was he at 66 today?

MARK JAMES: Well, what did I notice about him? He played very solid. He seems to play pretty much the same whenever I play with him. He doesn't do anything poorly. He drives it pretty straight. He hits his irons pretty well. He chips pretty well. He putts pretty well. He thinks pretty well. You put that all together and you got a great player. Simple as that. No weak points.

Q. Were you aware of what was going on in front of you with Loren's score and some of the others that were going on?

MARK JAMES: Yeah. I could see a couple of guys got hot on hot on the leaderboard, absolutely, but there's nothing that we can do about that. It's just a question of concentrating on your own game.

But, yeah, the course was playable. It was a little softer today, I think. So yeah, if you could putt well you could do a score, no question. But you got to putt well and club well. It's not easy clubbing even in a 15 mile an hour wind. It's not that strong, but it's enough to make it a little awkward when you're pitching it on those and humps and different grained grass on the greens. So, yeah, it's still a good test.

Q. Fun to get right in contention going into the last day given how you've been in a bit of a lull?

MARK JAMES: Yeah, absolutely. I've played well from tee to green. Again, I was I think I was top in greens hit and fairways hit last night. I missed four or five greens today, but only through sort of clubbing slightly wrong. I only missed one fairway, so my game is solid. And I can't ask for more than that. Sometimes it takes, it can take a month of playing well to actually get results, so I'm up there the first week I started playing better, so no complaints.

End of FastScripts.

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