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EDS BYRON NELSON CHAMPIONSHIP

April 26, 2007

Anders Hansen

IRVING, TEXAS

STEWART MOORE: We'd like to welcome Anders Hansen here to the interview room at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship on his great round of 66 today, lowest round so far this year on the PGA TOUR, which is your first full season on the PGA TOUR, I believe. If you could give us some of the highlights of your round and kind of how it felt out there today.
ANDERS HANSEN: Well, I'm just sitting here looking at my stats; they aren't very good. I wasn't very good off the tee, especially at the start. And I started off hitting it -- missing a few fairways and missing a few greens but got it up-and-down, which is really nice. I've been struggling this year. Every time I miss a green I seem to make a bogey, and I've been working hard on trying to keep grinding it out instead of just giving up. But all in all, it was quite good today, and I hit a few good shots where I hit it really close. I think you need to on these greens.
STEWART MOORE: This obviously being your first trip to the Byron Nelson, I assume did you get to play both courses in the practice rounds, or did you get caught in any of the rain?
ANDERS HANSEN: No, I got to play both. I played one -- I played Cottonwood Sunday and then this one in the Pro-Am on Monday.

Q. Do the greens look like British Open type greens or what?
ANDERS HANSEN: Well, the British Open are much different. I think in British Open the greens are much better and they're much firmer. Here they're fairly soft and the ball doesn't roll that great. But it's much better today than it was Monday, so I'm really surprised how good a shape they were in today.

Q. When you have a late group like you're in and you know the greens have been walked on all day long, do you try to prepare anything different or do you just know that you kind of have to face a lot of footprints when you're out there?
ANDERS HANSEN: You know you're going to face a lot of footprints. You know the greens aren't going to be great.
I set my mind for it before I started. I just tried to hit good putts, and if they went in, great. If they didn't go in, you know, if I hit a bad footprint or spike mark, whatever, that's how it is. And when you play late on greens like this, that's what's going to happen.
So I think for me it was sort of like, okay, if they go in, great. If not, this was probably pretty good.

Q. Are you pleased overall with the way --
ANDERS HANSEN: Yeah, I'm pleased overall. I'm definitely pleased. Yeah, I'm pleased.

Q. How has it gone for your first -- this is your first full season; is that right?
ANDERS HANSEN: This is my first full season over here. I haven't played that great this year, and it's been -- I don't know how many I've played. I missed a few and made a few cuts, but not really top results. I'm just trying to get used to being over here and trying to get used to traveling abroad all the time. It's a long trip coming from Europe over here every time to play, and getting used to being around different players and new golf courses every week. Playing in Europe always every week I knew the golf courses, I knew what was coming to me.
This year it's just -- I don't know what's coming to me, so I can't prepare. It makes it a bit more difficult. But that's part of it. That's part of why I went here, just wanted a new challenge.

Q. Every tournament is like an adventure for you?
ANDERS HANSEN: It is, yeah.

Q. Finding restaurants and --
ANDERS HANSEN: Well, I wouldn't say the restaurant part. Over here you can get the same pretty much everywhere you go. It's not like in Europe; you go to different places, you go to Spain, Germany, Italy, it's different every week. Here you can go to the same restaurant every single week, get the same food every single day. But that's how the Americans like it, which is good.

Q. You talked a little bit about you looked at your stats and not that great, but you don't have any bogeys. What were you doing well, and tell us about some of your tougher saves then.
ANDERS HANSEN: Yeah, I didn't have really any tough saves, but, you know, a caught a couple of good lies in the rough and I was surprisingly good at hitting it out of the rough today, which was really, really nice. And I put myself in good positions when I did miss the greens, which was only one on 16. That was a bad thought. I picked the wrong club in the second shot and hit it long, and you can't do that to that pin being short left.
But other than that, I put myself in position to where I could get it up-and-down, which was nice.

Q. You birdied 17, right?
ANDERS HANSEN: Yeah.

Q. How tough was that hole playing? Was the wind against you?
ANDERS HANSEN: No, it was down off the right, so it wasn't really playing that tough today. It's much tougher as we played in the Pro-Am where it was straight in. Today it was a little down off the right.

Q. And what did you hit in there and to how close?
ANDERS HANSEN: I hit a 5-iron, and it was probably like 30 feet. It was the only long putt I made all day, but it was still a good long one.

Q. Did you feel like they did a pretty good job of picking pins today to compensate for some of the tough spots on the greens?
ANDERS HANSEN: Absolutely. I was surprised at some of the pins they put in easy positions. I think we're under the gun here because there's some places on the greens where they just can't put them. That made it a little easier.
STEWART MOORE: Anders, thanks so much for your time.

End of FastScripts

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