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SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 24, 2007

Brad Bryant

KIAWAH ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA

KELLY ELBIN: Brad Bryant, ladies and gentlemen, in with a 1-under par 71, one of only seven rounds under par in the opening round of the 68th Senior PGA Championship.
Brad, a little bit of a test of survival out there this afternoon with the conditions.
BRAD BRYANT: Yeah, it's pretty bizarre out there. Obviously, the word patience is probably going to be way overused this week. But it was definitely a test of patience and just some things went right for me today. And I hit the ball just maybe the best I've hit it all year. It was probably one of my best ball striking rounds of the year.
And I have a good friend that works at NASA and he said that maybe next year we could just go ahead and have the tournament in Houston in the wind tunnel. So.
(Laughter.)
KELLY ELBIN: For the record, Brad hit 13 of 14 fairways and 13 of 18 greens today. Also one other note, this is his 7th consecutive sub par round in an opening round on the Champions Tour. And of your 11 starts, 10 of them this year have been with a sub par round. So getting off to a good start appears to be your M O.
BRAD BRYANT: Wow. I don't know. I just think that I'm fortunate today. I just went out today and I drove the ball just the best I've ever driven it. So it was kind of, from that standpoint it was actually pretty fun. It could be really a difficult day out there. But definitely my best driving round of the year, so.
KELLY ELBIN: Questions?

Q. Can you just talk about some of the different shots maybe you had to play out there. Was there a big club difference on a lot of the holes and what would be the most dramatic difference that you experienced today?
BRAD BRYANT: We didn't have -- the wind was fairly consistent all day. And yesterday Tony and I talked about it. We came up with a formula that is right on. We have got it -- if the wind stays exactly the same as it is, we know what the wind's doing. And so that worked out today.
We just talked on when we were going into the wind a certain yardage and pulled a certain yardage off when we were going downwind. And we were dead on every time.
And so that's kind of the way that we do things anyway, Tony and I, that's the way that we work anyway, and fortunately we just kind of had it figured out. And then from where I drove the ball it made it a lot easier too.
KELLY ELBIN: Would you mind going through your three birdies and two bogeys, please.
BRAD BRYANT: I made three birdies. I birdied 12 and 13. I hit it close on both of those holes. Eight feet or less I guess on both holes.
I birdied 16, but I don't, gosh, I can't remember what I did there. I do not remember that. I'm having a very difficult time remembering, you got my age and this much wind and it's just hard to remember. I think I had about a six-footer there. I know that I hit, I played that hole really well. I just don't remember how well. I made about a 12 footer there. Yeah, I hit a real nice iron shot there just past the hole and made the putt. Had a good birdie had a good look at birdie at 17.
Then on the front nine, I hit the ball very nicely on the front nine, I just never got the ball in the hole. Both the par-5s if I played the par-5s really well today, I could have really had a low round. And I just didn't play the par-5s well. But other than the par-5s, I played really good.
I made bogey at No. 2. I hit it 60 yards from the hole, kind of hit my second shot actually a little too far. And I rolled it into the rough just short of the traps there in front of the green. And just hit my third shot a little too far over the green, which is just dead. And so it made me a nice smooth running six.
Which has been the difficulty this year. I've made a lot of 6s this year. And 6s have hurt me a lot in key situations. Last week when I played really well I made no 6s and that was a big part of doing well last week.
KELLY ELBIN: As a reminder Brad won the Regions Charity Classic last week in Alabama. Questions?

Q. You said you had a good look at birdie on 17. What club did you hit and how close were you?
BRAD BRYANT: 4-iron about 18 feet.

Q. You said that you guys kind of had this wind figured out or you knew what you were going to do, you had a good game plan for it. Is it going to change if it starts to lay down a little bit tomorrow? Is that going to change the mindset that you have here? Is that going to make it easier for you to kind of get on top your game and stay on top of it?
BRAD BRYANT: The less the wind blows, the better for me right now.
If I drive the ball the way I'm driving -- if I can drive the ball three more rounds like I drove it today, the less the wind blows the better for me. It will just make it a lot easier to get irons close.
Today it was just, it was brutal. No matter how good you drove the ball, you had to hit just an almost perfect iron shot to get the ball pin high on some of those holes.
I know that on, was it the third or fourth hole, D.A. and I, I played with him and both of us hit just beautiful little shots right at the flag and the ball just hit on the edge of the green and rolled all the way down off the green about 30 yards from the hole. And when we got up there there were about 30 divots right there where our balls were. So obviously that was the place where the ball rolled off of that green.
KELLY ELBIN: It's been a lot of talk about focus and maintaining focus, in terms of a mental approach versus a physical approach on a day like today, is it about the same or is one perhaps more important than the other.
BRAD BRYANT: Today it's really I think that part of why I played well today is that I was very unaggressive with my putter. The greens are pretty bumpy. I don't putt paspalum all that good. And so when I get up over a 12, 15 footer, I'm kind of lagging the ball up to the hole. And so today I had lots of 2-putts and when I missed greens I hit my pitches up fairly close.
Other than the two bogeys, and so -- and I didn't miss greens by much. I actually had a couple of greens where I was just barely off the green. But I would say that keeping your focus today and the really big key for playing in this strong a wind is that you have to have a consistent rhythm.
Every time you make a hard fast swing, the ball gets too much spin and it goes off crooked. So like today we tried, if I was going into the wind, I tried to hit the ball about half speed. And that's what we, that's kind of what we have been working on, that's what we worked on on the practice tee yesterday.
We got the range finder out on the practice tee and just hit little sort of little three quarter chip shot iron shots yesterday to see how far they would go.
That was what -- that was really kind of what helped me today is that we knew after working that way yesterday, so I knew that if I could keep the same rhythm that I had yesterday going on the a practice tee, I knew how far the ball was going to go. Which is pretty key today.
KELLY ELBIN: Brad Bryant, thank you very much.
BRAD BRYANT: All right, guy, thanks a lot. Appreciate it.

End of FastScripts

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