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JOHN DEERE CLASSIC

July 15, 2007

Tim Clark

SILVIS, ILLINOIS

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Tim Clark, thanks for joining us. Runner-up this week here at the John Deere Classic. We will go straight into questions. Just fire away.

Q. It seemed like maybe your neck was bothering you coming down the stretch that back nine. You couldn't get loose on 11 it looked like and beyond?
TIM CLARK: Not really. I didn't feel the neck at all today. It felt pretty good. Certainly I was pleased with the way I struck the golf ball.

Q. With the neck trouble you were questioning whether or not you would go to the British. What would you have done with those plans?
TIM CLARK: I would have still gone. I definitely would have gone. Certainly if I'm playing as well as I am now, I feel like I would have had a good chance to have a good week and be right up there. But as it turns out, I don't get to go.

Q. Did you get ahead of yourself at all do you think?
TIM CLARK: No, I think --

Q. Did you start thinking about the British exemption?
TIM CLARK: No, I think I probably -- I probably played a little conservative through the middle of the back nine, but really 15 was a terrible break. For the ball to come up against a rake and stopped it from going in the bunker there because the best I could do down there was 20 feet with a chip shot. Had it gone in the bunker, I would have been able to get it up-and-down or at least given myself a chance to get up-and-down. That's just unfortunate.
17 had a go at the green, and that's really the only shot of the day that I mis-hit that. I fully expected to be able to get it up to the greenside bunker, and instead it plugged in the lip of the bunker 20 yards short of the green, and from there I just had no play.

Q. What did you hit there?
TIM CLARK: 3-wood.

Q. Was the lie fine and you just come off it a little bit?
TIM CLARK: The second shot? Yeah, the lie was fine, yeah. You know, normally I probably would have laid it up. I thought the better play was to at least try and get on the front sort of left of the green.

Q. Did you look at all at the leaderboard to see what other players --
TIM CLARK: I only looked on that green actually for the first time, on 17 green. Yeah, I was pretty surprised to see him at 18. You know, and then just left myself a tough putt on 17 for par. I certainly didn't want to underplay the break, and I overplayed it a little bit. Yeah, obviously it's always going to be tough to birdie the last hole.

Q. Can you take us into your mind when you stepped on the green on 18 knowing it was a long putt?
TIM CLARK: Well, there was only one thing I could do there and that was try and make the putt. Yeah, I certainly didn't have to worry about second place or anything like that, so it was really just try and make the putt.

Q. I know it's early to assess, but how tough is it to accept a near miss like this?
TIM CLARK: It's not that hard, really (laughing). I think the biggest disappointment is not being able to play next week, like I say. I was 13th at Augusta and 17th at the U.S. Open, and I don't get to go to the British Open, which kind of blows my mind a little bit.
I would have liked to have won. It would have been my first win, and I certainly would have remembered it for a long time. But I'm just happy with the way my game has gone. Since the U.S. Open I've practiced one hour and a half. That's all I've hit golf balls for. So really, I'm pretty happy with how I've played, certainly with the amount of golf I've played this year and the amount of practice I've been able to put in.

Q. Were you aware what your lead was early in the back?
TIM CLARK: No, no. Like I said, the first time I looked at a board was -- well, I kind of saw I was -- after I made birdie on 13, I think I had a three-shot lead or four-shot even. I kind of knew then -- obviously that affected my play on 14. I just hit a 5-wood down there and just wanted to take bogey out of play and just make par. I just wanted to make pars coming in. Like I say, 15 kind of derailed that a bit.

Q. I saw in the first couple holes of the back nine you had a couple near misses for birdie. Looking back, those obviously were pretty big; if any of those went in, things might have gone different?
TIM CLARK: Yeah, but overall I hit good putts. That's really all you can do. I just tried to stay patient out there today, which I did through the whole round, really. Those two bogeys, I could have made bogeys like that on Thursday. It certainly wasn't the pressure or anything like that, it just sort of happened.
I don't look at those -- like I said, I really didn't play well, and I gave myself a lot of chances at the front nine, and you're going to miss a few. I certainly did make a few, too. I certainly don't look back at anything and say I could have done something differently.

Q. Thinking about how much time you had off and had someone told you, you're going to finish second, would you have been pleasantly surprised?
TIM CLARK: No. Like I say, I wanted to get in next week (laughing). That's why I came here. No, I was certainly going to try my hardest. And I find when I do try, I seem to play pretty well. I've been very relaxed, which this year I led at Colonial and got a little bit ahead of myself there, but this week I didn't let that happen. And then at Augusta, too, I had the lead after two rounds and didn't play great. But this week I stuck to what I was doing, so I'm really proud of that.

Q. Do you remain confident that your time is right around the corner?
TIM CLARK: (Laughing) you know, you never know. It's been a long time now. It's been six years out here without a win. But I'm sure it is. I think with what I'm working on now, I feel like I'm a better player now than I was certainly last year or the year before. So you know, hopefully it's my time.
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Tim Clark, thank you.

End of FastScripts

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