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THE BARCLAYS

August 24, 2007

Steve Stricker

HARRISON, NEW YORK

Q. How would you assess round two?
STEVE STRICKER: You know, it was a good round. It was a little scrappier than yesterday. Yesterday I played pretty solid all the way around.
Today was a little bit scrappier. But got it in the hole well and made a lot of birdies, through in an eagle there today, but it's still tough. It's tough to control your ball sometimes. You get some mud on the ball and it's wet and it's tough controlling it on the green at times.
You know, if you can just drive it in the fairway and give yourself a lot of opportunities, there's some good scores to be had.

Q. Do you find yourself checking the points of any kind after day one as far as the FedExCup?
STEVE STRICKER: No, I didn't. I saw where I was in position in this tournament, in this field, but I didn't see any projections or anything like that.

Q. A lot of guys talk about how familiar they are with this course and you last played here in '95 is there any advantage or disadvantage?
STEVE STRICKER: You know, I didn't have a whole lot of confidence coming into this tournament just because, well -- only one time I've been here and I think I missed the cut. The course at that time, I didn't care for it at the time.
You know, I kept telling myself, you know, it was going to be a U.S. Open-style course where you have to drive it well and keep it in play and I thought the conditions would be a little firmer but we got the rain.
I do like it. I like this type of golf where you need to put it in play and then the greens are difficult. You know, you need to be on the correct side of the hole a lot of the times to give yourself a good opportunities.

Q. Do you have a good enough feel for this course for the weekends?
STEVE STRICKER: You know, there's still a couple things I'm not quite sure about, where it miss it on the green or if the ball is going to spin back, little things like that I missed out on over the years. Hopefully just keep doing what I'm doing, shoot 4-under a round and see where that takes me.

Q. With the seedings now, do you more pressure heading into the weekend?
STEVE STRICKER: You know, I'm still thinking about this tournament, what a victory would mean. The FedExCup points come secondary I think, but you know, my concentration is on playing well each day here.

Q. Do you feel like the course is going to change much the next couple of days with the heat?
STEVE STRICKER: You know, I don't think so. It's humid, so you need kind of dry conditions to dry it out. Even though it's going to be hot, I think a lot of the moisture is just going to stay in the ground I think. It's pretty wet out there still. It's pretty soggy in spots, and the greens are very, very soft. I don't see it changing much.

Q. How does the course compare to when you played it before?
STEVE STRICKER: You know, I can't remember. I missed the cut, so whenever you miss a cut, it loaves a bad taste in your mouth. I told my wife, I said, "Take a picture, we're not coming back." And I guess we haven't come back till now.

Q. So you played poorly the first time, came back, now you're more familiar and say you kind of like it, and now the tournament is going to leave here, do you pretty much say good riddance?
STEVE STRICKER: You know, I'm here because this is one of the Playoff events. If it wasn't one of the Playoff events, I don't know if I would be here. I just, you know what, I just have bad memories about when I played here back in '95 I guess. Obviously if you ask me now, I want to come back. I'm in good position and I like this style of course.
You know, maybe I just wasn't hitting it that well in '95 and just kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. I do like it. It's a great old-style course.

Q. When you know you're going to play four weeks in a row or whatever it's going to be, what prep does that require psychologically or physically?
STEVE STRICKER: Yeah, it's going to be different. I haven't played four in a row for a few years now. The way I'm looking at it is I'm going to try to get as much rest as possible. I'm going to play my tournament, go home, try to go home after each one, take a day and a half where I'm not going to pick up a club, spend some time home with my family and my daughter's birthday is coming up.
So just try to get away from it as much as I can in between the tournaments and hopefully get fresh and rested and relaxed and fired up and ready to go for the next event.

Q. Maybe throttle back the practice rounds or the driving range time to keep fresh legs under you?
STEVE STRICKER: Exactly. Fortunately I play the next couple of courses, Deutsche Bank, even though that's changed a little bit, and Cog Hill every year. So you know, I'll be in the Pro-Am so that will probably be my practice round. Just come in there the day before the Pro-Am.

Q. So you don't have to familiarize yourself with a whole different course?
STEVE STRICKER: Right.

Q. You have to feel good about your position in the FedExCup now --
STEVE STRICKER: Just play the tournament, try not to worry about what's going to happen with the points system and just let that part take care of itself.

Q. You always play well in big tournaments, this is close to a major, is that just part of the way you are?
STEVE STRICKER: I don't know, the style of courses, I like a major-style course I guess. If it was firm, it would really be like a major setup.
You know, I've been playing well, I have a lot of confidence and I feel good about my game and I'm just going out there and trying to do the best I can.

Q. You're in position, you have to feel good, you're right there after two rounds?
STEVE STRICKER: Yeah, very good, for not getting one practice rounds here and I haven't played very much over the years and I do feel good about where I am at and it gives me confidence for the weekend.

End of FastScripts

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