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U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPJune 15, 2007Stephen AmesOAKMONT, PENNSYLVANIA Q. Have you ever shot a round that good before? In the great round you had at TCP.  STEPHEN AMES: On a U.S. Open golf course, no, I take that back, maybe Shinnecock, second was 66, if I remember correctly, not sure. Yeah, it was. But this is a different monster altogether, compared to Shinnecock, this is much tougher. Q. The hardest course you've ever played? STEPHEN AMES: Probably close to it, I haven't played them all. Q. Was it physically tough out there or just mentally tough? STEPHEN AMES: I always try to make it fun. Because this is a game. And as the day was going on I realized how I was playing and I realized that I was slowly starting to get into a rut of thinking of score and stuff and I started to crack some more jokes and stuff. I think you have to enjoy it as much as you can only because of the fact of how tough this place is. Q. Can you walk us through your birdies? STEPHEN AMES: I can't remember them, two, to about five feet below the hole there. Three, no, four, no, five? I ran off the tee, cut a 6-iron back into the wind, hit it about 25 feet behind the hole, made that. Q. 8? STEPHEN AMES: Stole one. 3-wood, about five feet. Q. Do you expect this course to get harder? STEPHEN AMES: It's the U.S. Open, isn't it? It's renowned for that, I'm sure it will. Q. Could it be unfair? STEPHEN AMES: It could be, if they let it get out of hand. Q. Phil Mickelson was saying it could be dangerous in terms of injury in there. STEPHEN AMES: Yes, definitely. I visited it once or twice, but my twice was chip it out, get it on the fairway and taking your bogey, you have no chance of advancing it, lucky to be able to do that. Q. All of the people said the green speeds are inconsistent. STEPHEN AMES: Very. Q. I thought maybe from the exception of 18 you seemed to do okay. STEPHEN AMES: You could see how much softer the green was and has been all week, for some reason it's retained a lot of the water better than the other greens. But other than that, like you said, that was my only blemish. Q. How do they play differently, the 3-wood to five feet? STEPHEN AMES: We played the forward tee on the 252 or 264 the first day, today it was 297? I don't know. Anywhere on the green I'm quite happy with, just happened to hit a good bounce, I guess, ran up there at five feet. Q. Do you think it's reasonable to have to make a shot, you're in the rough, but you could possibly do some damage to yourself? Do you think that's reasonable to have that possibility? STEPHEN AMES: That thought goes through your mind. I think you'll know, taking a chance, if you can or not. I don't think I will do that. I'll just hack it out and go to the next shot, play from there. But taking that opportunity to end my career, no, I don't think I'll do that, no. Q. You were 3-over yesterday on 7, 8 and 9, today you were 1-under today. Did you hit the ball better? STEPHEN AMES: Yeah, hit the ball better, 7, I hit the green, two-putted; 8, I hit it with a 3-wood; and 9, I missed the putt, could have been 2-under. I hit the shots that I needed to hit coming down. Today I was a lot more comfortable with my swing than I was yesterday. Q. You said this is a lot tougher than Shinnecock. Going back three years, if somebody told you you were going to play two courses in the next few years that were tougher than Shinnecock, would you have bought it? STEPHEN AMES: No, no, I wouldn't have, not until you hear the horror stories that you've heard about Oakmont. Q. How does it compare to Winged Foot? STEPHEN AMES: It's not dry enough, if it gets dry the last two days, it will be ridiculous, because the greens are -- Q. Knowing that the USGA -- STEPHEN AMES: We hope the USGA would have learned something from that situation, I think Shinnecock has lost three fairways and a couple of greens. They haven't grown back yet, and I would hope they've learned from that, I would hope they do that. Q. What's your mind-set going into the weekend. STEPHEN AMES: Don't have one, have fun, play golf, see what happens. Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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