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THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT

June 2, 2006

Steve Flesch

DUBLIN, OHIO

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thanks, Steve, for joining us for a few minutes in the media center at the Memorial Tournament. I know you want to be home, as we've been discussing here, it's been a long, long day. One, you have to be pretty pleased about where you are. And No. 2, you have to be pretty pleased that you are finished.

STEVE FLESCH: Hit the nail on the head. No, I am. It hasn't been a great year for me, and I played good the first round. I really played well today. I just I didn't play as aggressively today. I mean not for any other reason than that I didn't feel like the numbers I got into the greens were as right on perfect clubs. I hit a lot more I was in between clubs a lot more today, so I had to be a little more careful. But I played good, drove the ball in the fairway, hit a lot of greens. Yeah, I'm happy going into at 6 under for the weekend, but I'm more happy that I'm finished.

Q. How close you came tonight to saving the 3 on 18. Your ball hit a big chunk of the cup?

STEVE FLESCH: I heard that. I actually was trying to send it further back on the green, there again I was in between on a number after chipping it off the edge of the hazard on the fairway. I was in between a number, it's hard to get a pitching wedge on line there. I had 106, 8 yards. I was trying to send it all the way up the back of the green, but I didn't hit it hard enough. Apparently, yeah, from the sound of it, it hit the cup. But it was the hardest putt, it was dead straight up the hill eight feet, just didn't make it. But I'm still happy.

Q. Talk about your drive, how close were you to the hazard?

STEVE FLESCH: I was about two feet out of the hazard. There's two really uncomfortable tee shots on the golf course for me, 15 and 18.

15, for no other reason than it looks like you need to hit a left to right tee shot out there, just the way it looks. I don't draw my driver. So I hit 3 wood today, up most people would probably hit driver on 15, but I hit 3 wood there, and I can still get to the green.

But 18, it's a 3 wood shot for me, which I like drawing, but I don't want to start my 3 wood down the left side of that fairway and drop back to the middle. I usually start the 3 wood by the two trees on the bunker, but today I got ahead of it and the wind pushed it over the hazard. Those are the only two I'm uncomfortable with.

Q. You got a terrible lie?

STEVE FLESCH: Yeah, I could only hack it out of the rough to about a hundred yards.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Go over your birdies and bogeys.

STEVE FLESCH: Bogey on 2, I hit a 4 iron with a lot of water and mud on the ball, and it just came out really low and a little right. But it landed on the green, but it rolled to the right of the hazard. I got it up and down for bogey.

3, I hit a 3 wood and an 8 iron about 15 feet and made that.

Birdied 9 from seven feet. Hit a 9 iron in there about 7 feet and then bogeyed 18 after driving it in the left rough and hacking it out, 2 putt and all that fun stuff.

Q. Yesterday you mentioned your biggest problem has been putting the past behind you. And is that just, like, a hole to hole thing, or is it personal?

STEVE FLESCH: No, it's a hole to hole. Sometimes I just hold on to a bad hole a little longer than I should. I make a bogey, and you shouldn't let it drag into the next hole, and I've done that in the past. Last year and a half, I've been a lot better at it, I don't know why, but at 39 years old, you should be able to get over that stuff at some point. That's just how I am. I'm feisty and don't like to make mistakes, but you're going to make a lot of them in this game. But especially a day like today. You can't get too worked up, it's a long day and you have to pay attention to what you're doing. And I like it here, so I just wanted to keep playing well.

Q. But you've been better at it the last year and a half, but yesterday you said it was the best way it's played the last year and a half. Is it frustrating it hasn't gone together?

STEVE FLESCH: Very frustrating. I've made bigger strides doing that, but I haven't seen the rewards in my scores and game. At times, I'm going to keep wearing my emotions on my sleeve, but you can't act like a jerk out there, at 39 years old. I could be playing another sport, like hockey where you could hit somebody.

Q. You weren't in the bunkers yesterday, what were you in today, how much easier were the shots out of the bunkers today, because of the rain? Or were they?

STEVE FLESCH: I was in the front bunker on 7 on the par 5. I went for it in 2 and hit the front bunker and had a cruddy lie, but I played it like a buried shot. Having not been in one for a day and a half, I kind of I practiced here on the practice green, but you can never recreate exactly what you're going to get out there. I hit like a dump and roll, where I flopped it out, and let it roll out about 12 feet. But it wasn't that bad. And then I caught a good lie on 14 13, I came up a little bit short in the front bunker and had no green to work with. But I was on the upslope of the bunker and I was only about 15, 20 feet from the pin. So I was able to just kind of lay it wide open and get underneath that. But it definitely helped that I was on the upslope.

Geoff Ogilvy, man, he was in bunker after bunker for two days and he was great. He probably only got up and down out of the bunker two times, he was stellar. I was joking today, are you one of the two percent that was agreeing with what they did with the bunkers. But to answer your question, yes, the rain definitely helped. It helped knock down those ridges.

Q. What was his answer?

STEVE FLESCH: He just laughed. He said, believe me, I'm not in that two percent. But it's different. The other thing is when somebody in front of us is in the fairway bunker and they hit out. It takes the guy ten minutes to rake it. Because they have Muirfield Village has rakers out there. They're carrying two rakes to rake the bunker. The caddie does a once over. But when he leaves, this maintenance guy runs in and he starts to rake it, and he takes another rake to do the lip. It seems like it's more work than it's really worth to me.

Q. The effect of having familiar faces in the gallery?

STEVE FLESCH: Tough, I think it's tough. It's easy to get distracted. Don't get me wrong, I love the support. It's great, because this is as close as I get to a home game. But in years past, I'm trying so hard to play well for them and I walk off every tee, and hey, man, I must have had six or eight high school buddies out there today, people from the development where I live at home, my mom and dad, but they're out quite often. But you're trying so hard to play for them. You look at them, you want to go over and see what they've been up to, but you have to play golf. I love playing in front of them. I want to play well for them. I almost kind of have to have blinders on when I'm playing.

During the rain delay, I wasn't out kind of trying to find them and whatnot, I'm just hanging out in the locker room. Doing what I normally do at an event. Don't get me wrong, I love to go up and shoot the bull with them for a long time. All of these people, I see them once a year at this tournament, people from high school and whatnot. But they come out of the woodwork. It's kind of neat, really. But at the same time, that's a little bit what I'm talking about, I try so hard, I put so much pressure on myself to play well, sometimes it gets a little in your way.

Q. Just one follow up on putting bad holes behind

STEVE FLESCH: You guys won't let it rest, will you?

Q. As your kids get older and see you on TV, has that had any effect?

STEVE FLESCH: No, they haven't said anything. I don't go nuts on TV

Q. Not to intimate that?

STEVE FLESCH: But I have gone nuts. I don't do that on TV. I'm very aware of my surroundings. A lot of it is just internal. , that my caddie will see or a couple of the other players. Internally I'm boiling. I just don't let it go. I was good at letting it go in basketball and baseball, but it's hard on the golf course to let it go.

Q. Do your kids have any fire when they play sports?

STEVE FLESCH: My four year old daughter has it, God love her, she has red hair, the curse. She has it. She's funny. My boy, he could care less. He's got his mom's kind of disposition, carefree and doesn't bother him. I take him to a ballgame, and he's ready to go, "Come on, dad, let's go, I'm ready." But my daughter is into it, even at four; not into a ballgame. But she's into whatever she's doing, and if it doesn't go right, you know it.

Q. Is she competing in anything yet, T ball?

STEVE FLESCH: She played soccer, but played two games and had enough.

Q. How old is your son

STEVE FLESCH: She got her uniform my boy is 7 and a half, my girl is four and a half.

Q. Everybody hung with you through the six hour, nine minute rain delay today?

STEVE FLESCH: My wife, she was out here up until we went back out and then she went to get the kids. They're at the Tour's daycare program. They couldn't they don't have the attention span. My boy at seven, he wants to come out and walk practice rounds with me. But the problem is I know after about two holes he'd be like, "All right, dad, I'm ready." He likes it in the cart at home, but he can't ride a cart, we're walking. He can't handle that.

End of FastScripts.

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