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THE BARCLAYS

August 23, 2007

Briny Baird

HARRISON, NEW YORK

NELSON SILVERIO: Welcome, Briny, thanks for coming in for a couple of minutes. Great round today, six birdies, one bogey. Why don't you just give us some general comments on your round.
BRINY BAIRD: It was a good round, I played solid. Hit a lot of fairways and greens, birdied the par 5s, which it's not easy, it's not hard. It just makes the round seem a little so-so and next thing you know, I'm 5-under par.
I'm pleased with the round. It was good. I hit a couple loose shots, got some good breaks. If you hit it in the rough out here, you're going to have trouble reaching the greens. I drew a couple of lines, made birdie twice hitting in the rough, and I might be leading the field in that.

Q. Just thinking back a couple of years, you were in the hunt here, and I wanted to find out what your thoughts are of this course and what about it brings out the best in you?
BRINY BAIRD: I'm not really sure what it is. I think it's more of a coincidence than anything. I've done it at a couple other golf courses before and I still think it's more of a coincidence than anything. I'd like to say it's the New Yorkers -- well, maybe it's true; I'm up here visiting them in the summer and they come down in the wintertime and see me in Palm Beach. Maybe that's what it is, they are all my neighbors. I think it's more of a coincidence, though.

Q. Did you feel any different playing golf this morning knowing that it was a Playoff event, as opposed to playing here in the past?
BRINY BAIRD: A little bit. You can see some of the banners up and you know what it is, seeing this FedExCup points list every tournament now for however many tournaments it's been, 20, 25 events. We did get to 13 green, and not eerie, but it was a little strange, you look back at the tee and right below the tee box there's a huge pane that says Playoffs and it's misty out and it's cold and right away I'm like, "Football." (Laughter) Hopefully that wears off and it's more PGA TOUR when you start thinking Playoffs. But I was like, "Oh, football."

Q. Do you know where you are in the points? He probably said that right before I walked in.
BRINY BAIRD: 102.

Q. So I guess football terms, you need a Hail Mary or something to pull this thing off?
BRINY BAIRD: A couple.

Q. Do you care? I mean, are you just going to add it up at the end of 72 holes and see what happens?
BRINY BAIRD: I think when you're that far back, first of all, you need to win a tournament. I played 250 TOUR events without winning. That would be pretty good if I suddenly win two or four or two of the next three to get into the fourth. Definitely it's doable. You could win four in a row.
But no, I'm not sitting here and I'm not ever going to look at a points list -- I have a better chance looking at a Money List than I do a points list, at this point.

Q. Thinking of the Bob May thing with Tiger a few years ago, would it be more interesting for the fans if a guy like you was in the mix down the stretch versus Tiger and Vijay and Phil and Adam Scott?
BRINY BAIRD: Without a doubt, I think that would be incredible for me. (Laughing).
No, I think it would be great because people would start associating possibly what is involved in winning this, what it takes to win it, what it would be to take it away from someone like Tiger and then they would also I think probably get a little -- they would start looking at the number, $10 million for someone like myself whose career earnings are not even close to that.
So I think that you add all that up, and not that it's not a lot for some of the big-name players, but I think that would just be unbelievable. It would be like you said, it would be Bob May and Tiger Woods.

Q. I haven't seen too many P.F. Chang hats out on TOUR, how long have you been with them?
BRINY BAIRD: Since 2001.

Q. Are you Mongolian beef or sweet-and-sour chicken?
BRINY BAIRD: Yes and yes. Keep naming them! I promise, we can run through the list. (Laughter) There's one close to here, too, White Plains Mall.

Q. Is there any difference in the buzz or crowd-wise?
BRINY BAIRD: A little bit -- we played so early, the weather wasn't all that great, and it was cold and stuff.

Q. I remember the last time you were in here, we were talking about the fact that you were probably that close to winning a PGA TOUR event, and I just wanted to get some thoughts from you on your year and then why that hasn't happened yet.
BRINY BAIRD: Why it hasn't happened; try harder. It comes down to, you have to suck it up on the last nine holes sometimes and it can just come down to that and it can come down to things that are not necessarily in your hands all the time. You can get a bad break, but I've never lost a tournament because of the bad breaks, I'm not saying that. But it is possible to get a good break, as opposed to a bad break, things like that.
How do I look at this tournament now being where I'm at? No different than any. I'm hopefully going to not look at it any different, it's only 18 holes, still 54 holes to play; it's still a long ways away. If this is my first year, I would probably be a little more deer-in-the-headlights look. I've done this before, but I've just never sat here at the conclusion of a tournament on Sunday, thank you very much.

Q. Do they give you guys like a pamphlet or literature? I think someone had told me earlier, given to players - to explain the rudiments.
BRINY BAIRD: We get stuff periodically throughout the year, we get emails, and we have a green sheet that we get once a month. We have a vague idea.
It's difficult, it's new, so it's difficult for people to grasp the idea of these points. I don't think people understood how it was going to get reset and how the 1 to 144 that it was already determined and looking for people to stick in each spot. As it came down to crunch time, people started asking more questions and it was like, wait a minute, this is coming up, I'd like to know how this works.
The way I look at it, it works out awesome for someone like myself. I can jump ahead of so many people, and I think that -- I'm at 102. I'm pretty far back. And Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh, they had such a huge lead. They were never even close to being catchable before. They are catchable now. Tiger's huge lead's gone.
It doesn't work out great for Tiger Woods and the big-name players. It works out great for guys that are coming from behind and overtaking them. You have to play better than you ever have in a four-week stretch or hopefully a three-week stretch to get into the fourth, but those are the guys, I think they got sandwiched towards us.

Q. You're trying to get into next week --
BRINY BAIRD: If I play at all decent, I'm not going to have a problem. The 70, I have to play good. I don't know how good, though, so to answer your question about how the points work; what is good? If I have one Top-10 in the next two events, or both of them are Top 10's, I don't know.

Q. That was kind of the question, which was, if you're not paying attention and having a chance to win this thing, are you paying attention to those numbers, the 120, the 70, the 30?
BRINY BAIRD: Yeah, because I know right now I'm 102. So I would be lying to say I didn't know where I stood. And I know that 120 gets in next week and that 25 guys have to pass me for me to not get in there. And those guys are all coming from behind.
Yeah, you pay attention to it to a point. Probably be funny to know, I have reservations starting Thursday of the third tournament at La Siesta Resort in the Keys, and that's no joke. (Laughter). That's the week of the third tournament. Does that mean I think I'm not going to make it? No. But the way things had been going, that's my two-week break in the Keys, I'd love to break those reservations.

Q. Six o'clock, day of, cancellation deadline?
BRINY BAIRD: No. It's like four days. (Laughter).

Q. You obviously did not make reservations in Chicago?
BRINY BAIRD: No, I did not make reservations. But I don't think it would be that hard to get into it with double points and guys 50 to 60 don't play well -- but what if they miss both the cuts? I don't know how far back, how far will they jump if you have a fifth or an eighth; I know what a win would do.

Q. There's been a lot of skepticism and people poking fun at this whole concept but it does add elements of new story lines like that, that we would not be talking about this time last year.
BRINY BAIRD: Yeah, it brings more attention to the PGA TOUR and that's what they are looking to do. They are trying to get not necessarily a fifth major, but something else that's big and get people interested in the game of golf.
Everything usually gets mocked when it's brand new. The BCS was an absolute joke when it first came out. What we have going on right now, I'm not relating that to a joke by any means, but this system, I would almost guarantee would get tweaked in some way like the BCS has been until it gets right, until Miami wins. (Laughter).

Q. Do you think the guys, the players in your strata, the guys that are out here a good bit every year are excited more than anybody some of the big-name guys?
BRINY BAIRD: That's a good question. I had not really thought about it that way.

Q. Are the friends you talk to, whatever, more conversant in the rules and regs of how it works?
BRINY BAIRD: Are you asking, is there more, your Average Joe PGA TOUR player, are they more excited about this?

Q. Yeah, because of the potential for money for playing --
BRINY BAIRD: Yeah, it's not so much the money. I think the way I've coasted along this year, without knowing anything, and suddenly I can get into this four-week stretch, and I can conceivably finish in the Top-30 on the Money List, get into the majors next year, the Masters, all because I had -- you know, I don't know any need to win to get into the Top-30 or not or what I had just three great tournaments, a second, a fifth and an eighth; is that good enough to get me Top-30, double points. If I did that without these double points, I still wouldn't climb my way into the Top-30 and get into THE TOUR Championship the old way.
So I think, yeah, it gets -- if you get hot at the right time, the system works awesome. If you don't, you know, it's going to work in reverse. So you're going to have mixed feelings about this no matter what.

Q. Do you feel like the older golf fans are going to think this is catering to a younger crowd and abandoning them a bit and going away from a gentleman's game type of atmosphere?
BRINY BAIRD: I hope not but I can see where you're going with the question. You know, any time you go from a points and then you start cutting like they did and trying to sandwich people together to add drama, I think you're going to lose a small amount. But I think you're going to gain a greater amount, so it's the lesser of two evils. Some guys will look at it like, they have tinkered with the system to try to get more interest.
NELSON SILVERIO: Great, thanks a lot.

End of FastScripts

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