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VERIZON HERITAGE

April 15, 2007

Mark Hensby

HILTON HEAD, SOUTH CAROLINA

STEWART MOORE: We welcome Mark Hensby to the interview room here at the Verizon Heritage. Mark was in the 11:20 group this morning, which teed off No. 10. His group arrived at the 16th hole is when the winds really started to pick up. After observing Mark's group for a couple shots, one of which included a 6-iron from 120 yards into the wind, tournament officials then followed his group up to the green and watched as one of his playing partners' balls rolled over 20 feet away once placed back down. At that point is when they called play. At this point we're going to open up the floor to any questions you might have for Mark.

Q. Have you ever gone through anything like this before?
MARK HENSBY: Not on the PGA TOUR, no. I've only played -- this year in Palm Springs the last round it was very similar to today.

Q. Did you finish the play?
MARK HENSBY: In Palm Springs? Yeah, we did. The greens were a little slower, though.

Q. What were you thinking when you were coming up to that green with the wind?
MARK HENSBY: (Laughing) we were walking along 16, and the tree branches, you actually heard one crack, then a few were flying across the fairway, and then we figured someone is going to get hurt out here. Honestly, on 16, I was thinking, I hope we don't have to play 17 (laughter).

Q. Does it get to a point where you're worried about your safety?
MARK HENSBY: Yeah, today, definitely, on 16, and honestly the spectators, too. Someone got hit, I hear, by something on 9, plus the sand was blowing out of the bunkers into your face. It was -- yeah, it was definitely getting that way.

Q. When they suspended play did you complete the hole or did you just decide no?
MARK HENSBY: Yeah, I completed it. You know, I was in the right bunker after hitting my 6-iron from about 122 yards, and I hit it out there and I had a putt from about 12 feet. I actually made it. I don't know how the ball blew sideways and went back in. Hunter put his ball down, and as soon as he put it down it blew away. And Justin, actually before that, hit a ball on the middle of the green. We walked up and got up there, and then we were about 100 yards from the green (laughing), and it just blew off. He was fortunate actually because then he had an uphill putt instead of putting it off the green.

Q. Do you call that a four-club wind or a five-club wind or what?
MARK HENSBY: Well, if you hit it up in the air you can actually call that -- you could actually play it from behind you because literally if you had a gust -- I hit a 9-iron on No. 14, I had 108 yards to the front and I was 30 yards short of the front edge.

Q. 108 yards?
MARK HENSBY: And I hit my 9-iron 78 yards. It just depends how high you hit it. I hit the 6-iron about 12 feet in the air and just tried to run it up there. If you get into the wind it's all your bag.

Q. Was that 9-iron the third shot?
MARK HENSBY: Second shot on 13.

Q. What did you do on 14?
MARK HENSBY: Well, that was playing downwind off the left, and I hit 7-iron 193 it was, and it just went over the back left. But that's a pretty scary shot.

Q. For today and for tomorrow, do you change anything in your bag because of the wind conditions?
MARK HENSBY: No, not really. I mean, I'm not in the tournament to really have a chance to win, but I'm sure the guys who are up near the lead might be thinking about something different, keep it low, maybe hit in a 2-iron or a hybrid instead of a 5-wood to keep it down. If I was in the lead I'd be thinking about doing something like that.

Q. It sounds like it wasn't too long after you saw conditions getting really bad that play was called. So were you satisfied with how quickly Tour officials acted?
MARK HENSBY: Yeah, I think you can never tell -- as I said, inside the tree lines, you don't really notice it quite as much. But once we got to 16, it's like, were they quick enough, who knows. You've got to -- when you play a golf tournament you can't just think about the players, you've got to think about the people out there, too, and obviously there's a lot of trees around this area. It's just unfortunate someone got hurt today.

Q. Off the 9th green, the practice green there, there were actually -- some of your fellow countrymen were playing Cricket out there. Did you get a chance to join them?
MARK HENSBY: No, I didn't play. I wasn't playing with them, no. Cricket is boring (laughter).

Q. What about baseball? Do you like baseball?
MARK HENSBY: I'm not going there (laughter).
STEWART MOORE: Mark, thank you so much.

End of FastScripts

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