home

jobs

	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

WGC NEC INVITATIONAL

August 21, 2005

Chris DiMarco

AKRON, OHIO

TODD BUDNICK: We welcome the runner up to the 2005 WGC NEC Invitational. Chris, another hard luck tournament for you. Well played, but

CHRIS DiMARCO: Bridesmaid is getting old, I can promise you that, especially when I've played good enough to get there and not gotten it. This one really kind of pisses me off for lack of a better word. This is good. Maybe it'll light a fire under me.

TODD BUDNICK: You played four great starts and started off the day with three birdies in the first six holes, put yourself into contention.

CHRIS DiMARCO: Basically that's what you have to do around this golf course is you have to try to get off to a good start because there's some tough holes there in the middle with 7, 9, even 11, 12, 13, 14 are really good holes.

So if you can get off to a good start and make some birdies early then you don't feel like you have to attack pins and you can let birdies come. I was fortunate to do that today. I think I was 4 under through 11, and just as quick as you can make birdies out here, you can make bogeys and I hit a couple of wayward shots and made two bogeys.

I made a great birdie on 14. I guess we misclubbed on 17. I knew anything right of that pin was going to be really fast coming down. I was trying to hit it underneath the hole maybe 15 or 20 feet and have an uphill putt towards it and I hit a pretty good shot and it flew on me. The wind was really tricky all day. It seemed like it was a lot of crosswinds and every once in a while it would get down and get in your face. Two or three times it got Lee Westwood where he either flew the green or came up short. It was tricky out there.

Q. You don't need a fire lit under you, do you?

CHRIS DiMARCO: I do now. This is good. I don't, but when I I felt like I played good enough to win The Masters. I felt like I played very good golf today. You know, obviously I was four shots back, but still, I was tied for the lead with 3 to go and he was in the trees on 16 and I was feeling pretty good. I hit it in the rough there and had to lay up and hit a 7 iron in. Actually I hit it just over the green, which was the smart play. I don't even know when he hit into the green for his third shot, but it was a pretty good shot to keep it on the green.

Q. You were aware of what was going on?

CHRIS DiMARCO: Oh, yeah, I was watching it inside.

Q. As you were coming up 18?

CHRIS DiMARCO: When I got on the 17th tee I saw that I was in the lead. I saw that I was at 6 under and there were two 5 unders, and I hit 3 wood off the tee and hit it in the fairway, which was what I was trying to do, and like I said, I hit earlier in the day when we came out in the morning, I hit 7 iron from 145 pin high, just chipped it up there, and that's all I tried to do with that shot was chip it and let it bounce back there. If it was the right distance, it would have been pretty good, probably in the left fringe and had a pretty straight uphill putt. It just took off on me, maybe adrenaline. I hit a great putt on 17. I don't know how it didn't go in. That was probably the best putt I hit all day as far as exactly where I wanted to hit it, exactly the speed I wanted to hit it, and it looked like it would break in the right edge and it never broke.

I hit a good putt on 18, too. I felt like if I could get to 6 under that would probably win. I didn't want to hit it out to the right on 16 and hit it over the slope. I figured "let's go at it." I knew I had an 8 iron from 167, if I hit it up high enough the tree wasn't in play, it was over the tree. I just didn't hit a good shot. I hit a good putt and I made sure I got it up high, wanted to get it to the hole and hit it a foot past the hole, so I hit a good putt.

Q. For the longest time it didn't seem like anybody wanted to win. Were you aware of that?

CHRIS DiMARCO: It had that major atmosphere because it got so hard. Pars were good scores. To make a birdie you almost had to get a good bounce or a good break. The only difference was the greens were soft. If the greens were firm, even par would have won. The greens were soft enough to hold the balls.

Q. Tiger got in trouble half a dozen or eight times during this tournament. He just hit an amazing shot to get back in it. When you watch it do you applaud it or is it frustrating to watch?

CHRIS DiMARCO: I don't know if it's frustrating to watch, but I mean, it's the same thing that happens that we've been talking about for weeks and weeks. If you miss fairways by 15 yards, you usually have a lie. If you miss the fairway by a yard, you're usually chipping out. If you look at the way everybody at the PGA last week played coming down the stretch, they were ripping it, hitting it as far as they could, hoping they could chop it on the green somehow and make birdie. That's not how we're used to playing majors. I am, but those guys aren't. I have to because I'm chipping out but then I'm hitting a 60 yard shot after that.

Q. You were watching in the locker room?

CHRIS DiMARCO: We were downstairs. I had my wife with me and some friends, and we actually had our lucky table there. Not so lucky, but it was lucky for a while.

Q. Thoughts on this tournament, staying in Akron for at least another five years?

CHRIS DiMARCO: I don't think there's a better golf course we play all year to tell you the truth, other than Augusta National and that just keeps getting longer and longer and they're taking guys like me out of that tournament. This course, as long as it plays firm it's an extremely fair golf course. It's right there in front of you. As far as tricks, some of the fairways are tough to hit but you know that before you hit them. The rough is fair enough to where a lot of times you can chop it out and get them up around the greens. That's what you see guys doing this week. That's why you saw doubles and big numbers because guys think they can get it further than they can and guys end up making big numbers. That's the way we should play instead of hit it in the rough, chop out and have a 50 yard shot. It's nice to be able to go for the green from the rough, and that's what this course does.

Q. After Tiger makes birdie on 16 and you're watching television, are you still holding out hope? 17 and 18 were he's had a history of trouble on 18.

CHRIS DiMARCO: Sure, once he hit the second shot on 18 I went up and took a shower, but again, he hit it in the trees. He made double from not far from that the first day. Sure, there's always hope. Unfortunately if you're hoping for him to make a bogey, you didn't do what you needed to do out there. Again, who would have thought me shooting 2 under and him being four shots ahead of me that I would have had a chance, but that just shows how great this golf course is and how tough it is.

TODD BUDNICK: We'll go through the birdies and bogeys. No. 2.

CHRIS DiMARCO: I hit a good drive on 2, finally hit the fairway, hit a 2 iron on the front edge putted it up six or seven feet short, made that.

3, hit a great drive, cut a 9 iron in there about eight feet, made that.

Made a great up and down on 4.

6, I hit a great shot, good drive over the hill and had 192 to the hole and cut a 4 iron back there to about eight feet and made that.

Made a great up and down on 9, hit it hit it left, hit a tree, and I had probably 260 to the front and hit a 7 iron, chopped it up there to about 68. I think we had 68 yards and L wedged it up there to about four feet, made that.

Hit a great shot into 11, hit a driver and chipped a 7 iron back there to about six feet.

Then bogeyed 12, hit a 6 iron in the left bunker, looking back should have hit a 7 iron, hit a 6 iron long and left, didn't get up and down.

13, hit the cart path and kicked it further right and kicked it further forward and tried to hit a little low punch underneath, actually left it in the good spot, chipped it up to about ten feet, hit a great putt that lipped out.

Then next hole, driver and a 5 iron from 211, didn't hit the best drive, hit it left in the rough and drew a 5 iron around the tree to about six feet and made that for birdie.

Then made a good par on the next hole, two putted from pretty far, probably 50 feet.

16, I hit it just in the left rough about a foot, chipped a 7 iron out down there, hit a 7 iron just over the green, chipped it up a foot, made it.

Then 17, driver and should have hit a softer 7 iron.

18, hit a driver and an 8 iron just left of the pin and putted it up and almost made it.

Q. Did you get a sense that people were rooting for you more this week?

CHRIS DiMARCO: I can tell you that last year's Masters when Phil won when I was playing, it was about 98 percent Phil. I think my family watching me was about it. And this year at The Masters, it was very, very I would say 70 30 me, which was great. You know, I guess people like the underdog. Tiger is always a favorite, so I guess people like seeing other people win, but you've got to take your hat off to him. He's a great champion.

TODD BUDNICK: Thank you, Chris.

End of FastScripts.

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297