THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT

May 29, 1997

Billy Andrade

BILLY ANDRADE: I guess obviously it would have been nice to par or birdie the last hole so everybody would have had to change the story. So I say, sorry, or thanks, but other than the last hole, I had a great day. I was real confident and comfortable out there. You know, it's been kind of weird this year. Last year it seemed like every week I was teeing off first, and this year in the big tournaments I seem to be teeing off near last. Last week I did, at TPC I did. And it was a beautiful afternoon today, compared to what it was this morning. So I wanted to take advantage of that. We didn't get hardly any rain. And the greens were a little softer than they were yesterday. And the wind really wasn't blowing a lot. So I think the scoring was -- I was in position to shoot a pretty good score the way I was playing.

BILLY ANDRADE: Birdied 4, I hit a 6-iron about ten feet and I made that. Birdied 5, went for the green in two and missed the right bunker, got it up-and-down and made about a 6-footer. Birdied 8, had a 6-iron about 15 feet and turned 33. Then I birdied 10, had an 8-iron about 12 feet. And birdied 12, hit a 9-iron in the air about 15 feet. I birdied 15, I didn't hit a very good drive, it was a pretty good wait on that tee. It was kind of a tough tee shot. And that's one of the toughest tee shots out here, it's a tie hole, and I didn't hit a very good drive and laid up and hit a sand wedge about three feet and made birdie. And 17 I hit an 8-iron about 12 feet there, and made birdie there. And the last hole I hit 3-wood off the tee thinking that I really didn't need to hit driver there, because it gets tighter as you go up to the hole. I didn't really hit it high on the face and came up short, and was kind of behind the trees. From a hooky lie I had a cut, and wasn't able to perform the task. And hit a wonderful hook over in the left lettuce, and did not get up-and-down.

BILLY ANDRADE: The par-putt was about 25 feet and I left it three foot short, so I was really trying to make that, for you guys.

BILLY ANDRADE: Generally speaking, I'd rather play in sunshine, wind and hard conditions like yesterday, because I think it separates the -- you can be not on in conditions like today and still get around and shoot a pretty good score, but when conditions are hard, fast and the wind is blowing, if you're not on, you can get embarrassed out there, and that's the way it was yesterday. So I like playing where every shot, like yesterday, every shot counted. If you didn't hit it absolutely perfect you were going to get yourself in a lot of trouble. So I enjoy it more the other way. I grew up in Rhode Island, it was windy and the wind was howling all the time off the ocean, golf courses were always firm and fast. Growing up that way, it is kind of the way I like it.

BILLY ANDRADE: That's a good question, Furman. I can't recall.

BILLY ANDRADE: Okay. I don't know. This year, have I led this year?

BILLY ANDRADE: I think I've been close this year, Furman, I'm always a shot or two back, I haven't actually been tied.

BILLY ANDRADE: My best round here is 65 the year we shouldn't have finished but we did, it was just horrible conditions, the whole golf course was casual water. I shot 65 to finish 10-under and that's the best I've done. The last few years I've missed the cut. So I was really looking forward to this week, because I'm playing a lot better and I just love the golf course, and I just love the whole atmosphere of the tournament. It's not a lot of fun to come to an invitational like this and not play very well. And I haven't been doing that the last few years here. So I'm ecstatic about my start, really excited and enthused and looking forward to the rest of the week, because I always felt like I could play well on a golf course like this. And the last few years I haven't and it's been kind of embarrassing.

BILLY ANDRADE: It was probably worse than this, it just happened to be a day where everything went in. I holed a shot on 11 for eagle. It was one of those days. I was way back in the pack and shot seven under to finish up a lot better. I've played well in conditions like this, and I've also played lousy.

BILLY ANDRADE: I had 180 yards uphill, right-to-left, wind kind of blowing in, from a hooky lie, and I tried to hit a 5-iron. And I just hit it -- that was the worse shot I hit during the day. It was unfortunate to do that that time. I visualized a nice little cut coming in soft about three feet, and it just didn't happen. When I got up there I thought I was in the bunker, and it hit the tree, I guess, and came down. It was not good. I was just happy to get it on the green from there.

BILLY ANDRADE: Yeah, it was changing a little bit. It was coming up a little bit at times.

BILLY ANDRADE: 18 for us -- we were on the 10th tee it was blowing left to right down on ten, and that was the same wind it was on 18, which was right to left and in. It might have changed from this morning or whenever Tim played, I don't know when he played.

BILLY ANDRADE: I'd rather not talk about that, Joe.

BILLY ANDRADE: Not really. I don't know how you heard that, but we'll -- the dinner, but the golf ball thing --

BILLY ANDRADE: Really? How about that? The dinner is really no big deal. Jeff Sluman and I walked in after Tiger did, and it was -- it was 9 o'clock, we were watching the Bulls' game, and it was 9 o'clock, we said why don't we go to dinner late and we can watch some of the game. And we went to dinner and Tiger was ahead of us and his table went in and Jeff and I looked at the maitre d' and we asked her if we could get a table. And she said I'm sorry, we have over an hour wait. And the kitchen closes at 10 o'clock. So I said, come on, you have to have a table. And they said, no, it's over an hour wait. And I said, well, I said, I'm going to go and see how many Tiger has at his table, it looked like he only had a couple of guys, maybe Jeff and I could join them. We just wanted to eat. And I went upstairs to see where he was sitting and he was in a room bigger than this, and it was closed with a cop guarding it and there were 25 tables there that we could have used any one of those. So I didn't even say anything to him. I came back downstairs and I said to the lady, I said to the maitre d', I said, ma'am, there's 25 tables upstairs, I think Jeff and I, we could just take one of those 25. And she said, well, you're going to have to ask Mr. Woods if that's okay. So the maitre d' got our names and supposedly went upstairs to see if it was okay and came back down and said you can't eat in there, but I can get you a table in five minutes. The bottom line was we got a table. And the bottom line was the guy lied and didn't even go in there and ask them if we could eat in this room. But we were just hungry, we just wanted to eat and it was a great restaurant. The golf ball thing I don't really want to discuss, I have no comment about that. That's it there.