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THE BARCLAYS

August 26, 2007

Mark Calcavecchia

HARRISON, NEW YORK

MARK CALCAVECCHIA: I knew my whole season was going to be these eight weeks starting with the British Open through the Canadian Open, Bridgestone, PGA; then one week off and then the Playoff events, four more.
So these eight weeks are going to be my whole season pretty much and it looks like now I will be in Atlanta for sure. That's great. That's where I wanted to be.

Q. As a player that gets on a streak and gets going pretty well, are you looking forward to these next three week?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: I am. I've never played Boston. I've never played that course. I can't believe it doesn't start till Friday. That's kind of weird. I'd be ready for it to start tomorrow. Take a few days off and maybe go to a Red Sox game or something and just hang out.
But yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Cog Hill I've played many times, and East Lake. So it's a big three weeks coming up.

Q. Overall on the FedExCup, this has to give you a lot of confidence with Thursday and today, just playing so well.
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: Yeah, it does. Any time you shoot 65 -- and I bogeyed the first hole each of the last two days. So I guess I'll never be bummed out about bogeying the first hole again. Sometimes that first hole seems so important.
But at any rate, a good confidence-builder and confidence is a wonderful thing in golf.

Q. Owning at one point the PGA TOUR record for single-tournament putts, why the two putters?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: Well, I've tried some stints in the past with the belly putter and it's stuff on putts outside of 15 to 20 feet. Those 40-, 50-footers, it comes out of your belly sometimes, gets hung up in your shirt; it's a disaster. My touch just doesn't work very good with it.
I used it in the last round at Akron and the PGA and my long putters were terrible but my 10-footers and in were fabulous. I thought, well, the way this course is, I didn't need my 5-wood or a 2-iron, so I took the 5-wood out and threw another putter in and got my short one in for 30-, 40-footers and it worked out pretty good for the most part.

Q. Do you use the same grip, the Claw grip?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: I do. I use the same grip on both.

Q. What does that do besides giving you confidence over the 10-footers?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: It takes your right wrist out of the putt. However many years ago, I got a little shaky on the short ones with kind of a twitch. It wasn't a violent twitch but I definitely had a case of the yips.
It just sort of -- when you use the Claw, it's just basically a left-handed stroke and the right hand is just going along for the ride. So I'm just pulling up the left hand and that's all that grip does for me and it works good with the belly putter as well.

Q. Is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week, is that going to be the deciding factor whether you're going to carry two putters or are you just going to feel it out?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: It depends on the course. If it's a 5-wood situation. I'll spend a good amount of time on Wednesday and Thursday practicing with the belly putter because you can't get away with carrying two putters all the time.
My caddie on the 10th hole said 13-under is still leading; nobody is going anywhere. I knew we needed to get to 13 or maybe 14. I was missing the fairway by a whisker on 18, didn't hit a very good drive. That kind of took me out of a good chance of making birdie.
I think somebody will definitely get to 14 so I'll be a couple short. But, you know, wish I would have hit the fairway, would have been nice to slide a little 3-wood in there and see what I would have done.

Q. Did you think you had a chance to make a run at it?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: I knew I was playing well. I didn't think coming from eight shots back with the caliber of players at the top of this leaderboard that I had a chance to win this tournament. It was just important for me to play well today and earn more points to stay in the Top-30.
Now I can see my sights on staying in the Top-10 or the Top-5 or even the Top-1.

Q. Coming from behind, were you a little surprised that you were able to actually make a move today?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: This course is tricky. It's held up very well over the years. Only reason the scores were as low as they were is because the greens were really soft the first two or three days.
There's some tough, kind of goofy holes out there, slopey greens. So if you start hitting a few loose shots, you'll end up with some bogeys in a hurry. That can't happen out here. It happened to me Friday. I just had a mud ball -- a 3-putt, a mud ball and a bad shot, three holes in a row, bogey, bogey, bogey. It can happen that fast out here.

Q. Do you sort of look at it all of a sudden and think that you have a chance when you see what's going on?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: I kind of thought -- I didn't really look at the board but I knew 13 or 14 was still right there. I knew I needed to birdie 18 to have a chance or even make an eagle. Just really bummed out I missed the fairway. I would have bet a lot of money I could have hit that fairway, right-to-left wind, my favorite wind. Tried to hit a smooth fade out there, actually over-fought myself.
To make a long story short, with the two putters in the bag, I've got a gap between my 3-wood and 3-iron, which is about a 50-yard gap and I was afraid if I hit a good drive I would be right in the middle where I could not get there with 3-iron and 3-wood would be way too much.
So I went with a soft fade into the wind so I could get it 250 or 260 from the hole and hit a full 3-wood. I just pushed it a little.

Q. Birdies on 16 and 17, do you feel like you pick up a shot on the field on one of those holes?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: At least, yeah. The pin on 17 is definitely a birdie hole. It's just a driver, wedge -- 16 is probably the hardest hole on the course today, close to it, 224, back into the wind a little bit. It's a pretty little green and I hit one in there about five feet and it was nice.

Q. Overall thoughts on this week, moving forward?
MARK CALCAVECCHIA: I've never played well here. I didn't have a whole lot of nice things to say about it after Friday's round but obviously glad to make the cut and just looking to move up on the weekend.
Good confidence-builder and good finish for me.

End of FastScripts

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