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BUICK OPEN


July 30, 2004


Billy Andrade


GRAND BLANC, MICHIGAN

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Billy Andrade, 7 under par 65, 11 under for the tournament. Why don't you start us of talking about your recent really good play.

BILLY ANDRADE: I started my good play shooting 2 over in the first round at Milwaukee and then a real low 64, and I just started making putts. Ball starts going in the hole. And this game is a lot of fun, and when you're not make putts and you're not scoring and you're leaving a lot out there, this game can kind of suck.

So today and yesterday, I kind of kept the momentum going from last week, felt like I had a good chance to win and played well down the stretch and just took that into here, at a place where I enjoyed playing. I've had chances to win here a couple of times early in my career and didn't get it done on greens that I enjoyed putting on. They are just perfect.

And the conditions are ripe for scoring and the scoring has been fantastic these last couple of days and I'm happy to be where I'm at.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Talk about your finish today, birdies on the last four holes. Obviously a great way to finish the day.

BILLY ANDRADE: Yeah, you know, I was 8 under going to 12 and drove it right down the middle of the fairway right in the hole. I don't even know if it was considered a divot, and I made bogey there. That was my only bogey of the day.

And the next hole I was kind of going to go for it or not; I didn't, I laid up and then I hit a sand wedge. I was kind of in an in between yardage, got it over the green and got it up and down. That was kind of the key to my round. I really should have birdied 14. I missed about a 6 footer there and then I hit a 7 iron on 15 about four feet and made that.

I was right in front of the green in two on 16. Chipped up to about four feet and made that.

I hit a 6 iron on 17 about ten feet short of the pin and I made that, and I hit a beautiful drive on the last hole and hit a wedge about four feet there, five feet and made that.

Obviously when you finish with four in a row, it's pretty cool, and, you know, ecstatic where I'm at and I'm looking forward to the next couple of days.

Q. You're playing well now, but how much extra pressure does that put on you knowing that everybody else out here is going to be shooting a low score to win this tournament. Does that do anything for you?

BILLY ANDRADE: No. You know, as bad as I've played for last year and a half or so, I've been struggling pretty well. I have enough pressure on myself, I really don't care about anybody else. And I think that's the mindset that you have to go in yeah, you have to shoot low and you have to try to make as many birdies as you can.

But the bottom line is I know that Kenny Perry and Jim Furyk and all the guys I'm chasing are chasing me, they are not worried about me, and for that matter, I don't think I need to worry about them. I think I just need to go out and play great.

Q. When did you start to feel a that something like this was coming on?

BILLY ANDRADE: I actually have been playing pretty well for a while. I just haven't scored well for a while. I would say right around Houston Open, I don't know when that was, April maybe is when kind of my game has started to turn. I've seen signs and improvement. Ball striking got better. My feel around the greens still wasn't very good, and just recently, I've gotten a lot more feel around the greens. I started making some putts. I've been saying to myself all along: "I am a good putter, I know that I am." But it sure didn't look like it for a while. It was nice to see a few of them go in here.

Q. With the rain expected this afternoon, it looks like the course will probably be wet at least through one more day. Do you expect the scores to stay the way they are, if the course stays wet and you can shoot at the pins?

BILLY ANDRADE: Well, it's kind of a Catch 22. With bad weather, the golf course plays longer. So is longer going to be a the difference between scoring? I don't know. I think most of us that have been here for a long time remember the way the golf ball used to go years ago, and you're kind of used to it.

Maybe the younger players are not going to be used to hitting longer irons in, but the greens are fairly soft and you can fire right at it. If you can't, there's a few tough pins today that's kind of tough to get to. But, you know, the players are so good today, this golf course is ripe for the taking if you can get it going, and I'd be surprised if the scoring doesn't just continue to go low, as low as it's been going so far this week.

It's too bad because yesterday afternoon the golf course was just starting to dry out. It was nice to see the ball rolling and playing a little faster. I think that's the way that everybody here and the way that our tour officials would love to see the golf course play, firm and fast. But unfortunately with the rain, it's not going to be that way.

Q. What do you like about the course, the atmosphere and the environment?

BILLY ANDRADE: Well, there's so much energy here. For a tournament that's been here for so long, it's very well attended, the fans are very knowledgeable. They have a great time. It's just an event. And the golf course is very similar to the golf courses I grew up on as a kid in Rhode Island: Tree lined; you have to place your ball in certain places on the fairway; the greens are perfect. I don't think there's one guy here that's going to say these greens are not very good.

So I would say that the greens here is as good as any we play all year. When you have great putting surfaces, with the players of this caliber, you're going to have some good scores. So it's a combination of all those things.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Your front side, three birdies starting on No. 1.

BILLY ANDRADE: Yeah, I don't remember the first hole because it was so damn early. But I hit a drive and a 3 wood in front of the green and chipped up to about an inch, tapped in.

Made a few pars. Birdied 8. I hit a 6 iron to 8 about five feet.

No. 9, I hit a sand wedge from the 18th fairway; so that's a fairway hit in my book. Made it from the front edge there about a 20 footer, a nice putt. So those were my three birdies on the front.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Billy, thank you very much.

End of FastScripts.
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