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WACHOVIA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 5, 2007

Rory Sabbatini

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA

STEWART MOORE: We welcome Rory Sabbatini to the interview room here at the Wachovia Championship after a fantastic course-record-tying round of 64 today. Great playing today. Your 64 ties the course record set by Kirk Triplett in 2004 and eventually tied by Bo Van Pelt in 2006. If you could start by talking about starting off with an eagle, birdie at the 18th and your feelings on the round overall.
RORY SABBATINI: Well, obviously the first hole as way good way to get started on the day today. It was the first time I hit the fairway all week, and just had a good number. Had, I think, 72 yards to the hole and hit a 60-degree wedge and it landed, I think, right next to the hole, went past and spun back into it. That was just obviously a great way to get the round going.
I just managed to keep the ball in play, and the rain slowing the greens up just a touch made it a little easier to be a little aggressive with the putter out there. When you did have an opportunity to make birdie, you did need to. The greens were just a touch softer and just a little more receptive.
And then obviously 18, I hit my drive and I pretty much turned around straightaway, I thought it was in the middle of the fairway, and Padraig hit a provisional off the tee, and I thought mine was in the middle of the fairway and realized mine just barely missed the water off the left and was in the edge of the rough over there. I hit a 4-iron up there I think about 23 feet, 11 inches or something it said on the board, but right around there, and I just got a good read on the putt.
Just seemed like 17 it was just harder to read the green and there wasn't as much light out there, so it was harder to read the putt. Then when I got to 18 it was just a little bit lighter, so it was actually easy to see the break.

Q. When you start off like you did today, I mean, how much does that carry on for the next few holes, that momentum?
RORY SABBATINI: Well, obviously it carries on. You know, I'd say probably one of the best things that happened to me today was on No. 2. I hit it close on No. 2 and just barely missed my putt, but it kind of -- I think if I would have made that, it really -- the adrenaline really would have got going. But I was able to back it off and just kind of slow things down a little bit.

Q. Have you been paired with Tiger final group, final day before, off the top of your head?
RORY SABBATINI: Nope, and I'm looking forward to it.

Q. Because?
RORY SABBATINI: You know, there were some people that said when I won at Riviera, you know, Tiger had withdrawn because he was sick. And he's here this week; best opportunity I've had to put any of that criticism or doubt aside.

Q. You were second at The Masters, third at the Nelson. Anything you can point to that got you on this good streak? You're obviously an a roll now.
RORY SABBATINI: You know, it's been building. We've basically been doing a lot of work on my body, just getting my body functioning properly. You know, we discovered a few areas that weren't working too well and led to a lot of problems with my golf swing. Since we've corrected that, we've managed to, you know, really get the body out of the way and just let the swing happen. I've been able to be far more consistent, and my bad ball-striking days are as good as my good ones used to be.

Q. Are you talking like weight training or working with a trainer?
RORY SABBATINI: No, just working with a physical therapist. We found out that my shoulders weren't working properly, my hips were out of alignment and all sorts of minor things going on, but just led to some problems really swinging the club as I needed to.

Q. How aware were you -- were you watching the leaderboard? There was a lot of good scores today, a lot of great shots. Is that something you were aware of, a lot of loud cheers?
RORY SABBATINI: Yeah, actually out there today there was a sense of Augusta because typically this is a golf course where there's a lot of people out there and the holes just seem to sit in the same kind of fashion where you're not right on the other hole but you're fairly close so you can hear everything that's going on.
It definitely had that sense out there today. There were a lot of big roars going on, and it was just -- it was a fun day of golf.

Q. Augusta last year?
RORY SABBATINI: Well, Augusta this year was a little quieter, but you can only make it as loud as you can.

Q. You've never played particularly well here before. Are the changes you've made to your swing and so forth, is that the reason why all of a sudden this year you feel like you're playing better here, or has something else changed?
RORY SABBATINI: No, it's really just made my swing a lot more consistent, made me feel better. You know, I've just found that overall I'm just hitting the ball far more consistently. When you're hitting the ball consistently, it's easier to get around a tougher golf course.

Q. You had that incredible hot streak kind of right out of the chute last year. Do you consider yourself a streaky player? I know you're probably trying to build towards a long arcing consistency, those types of things, but you've had these spurts the last two years where you've played as well as anyone.
RORY SABBATINI: I wish I had a spurt two years ago.
Yeah, I'd definitely say -- in the past I would definitely say I've been a streaky player. You know, this is a different feeling. This is different in the fact that I've been playing well and yet I still don't feel like I've been playing anywhere near up to my potential.

Q. What prompted you to go to a physiotherapist?
RORY SABBATINI: I don't know if there was any particular thing, I just -- you know, from time to time I had had just little minor issues of something being sore or something being out of alignment. You know, just at Nissan this year started to work with this physical therapist, and you know, things just have progressed consistently, you know, just through doing minor workouts and doing just basically maintenance of the body. So just using him to really get, as I said, my body out of the way and just let the golf happen.

Q. Can you elaborate on -- I understand you made an adjustment on the 15th hole yesterday and that kind of led to allowing you to shoot 64 today?
RORY SABBATINI: Yeah, I was standing on the fairway. For the last three days it's just been one of those things where there's been something plaguing my golf swing, just hasn't felt right, haven't been able to work the ball the way I wanted to, and was just having a lot of trouble hitting the driver in the fairway. I was actually having trouble pretty much hitting anything in the fairway.
Suddenly for some reason, I stood in the fairway and I just looked at my posture and I realized that I had had my hands too high. So I dropped my hands down a little lower and got my arms to hang down more, and it just corrected everything. I went out there today, and it just felt so much better.
STEWART MOORE: Rory, great round today. Thanks for joining us.

End of FastScripts

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