	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

BUICK INVITATIONAL

January 26, 2007

Bill Haas

LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thanks for joining us for a few minutes at the media center at the Buick Invitational. Nice round at the North Course, probably a little better feeling to be over there on the North Course after watching all those scores yesterday. Just talk about the day, the conditions and we'll go into questions.
BILLY HAAS: I think was a little fortunate to be on the North today. It seems like the wind is definitely blowing harder today than yesterday. So to play the easier course with a little more difficult conditions is easier I think, so a little fortunate, happy to be here.

Q. Inaudible?
BILLY HAAS: I was and I really played well. It could have been four or five. A couple good saves but other than that, even today, I haven't putted outstanding. But I've made some, I guess everybody has great expectations to make everything but pleased, yeah, with the way it's gone so far.

Q. Was what Brandt and Charlie did yesterday on your mind yesterday when you stepped on the tee on the North knowing a low score was out there or do you block it out and do your own thing?
BILLY HAAS: You do your own thing, but you know there are know scores which I can check you still have to make putts. I don't care if the rough is down or whatever, but the scores they shot yesterday were very good. My 6-under today, I didn't expect to shoot anything much lower than that. Obviously you hope to but that's pretty good.

Q. In the short time you've been out here on TOUR, whether you've played Disney or the Hope or this place like that, have you ever found yourself on the way easier of the two courses and things are not going great early on and you get frustrated because know you're supposed to shoot at least 67 to shoot par, and is that harder sometimes than playing the South or Magnolia or whatever?
BILLY HAAS: Maybe the South you make a couple bogeys and you're like, well, I'm going to make bogeys out here and maybe it's all attitude or how you carry yourself out there. It does, it does get to you a little bit. Today I shot 1-under on the front and felt like I was going to miss the cut and then all of a sudden I make a few birdies and you're like, all right, I'm all right. It's all trying to stay in the moment and trying to learn -- you shouldn't be thinking that kind of stuff.

Q. Coming out this season, as opposed to last season, how different do you feel and how much more comfortable are you as a TOUR member than you were a year ago?
BILLY HAAS: I was pretty comfortable last year. I'm just trying to be more consistent, trying to be smarter, trying to be more even-keeled. I get pretty up-and-down with my attitude a little bit sometimes and that's really something I'm going to try to work on and just not care about every shot so much.
Just concentrate on the shot and after I hit it, I can't think about anything else except go hit it again.
Just trying to learn, trying to mature a little bit.

Q. Were you at all frustrated last season that things maybe didn't come quicker to you?
BILLY HAAS: Sure, I guess everybody would love to win six times, but I'm just trying to take stepping stones. I think even through college, I got a little better each year and I'm trying to do the same thing out here.
That's it, I just want to improve, and so I'm glad I did what I did last year. I earned my way back out here again and I would like to improve on that a little bit this year.

Q. How much will this year's schedule differ from last year's for you other than the FedExCup-type stuff? Do you feel like you knew where you wanted to play last year, or things you saw last year like I'm not playing that and you'll play now?
BILLY HAAS: There are a couple of weeks that just does not set up for me, and usually it's off the golf course that makes you feel that way. If you play good on any course out here, the best players, they are going to do well.

Q. Inaudible?
BILLY HAAS: Doesn't matter what the course is like I think.
But if you have a bad experience off the golf course, like, oh, I don't want to go back there, that might play a factor. But I haven't thought beyond the West Coast actually. I just took these six tournaments that I'm going to play these four or five and then I'll figure out the Florida swing.

Q. Your attitude in terms of staying patient and not perfect -- inaudible -- that that's not what got to you this place?
BILLY HAAS: Yeah, if you have high expectations and you put a level on yourself that you need to reach and you don't accept anything less, sure, that pushes you, but then again --

Q. I'm having a hard time picturing in your mind --
BILLY HAAS: I don't want to be like that. I think it's good to get -- you see the best player in the world, Tiger Woods, he gets mad and then he for gets it and he hits the next shot and the next shot will be the best of the day or something like that. I seem to 3-putt and hit it in the trees the next hole. I think I'm getting better, I think.
JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Can you go through your birdies, bogeys, eagles, starting with No. 2 on the North Course par 4?
BILLY HAAS: Go through them?
JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Just the birdies, bogeys and the eagle.
BILLY HAAS: 2, I started off, 3-putted 1 for par. Then 2 I hit kind of a good drive and a crap tee shot, then about 30 feet and I made it. So you're like now, you're not supposed to make that and I'm 1-under where I should have been. The next was just off the edge of the green and I chipped it in, so that made me feel better.
7, perfect drive and I'm in between a pitching wedge and a 9-iron and I hit the 9-iron just kind of fatted it just right of the green and chipped it about four feet and I missed.
10, I hit it in the fairway bunker on right with a perfect lie and it was a pitching wedge shot from there. Hit it about six feet and made that.
Then 11, a good drive, and a 9-iron about six feet and I made that.
14, into the wind there and was able to somehow get one out there pretty far. Hit a 3-iron about ten feet and made that.
18, another really good drive and a 3-iron in the middle of the green and 2-putted.

Q. (Inaudible.)
BILLY HAAS: Very good, about eight feet and about four feet, missed them both.
But that's just what happens. The greens are very -- there are a lot of footprints, a lot of ballmarks. The second one, the 4-footer was not a great stroke and couldn't have gone in. The other one was a very good stroke that just didn't go in.

Q. From college to now, is there anything you didn't anticipate that has surprised you?
BILLY HAAS: I don't know, that's a hard question or maybe I'm making it hard maybe.
I don't think there's anything that's happened to me yet where I was like wow, that's unbelievable or I didn't think that would ever happen. I knew what it took, Q-School and keeping your card and where you finish. They tell you where you've got to be, what you've got to do.
Travel-wise, I don't like to fly, and it's just every time I fly, I dislike it more. So that I guess, but I knew that before and I just don't like being around a lot of people being close to me, breathing on me, bothers me. (Laughter) I don't know why.
It's different inside the ropes when there's people watching you. They are quarantined I guess a little bit behind the ropes.

Q. When did you first realize you didn't like flying?
BILLY HAAS: I don't know, a little bit -- I was young I guess, heights I don't like. But that's not -- the heights isn't it. I think it's just being on everyone else's schedule. I've got to wait until the pilots are ready or I've got to wait until my baggage comes. I guess I just need to get my own some day I guess or play better.

Q. For example, what was the longest drive you made in order to not fly, or did you make any?
BILLY HAAS: Yeah, I used to drive everywhere amateur golf. I drove to Canada over to the Western Am and stuff, I just didn't like it. I'll find more, I'll drive to the Florida swing from South Carolina, and D.C. I drove.

Q. Last year to the Booz Allen what was that, eight hours?
BILLY HAAS: Seven. But you get home Sunday night. You don't really want to do anything on Tuesday, you can take all day on Monday getting up.

Q. How many times last year did your father play with you?
BILLY HAAS: Just a few, probably four or five probably.

Q. Do you feel a little more independent that he's not around?
BILLY HAAS: No, I wish he was here. I thought it was great. I think the whole father/son duo got a little overplayed a little bit. But then again, I think it helped me a lot, too. I think everyone else thought it was a little more great than we did. You know, we just were doing what we wanted to do and he was happy I was there and I wish he was out here more. But it's nice talking to him. You know, he's doing well out there on the Champions TOUR.

Q. Inaudible?
BILLY HAAS: We were living together and I just moved out. He's got his own place and he's going to play a little golf this year and then maybe try to find a job, maybe work at a club.

Q. Inaudible?
BILLY HAAS: Last year he Monday'ed for Wachovia and played it didn't play much the rest of the year. He hurt his shoulder, that's what he says, and I think he just needed to figure it out and he doesn't want to have to right now. I don't know how to -- I don't want to talk about it. (Laughter).

Q. Wounds are still there?
BILLY HAAS: Yeah.
JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you, Billy.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297