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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

May 11, 2007

Nathan Green

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA

STEWART MOORE: We'd like to welcome Nathan Green to the interview room here at THE PLAYERS Championship. Nathan, you started this tournament out 3-over par for your first six holes, played fantastic golf since then. If you could, talk a little bit about how to turn around out there when things get going bad, which you've done so well this week, in your round today and the conditions you faced out there.
NATHAN GREEN: Yeah, after five holes on the first day I was struggling, and just thought there was a few par-5s coming up and I didn't know if I was able to get back to a pretty good score in those conditions. I putted really well the front nine to get it to 1-under and just today played pretty solid. I didn't really -- I didn't drive it well, but just managed to sort of scrap around and came out with a good round.

Q. Are you up on the history for your countrymen? Australians play very well here, and they've won a bunch of times, Elk and Greg and Adam. I'm wondering if there is something about this course that might seem favorable to your game. Is there something in the big picture that is favorable to the game of Australians on a whole?
NATHAN GREEN: I know the guys love the golf course. It's a really tough test of your game. It's sort of similar to a lot of courses we play. The Australian Open, you're shooting away from a lot of pins. That's the only thing that I can think of that -- why we do well here.

Q. Bermuda?
NATHAN GREEN: The Bermuda, I think Queensland, and Adam Scott has grown up on that kind of grass. We've grown up on poa and bent. I think just the fact that it's a grinding sort of golf course. It doesn't suit a bomber; it's more positional sort of play. That's the only thing I can think of why the Aussies do play well, but they seem to.

Q. Are you at all surprised to be atop the leaderboard right now, kind of minding your own business and you sort of inherited the lead?
NATHAN GREEN: Yeah, it's been a bit like it that. I thought today that with the good scores yesterday guys would shooting 5-under, I thought with the better conditions somebody might shoot ahead to 8 or 9. It's such a tough course, whether the wind is blowing or not. You have a lot of tough holes and a lot of pins you can't really go at.
So for me and I guess probably for the other guys it's trying to limit the big numbers, which you can have quite easy. That's about it.

Q. (Inaudible.)
NATHAN GREEN: I made a lot of good par saves. It was pretty much from the -- from about the 5th or 6th hole I was struggling off the tee. I didn't know which way the wind was going, and I sort of double-crossed a few.
And from there on it was a bit of a struggle. If I missed the fairways, I was trying to miss the green or hit it to an open side, and it sort of worked out. I made a great up-and-down on 10 and didn't birdie 11, but got a good break on about -- I hit the pin with the second shot and made a 30- or 40-footer for par on 15, I think it was.
So I got a lot of good breaks today and that's pretty much why I shot the score I did. I think I'll definitely have to hit a few more fairways and greens on the weekend to make it easier. Once they start tucking the pins right away, it's going to be pretty hard to play from the rough.

Q. Is today, with the difficulty, was it just with the course or was it still windy as it was yesterday?
NATHAN GREEN: I think yesterday with the wind being so strong, it was pretty predictable where it was coming from. I think today you'd get a few more gusts from a direction you really didn't think it was coming from. On the third tee we should have been playing straight down, and occasionally you'd get a puff of breeze, which you weren't yesterday; you were getting blown off your feet.
But I think picking the right club today might have been more difficult for that reason. The course was a little bit hard to pick the breeze.

Q. I guess most people are probably, at least in this country, most familiar with you from the Buick last year and the playoff with a couple of guys that won a slew of majors. I'm wondering whether that tournament to you proved to yourself that you can play at the level with those varsity guys, and what it did to sort of validate your feelings about yourself and playing at this level in this type of arena?
NATHAN GREEN: Last year was definitely a big step up for myself, confidence-wise to get off to that sort of start was a big help. And I sort of pretty much continued to play well most of the year and wasn't able to win. I gave myself a lot of chances.
Even back home in Australia over the summer I played pretty solid again. But this year I haven't been able to -- I don't know, feel I've sort of taken a step back. I've struggled to get into contention and struggled to keep rounds going when I've got close to being in the mix. It's sort of been a tough year, but I'm working hard on the things I worked on last year. I sort of hoped to play well on a big week like this. It's worked out that way so far, and hopefully I can sort of keep going on with it on the weekend.

Q. I believe that you represented New South Wales at soccer. Can you tell us how you came to drop the soccer and get into the golf?
NATHAN GREEN: I just wasn't good enough (laughter). I've probably got more of a passion for soccer than I do for golf. I follow it pretty religiously, and always have. In Australia it wasn't a big sport and I was better at golf. It was sort of an easy way to go. It sort of -- up until the age I was probably 18 I didn't even think I'd play golf for a living. So I -- even up to that point I wasn't too sure. I think it just sort of went that way. I didn't like the whole fitness side of the soccer and just golf was pretty much the easy game to play.

Q. The soccer that you follow now, is that the English league?
NATHAN GREEN: A little bit the Newcastle team back there has got a pretty good following and that league is getting better, but I sort of follow Liverpool in the Premier League. I just love watching.

Q. Craig Johnson was an influence?
NATHAN GREEN: He lived five minutes from where I grew up, pretty much. That was sort of when I started following was when I was five years old. So for my brothers and I, it was always the main sport. And we just -- my parents followed it from there and just tried to -- it's a bit tough to keep it up over here, but I've managed to do it.

Q. In the broadcast you mentioned mowing lawns in a crematorium in a past life. Can you talk about the circumstances of that and how long you did that?
NATHAN GREEN: My father -- it was sort of my grandfather's business, and my dad was the manager at a couple, my mom worked in the office there, too. During sort of the period once I'd left school, just to earn extra money while I was away to play a bit of golf, I just sort of mowed lawns and did the gardening. The other guys there sort of said I was a pretty slack worker.
It was something that -- it always seemed normal to me growing up in that environment and just -- it was working with a great bunch of guys, so it was big fun.

Q. You stayed away from the big burner?
NATHAN GREEN: It's a strange industry, and I just -- I definitely kept out of that. It wasn't a happy line of work. It kept me out of the workshop.

Q. What were your expectations coming in this week, and do you feel like you can win this tournament?
NATHAN GREEN: With the Buick, the same sort of playing, just to sort of make the cut. That's seriously how I play every week is if I'm there on the weekend then I've got a chance.
This year I've played pretty similar golf to what I did last year and just haven't really putted as well and just lost a little bit of confidence. Hopefully, I know this sort of course where shooting around par is still pretty solid, that's probably my better chances on courses like that.
I'm looking forward to the weekend. Hopefully I can play better than I did -- hit the ball a little better than I did the first few days. And hopefully the putting stays the way it is, and there's no reason why I couldn't be there Sunday.

Q. Are you hitting the ball good enough to win the way you're playing right now?
NATHAN GREEN: When I was struggling in Australia, when I'm not a hundred percent playing well, weeks when I am hitting the ball as great, I tend not to think as well. And sort of weeks when I'm just a little bit off, I tend to grind it out a little bit more, I think a little more, and sort of play more around the course. And that's the way it was today. It sort of wasn't coming easy.
With holes with the cross-breeze I was struggling on, and just weeks when I'm grinding it out is sort of when I've had my better results.

Q. How close did you come to holing it out on 14?
NATHAN GREEN: It's tough to see where it landed, but it finished about three inches from the cup. It jammed either against the pin or near the hole on that second bounce. It was just a tough pin, I think it would have gone 20 feet past. It was good to bounce back after a bogey on the hole before.

Q. What did you hit?
NATHAN GREEN: 9-iron.

Q. Where do you fall confidence-wise on a scale of one to ten with the guys out here?
NATHAN GREEN: I don't know that my confidence is all that highly --

Q. Sabbatini being a 10.
NATHAN GREEN: I'm not a very confident guy, I'm just -- I'm sort of -- it took me a long time to get out here and that sort of -- maybe six or seven years. If I got out in one year, my confidence would be high. I had to work very hard at it.
I think my game last year, I started to get a lot of confidence with it. But then you sort of have to pick yourself back up when you're struggling like I have been this year. I know when I'm playing well I know I can compete and sort of be a top-5 player that week if I'm playing well.
So that sort of -- hopefully I'll have sort of four or five really good events a year, and that's my sort of plan around that.
STEWART MOORE: Thanks for your time. Best of luck this weekend.

End of FastScripts

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