Q. Robert, this is a course, again, where you seem to score well and have done well through the years.
ROBERT DAMRON: Yes.
Q. How is that?
ROBERT DAMRON: I'm not sure. Maybe you build a little momentum if you play well the first time. You look forward to coming back to courses you've always played well on. The greens have seemed to suit my eye. You know, it's just the type of course that I'm excited to come to. The weather is warm, again, so I feel loose. Usually you're playing in colder weather the weeks before this tournament, and I really don't have a rock solid answer for you. It's just nice to be here.
Q. Is it a situation like that, where you don't really need to analyze it too much, if you're playing well you just go with it?
ROBERT DAMRON: Sure. You try to stay out of your own way. If your expectations are too high, then that can get in your way. I know I like the area, I like the golf course and I try to have a good time, and that usually leads to good golf. Even if I wanted to analyze it, I'm not sure I could, why I like the course. I just do.
TODD BUDNICK: Let's go ahead and walk through your card. You went through the birdie on the 10th hole, your first. 12.
ROBERT DAMRON: 12 was a good drive, hit driver and hit kind of a cut up the left side. I had 106 yards, hit sand wedge to about 12 feet, made that.
16, par-5, a fair drive. I hit it a little right, but it was fine, in the fairway. The course is playing a little shorter than in recent years because you think that every other tournament that I remember coming here we were cleaning mud off the ball, lift, clean and place and it was always wet, but it's nice and firm. I can hit a few shots I haven't hit here in the past. I hit a low draw 3-wood to chase it up the front. I had 30 feet for eagle, lagged it up, tapped it in for birdie.
No. 2, again, driver up the middle, 102 yards to the hole, sand wedge about six feet.
Kind of an interesting one on the next hole. It's a tough drive for me because I cut it off the tee, and it's really a draw hole. Anyway, I skirted the left side, hit a tree, it kicked deep into the left. I really didn't have a pitch-out. The only thing I had was up over these trees on the left to try to get it down the fairway out of a not good lie. I had 7-iron for my third shot, probably best swing of the day. I hit it four feet past the hole maybe, right at it, and tapped that in.
Par-5, terrible tee shot but straight. Most guys are knocking it on with iron today. I had to try to cut a driver around the tree. I just heeled it up into the wind a little bit. The driver off the ground was not too bad, I just kept it under the overhanging branches that come out in the fairway, right of the green, chipped up, tough chip, short-sighted myself I'll say ten feet, made that one.
And 18, or 9, driver up the left. I was scared I could knock it through if I killed it so I tried to hit a wide slice into the fairway. It was a little too far right but it took a nice left-hand kick and I hit it to six feet.
Q. And the bogey?
ROBERT DAMRON: I hit a good drive, a good number with a 9-iron, I had a little help. I hit a nice shot and it went just past the upslope where I had to chip. It's just a mistake that happens when you choose to be aggressive once in a while. I wasn't disappointed. I hit a pretty good chip and it hit the seam of the fringe and green and skidded and I missed the putt coming back. You live by the sword, you die by the sword. I chose to go right at it, I hit a good shot, it didn't pan out. What do you do?
TODD BUDNICK: Thank you, Robert.
End of FastScripts....
