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SHELL HOUSTON OPEN

March 29, 2007

Kevin Sutherland

HUMBLE, TEXAS

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Leader in the clubhouse, Kevin Sutherland. Thank you for joining us here after the first round of the Shell Houston Open. Nice round today, 6-under par, 66.
Have to be happy with your performance today, opening up on Thursday.
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Yeah. I did everything pretty well today. I hit my irons really well, and I putted very well, drove the ball good enough.
You know, hit a lot of greens. I think I only missed one green, I think, and that was just on the fringe, maybe 20 feet from the hole. So it seemed fairly easy, but I was hitting. Obviously this course is harder than that.
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: You've had some success here. Made nine cuts in 11 starts. Played some different golf courses, finished second here in 1997. Anything about Houston that you enjoy?
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I don't know. Yeah, I guess I do. For some reason I come here and played well. Granted, we played on three courses but, you know, every course I think I've had some success. So it's always good to be here in Houston.
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Take some questions.

Q. Can I get some money down on 2017? You seem to have a nice cycle here.
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: 2017? That would be a bad bet, I think. 2017 I'll be what? 52?

Q. Watch it.
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: You can try it. I'm not going to guarantee I'll be here, though.

Q. How was the course playing out there today? There are a lot of birdies, but there's some little disasters out there.
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Well, the greens are soft. You know, when you get back into the trees, the wind doesn't really blow too much. You kind of get out here on 1 and 18, you can kind of feel the wind, but you're kind of back in the trees, you don't feel so much.
The greens are soft, and there's a lot of trouble out there, but there's going to be guys who are not hitting into trouble and be hitting it close to the hole and giving themselves a lot of chances.
I expect the scores will be pretty good. The greens are perfect. The course -- if we play a better conditioned course all year, I'll be surprised. It can't be better. It's wall-to-wall perfect. Hard to find a weed out there.
So as a result of that, you know, the course being in perfect condition and the greens being a little bit soft, there's going to be a lot of good scores. I expect they'll be some scores even better than mine today.

Q. You said were you looking for weed out there?
A No. Looking for weeds.

Q. Do you feel like this place owes you one from '97?
A No, I don't. There was nothing negative from '97 that I took from that, my second year on Tour. I played terrific that week. It was just a positive all the way around.
I would love to have won that tournament, and I thought I played well enough to win, just came up a little bit short.
There was nothing negative about that week or that year. It was just a lot of fun to play.

Q. Can you tell me a little bit about your year. Some low scores on there. Also some missed cuts?
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Yeah, I've been a little bit on the erratic side. It usually hasn't been my nature in the past, but, you know, I think the biggest reason is I've had stretches where I've driven the ball very poorly.
And I know the two tournaments in Florida, I was having a hard time hitting four and five fairways a day and just hard to play from the rough, you know. And today I drove the ball, you know, pretty well, and if I can -- for me my best part of my game is probably my iron play.
If I'm getting the ball in the fairway, I'm usually going to get a couple good chances at birdie, but this year I've been so erratic with the driver that at times I have weeks where I struggle, and that's kind of been my year.
I've driven the ball well. I think I played pretty well, and when I haven't, I haven't.

Q. Did you feel like on the practice rounds this would be a good place for you because there's -- there's some places to miss.
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Yeah. I played here last year, and I enjoyed the golf course. I enjoyed it a lot, actually, and so I kind of look forward to coming back.
You know, there is some places to miss. But there's a lot of places not to hit it, and so as a result, you know -- you know, you still got to get the ball in the fairway. You can't be playing away from stuff. You still got to drive the ball in the fairway, and I did that today for the most part.

Q. Did you find something in your swing or did you work on something or kind of click in?
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I worked -- I was home for two weeks, and I was working with my teacher. I just wasn't getting -- I have a tendency sometimes to kind of sway -- not get off the ball enough. And so I just worked on trying to get some room and kind of get off the ball a little bit.
Some people would call it a sway. I don't get off the ball enough, so I move very little. I'm almost trying to sway just to get off the ball a little bit.
I stay on top of the ball with my driver. I have a tendency to work underneath and hit blocks and hooks. It's hard to play golf when the ball is going both ways.
So I worked the last two weeks on my driver, and it seems like so far I've driven the ball a lot better.

Q. Generally, what is the state of your game this year compared with last year? You've already had a second place at Pebble, I think.
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I think the early part of this year has been kind of -- you know, last year I played very poorly the first half of the year. I just didn't play well. You know, there was no one reason why. I wasn't doing anything very well.
About mid July I started playing a lot better, and I kind -- I had a nice stretch of weeks from, you know, maybe August 1st to middle of October where I played pretty solid and had a lot of good finishes and stuff. I think it kind of worked into this year a little bit. It's been a continuation of that.
With the exception of the driver being a little bit on the erratic side, I really felt like I've hit my irons well like last year and putted like last year. My mindset has been kind of the same.
I think it's been just a continuation from the second half of last year, even though last year was, you know, a 115 on the money list probably was not what I was expecting to do. It's been my worse finish on the money list since '96, I think.
Took the second half of the year as a real positive.

Q. What kind of player do you think of yourself is -- as? What are your expectations? How do you --
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: That's a hard question. I don't think about myself very much. I just try to get better. I don't try to quantify what kind of player I am. I'm always trying to get better, and I think that's the mindset for everybody out here. They're always looking to get better and trying to improve their game, and that's the way I kind of look at it.

Q. Did you play with Tiger when his cut streak ended?
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I did, yeah, at Dallas.

Q. I thought -- were you in his group?
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Yeah, I was.

Q. I have nothing to ask about that?
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Not much to say about that.

Q. Were you coughing during his backswing during the day?
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I was trying to stay out of the way. I didn't want to be blamed for anything.

Q. Is there something about the city that you like, just comfortable coming here, like superstitions, stay at the same place?
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: We stay at the Woodlands. I stay right down here so, you know, I don't know.

Q. Mexican food?
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I do like Mexican food. I do have some of that when I'm here. I have that -- I have that at other places. Maybe, I don't know, maybe it's the air. I don't know.
I just feel -- I've had a lot of success here for whatever reason. Sometimes you can't put -- try not to figure it out is the best way to go.

Q. When you made the move here in '97 fairly early in your career, did you come away from that thinking that opportunities would be kind of -- I don't want to say easier to come by or easy to come by?
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: No, I didn't. I mean, I really didn't. You know, you have to play -- it's just that simple. Just because you have a good finish doesn't guarantee you anything. You know, like this is going to springboard to other things. It will if you play well.
I didn't come away from that week thinking it's going to be easy, I'm going to be given a bunch of opportunities. I didn't think about anything that way.
I just came away from the week, it was a great week and a lot of fun and played very well. Just a positive experience and -- I didn't like have any sort of like higher expectations because of it or --

Q. Didn't change the way you looked at yourself?
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: No.
A No, not so much. I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing. Just the way it is.
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Kevin, if we go through your round. Six birdies today. You said stress-free round, 17 greens in regulation and 10 fairways. Pretty stress-free. You birdied the first hole right out of the gate.
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I teed off on 10, but we'll start at 1. 1, I hit it 8-iron like 142 yards, something like that, and actually I made about a 30-footer there, made a long putt which was nice, and then I birdied 3. I hit a 3-iron off the tee and had a pitching wedge from like 108 yards or something like that. I made about a longer putt there, about 25-footer.
Then I birdied 4. Hit a sand wedge from like 80 some yards and made about a 15-footer.
Then I birdied 8?
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Eight.
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I was short of the green, clipped it to a foot and a half.
Next birdie was --
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Twelve.
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Hit a pitching wedge from like 120 yards and made about a 5-footer.
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Then 17.
KEVIN SUTHERLAND: 17 I hit a 6-iron from 180 some yards, 85 yards, and I made about a 5-footer.
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Okay. Anymore questions? Okay. Kevin Sutherland, thanks.

End of FastScripts

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