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U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 22, 2007

Jamie Lovemark

CRAIG SMITH: Jamie, that seemed like a tough first match. That was almost a match set for the weekend. He's pretty accomplished, even though he's have Argentina, we know a little bit about him, but and then you have the pedigree, so you got him early on the back side.
JAMIE LOVEMARK: Obviously it sure was a tough match. He's a really, really awesome player. We both grinded it as hard as we could. He didn't make as many putts as he wanted to, I'm sure he's thinking that right now.
But the back nine probably the turning hole was No. 11. I thought for sure he was going to win that hole and somehow I managed to make that long putt and he miss that had short one. And I think that gave me the momentum, even though we tied.
CRAIG SMITH: Pretty interesting to see you sitting here after the couple weeks you had after the tournament started, deadlines and all those kind of things. What the heck is going through your mind as you're sitting here now?
JAMIE LOVEMARK: Well, yeah, it's been a -- that couple weeks was kind of stressful. A lot of things happened and obviously it didn't happen -- thank gosh I got into the Walker Cup. I was picked for that and if I wasn't picked for that I probably wouldn't be sitting here.
So I'm grateful that I'm on the Walker Cup team and hopefully we can win that.

Q. Talk about the 11th hole. You were off to the right and then it looked like you just -- talk about that shot.
JAMIE LOVEMARK: Down by the right, right by the green I had a real tough lie. Thick rough, straight into the green, big clump of grass kind of sitting right on the hosel. And tried to open it way up and hit more like a bunker shot. And I actually the hosel caught it and turned over and it went straight across the green.
And all things considered I probably had an even worse lie on the other side. The rough was probably seven inches and the ball flew right into the bank and it didn't take a bounce or anything, so it went straight down in the ground.
And I opened it as wide as I could again and took my biggest swing possible and tried to slide right under it and considering things hit the best shot I could. And even though I was 20 feet, I had a pretty easy putt, just a little bit right-to-left and snuck it in in the right side.

Q. It looked like down the stretch there it was your short game especially out of the rough was a lot better than his. And he had said afterwards that he's just not used to this kind of thick rough and everything.
JAMIE LOVEMARK: Yeah. Well, obviously, we played so many tournaments, college golf now days is starting to get that long rough. I played a few tournament events. That helps tremendously. Even some of the amateur events around here are starting to grow that long rough.
And as an American and someone who grew up playing here we're very used to that, but likewise if we went out to Europe or even out in South America things would be much different. So it's just the territory.

Q. You talked about it before, but can you go over exactly what happened with the application and what the anxiety was like not being sure that you were going to be in?
JAMIE LOVEMARK: It was hard. Well I sent an application in. Right before I left for the AT&T. I was probably that was probably around June or July 1st. Somewhere in there. Within those couple days.
And I went straight from the AT&T to the Nationwide event in Columbus and I was gone for just over two weeks and got back past the deadline and it was returned in the mail something happened with the address. And sent it in right away and I got a letter back in the mail about a week later saying we regret to inform you that we can't accept your application. So I called the USGA office and asked what was going on. But they said they couldn't do anything about it. And luckily I got into the Walker Cup. And the same thing happened to Phillip Francis and it's tough. They have very strict rules.

Q. Had you mailed it right at the deadline or?
JAMIE LOVEMARK: No, when I got back from Columbus it was after the deadline. But the first one I mailed it before, but it never got there and came back.

Q. Can you talk about your lie on 14, the par-3 right there in front of the green. Was that similar to 11?
JAMIE LOVEMARK: No. Number 14 was pretty good. That rough was kind of patchy. I kind of found a decent lie. It wasn't anything too great or too bad. Just kind of played it back and opened it up and kind of popped down on it and it came out a little bit lower than I thought but with a lot more spin.
So that was one of the easier chip shots I had today.

Q. How did you feel about the way you've been playing coming into the week? Because obviously Western Amateur you had to withdraw and whatnot and have you gotten much practice in or just how did you feel about your game?
JAMIE LOVEMARK: Yeah, after I got back from the Western Amateur I had to take five six days off to rest my foot and after that I practiced as hard as I could to get ready for obviously the U.S. Amateur and we had a Walker Cup practice down in Baltimore. And that helped a lot playing with those guys.
We played 27 holes, 18 holes, 18 holes, so we played a lot of golf. Which helped a lot. So coming into this week I felt like my game was good. Not as sharp as I wanted to be but I knew if I got into match play that I would be playing well enough to keep advancing if I could.

Q. Talking about your foot. What which foot is it and what is the problem?
JAMIE LOVEMARK: It was, I just sprained my ankle. You can see it's still swollen a little bit. But it was just a stage two sprain and nothing you can do about it, just let it rest and heal.

Q. And how did you do it?
JAMIE LOVEMARK: Running on a trail. I stepped in a hole. I have really weak ankles, not really sure why. But I'm going to try to strengthen those this school year and see if that can help me prevent these.
CRAIG SMITH: You had a good summer.
JAMIE LOVEMARK: It's been all right. I had an, unfortunately, the Western Amateur I didn't get a chance to play. I played terrible at the Nationwide event. I had, yeah, I played good in the beginning of the summer and that Nationwide event kind of spoiled things. But hopefully I can finish it up good here.
CRAIG SMITH: And Walker Cup, you looking forward to that.
JAMIE LOVEMARK: Oh, I can't wait. We leave in about another week and it will be awesome to get out to Europe. I've never been to Europe and never experienced that kind of golf. The closest I've been was the Big-10 Pac-10 college tournament we played out in Bandon Dunes and I heard that was pretty legitimate. Obviously it wasn't exactly the same, but the weather was just as bad. It was 45, 50 degrees, very windy and rainy. So I can see.

Q. What was the experience last week at Caves Valley like?
JAMIE LOVEMARK: Oh, it was great. We stayed in those cottages right next to the driving range, if you guys are familiar with that. All eight of the guys and Robby and coach we all stayed together and we had a blast.
We stayed up late, having fun. Talking. Sharing stories and we all really bonded very well. So we got a very strong team and if we can go over to Ireland and get our feet running on the ground we should be in good shape.

Q. If you could look ahead briefly, how do you think this course matches up for your game the rest of the week and how difficult -- you seem like given your track record it would be a logical candidate to contend to win this thing. But it's a very difficult format obviously to get through, with two matches tomorrow?
JAMIE LOVEMARK: Yeah, match play, any match play tournament's the toughest, probably the toughest tournament to win. U.S. Amateur and the Western Amateur are very tough. Obviously the Western Amateur is 72 holes of stroke play. But this course sets up fine for me.
It sets up well in the fact that I had a lot of fade with my drivers and it seems like a lot of the holes, the wind's off the right so you got to cut it up into the wind and the fairways are sloping left-to-right and they're doglegging left-to-right and it seems like a cut is a preferred ball flight out here and that's what I'm swinging right now and I hit the ball pretty high, which helps tremendously on the firm greens and very firm fairways.

Q. Are you using a lot of drivers or are you?
JAMIE LOVEMARK: Yeah, actually in stroke play the first round I didn't use as many drivers as I did today. I wasn't too comfortable with it. I wasn't really sure how the rough was going to be.
Today I hit tons of drivers and quite a few two irons. No 3-woods really. I hit one and I think that it might have cut the rough in some places last couple or last today or something like that. Because it looked like the first couple yards of primary rough was little shaved down but it was still real thick and sticky. So we tried to avoid that. But the firm fairways are very tough.

Q. Do you like this format? Do you like match play? Do you feel comfortable?
JAMIE LOVEMARK: Yeah, I do. It's something I look forward to every time we have a match play tournament coming. Obviously we don't get to play this very much in college golf all year. We don't, well there is one tournament but I didn't play in it last year. So yeah, match play is fun. I played tons of matches all the Canon Cups, Palmer Cup, Walker Cup coming up. Some local match play events when I was a kid back in San Diego. The U.S. Junior Amateur obviously, but it's a lot of fun. It's anything can happen. That's the greatest part about it. And that's something that's very hard to come by.

Q. You won the NCAA, Player of the Year, Freshman of the Year, you almost won a Nationwide event, you've had success in PGA TOUR events, going to be playing in the Walker Cup. How do you get fired up to go into this college season?
JAMIE LOVEMARK: Every day I wake up you got to get better. Unless you're Tiger Woods there's always room for improvement. And you got to go wake up every day and say I got to work on these things, I got to do this, I got to do that. I got to get better. The only reason you don't get fired up is if you lost your motivation, you ran out of goals and I still have plenty of goals out there for me. And I'm going to keep working hard to strive for that.

Q. I remember the Junior in Long Meadow like it was yesterday.
JAMIE LOVEMARK: Kind of scary, huh?

Q. Thank you very much.
JAMIE LOVEMARK: No worries.

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