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CONSTELLATION ENERGY SENIOR PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

October 4, 2007

Mark Wiebe

TIMONIUM, MARYLAND

DAVE SENKO: Mark, good start, bogeyed 18 but in at 3 under. Maybe just quickly talk about your day, and then we will get some questions.
MARK WIEBE: Okay. First of all, it is just a great golf course, great, demanding, tough golf course. You really need to be on top of your game to be able to come out and compete.
You know, I played pretty well. I just tried to be patient. It sounds kind of cliche; but on this type of golf course, you can't force the issue. You have to really take what the course gives you.
I played pretty solid. I thought I drove the ball great today. I was real happy with my driving. My tee ball really set me up for a lot of holes.
Two bogeys, and I get that's pretty good. One was just a bone head error on my part, and the wind came up on 15, the par 3. It looked like such an inviting pin, and I should have been left of the hole. And I just didn't execute there and paid the price.
You know, although I bogeyed 18, I am happy with the way I played and I am happy with the way I am playing.

Q. Get your birdies real quick. You birdied 4 and 5 back to back. Do you remember the shot sequence?
MARK WIEBE: Number 4 was a par 5, the barn hole?

Q. Yeah.
MARK WIEBE: I had a pretty good drive. I hit it over the barn and hit an excellent 3 wood. Just two paces off the front of the green and putted from the fringe up to -- I don't know -- a foot or something like that.
And next hole I hit a sand wedge and I hit a nice drive and hit a sand wedge in. Did a great job there keeping it below the cup. And I probably had a 12-foot birdie putt, somewhere in that neighborhood.
And then my next birdie --

Q. Number 12, par 5.
MARK WIEBE: Oh, yeah. That was a decent drive. Nice second shot. I hit a sand wedge from 95 yards to about four or five feet. Again, did a good job keeping it below the cup because you have to play a little backspin on that hole because of the shot you are hitting in there, and I had a nice spot little bit uphill. Again, that was four or five feet probably.

Q. Then 14?
MARK WIEBE: I don't remember 14. Oh, 14, sure, yeah. That was great. Sorry, how could I forget?
I hit a nice drive there and I had 181 to the pin. And you can just not be over on these greens when the pin is in back. So I really wanted to work my way up to hole and hit a great little 5 iron that ended up about same -- probably about four feet, maybe five feet, somewhere in that neighborhood.
And great putt to make there because of the shot I hit in. I was real happy with making birdie there because the 5 iron was such a pretty shot, such a pretty shot.

Q. 15 bogey.
MARK WIEBE: 15 bogey, like I said, I hit it in the right bunker, the pin front right. The pin did come up. We had a tiny rainshower there, which was weird, yeah. And I just thought the wind had died, and it blew all of our balls to the right.

Q. What did you hit?
MARK WIEBE: I hit a 6 iron and I can't remember the yardage. I think it was 169. Like I said, the wind had come up and that was a mental error. In my opinion, it was a mental error.
But great birdie on the next hole right after that. I hit a 9 iron in for my second shot from 141, and I hit it to -- I'm going to say about 10, 11, 12 feet right in there. Nice putt to make after bogeying.

Q. And then 18?
MARK WIEBE: Bogey on 18 was disappointing. I can tell you just because I had such a good drive there. I had such a good drive. You are really trying to do so much with the second shot, although it may not look like we are trying to do anything out there. I am trying to be not too far above the cup. I am trying not to have too much of a downhill put. I didn't want to have pin high much on the greens because of the big breaks you have to play.
You know, in looking back, I probably just tried to do too much with a 5 iron there and just flared it off to the right. I hit a great pitch shot. I think I landed on a ball mark because when my ball landed I saw dirt fly up and my ball seemed to really scoot forward instead of landing softer like I had pictured. It ran by, I don't know, 12 feet or something like that. I didn't hit a very good putt there and made a bogey.
But like I said, overall, I am happy with the way I am playing right now and this is -- Round 1 is in the books for me.

Q. Were you impacted at all by the delay and did that have anything to do on your mind? You are ready to start at one point and then you go at another.
MARK WIEBE: I think we all kind of -- we stood out there in the fog for a while and then we added another delay and then now you're at, "Well, if I go in the locker room and sit I will be there for five minutes and have to come back out." So then I stood out there, got ready, went and started my practice putting and then here the fog came back. So they stopped play.
So then we stood around. We were all in the same boat there with "What are you going to do," you can't see. It was pretty close to tule fog, I think, out there. It was pretty thick. I think we all just kind of wanted to go play.
I think everybody was a little bit -- I don't know if I would really say it was unsettling, but it definitely was a weird way for your routine. I actually went back and hit balls again because we had, I don't know, two more delays after that. I had to go back and do the whole thing over again. Along with everyone else, I'm sure.
Are we supposed to have fog tomorrow? Okay. Oh, well. I grew up in San Diego area. We used to have fog all the time. It is better for football than it is for golf.

Q. Some guys who come on this tour when they turn 50 -- they get a lot of recognition is what I am trying to say. I don't think that you did coming on the Tour but you won the first time out and I guess you have been in the lead or shared the lead in every round you have played so far. What's your thoughts on your transition to senior golf?
MARK WIEBE: Well, I have a lot of thoughts on that. I don't know where to start. I think the coolest thing for me is to see the guys -- When I started the Tour when I was 27, in 1983 or -4, I guess, these were the guys that I used to get done playing with and call my dad and say, I played with Bruce Lietzke today and the guys that I have utmost respect for in this game that I'm seeing again.
I saw Hale for the first time last night and Stadler.
I think the neatest thing for me is to be around those guys again. Like I said, I have so much respect for those players, and those were the guys -- When I was growing up on the Tour, those were the guys. We didn't have Tiger. Those were guys that were the winners and the class champions.
So by transition on to The Champions, I have gone out and playing nice golf the last couple months and I am just trying to play golf. I am not really thinking about who I am playing against. I am just thinking the hole is the same size and so is the ball. So whether it is nationwide, whether it is Tour or whether it is Champions Tour, it is still golf. It is nice to go and recognize guys.
I got to tell you, the Nationwide Tour, I maybe knew a handful of guys and that's because I played with them and got to know them a little bit. Don't really know many guys out there. I am sure they were looking at me and I kind of know what they were thinking, like, What are you doing here? Maybe they are saying that here, too. I don't really know.
It has been really wonderful for me. I have to tell you, to see some of the old faces has been great. And here I played with Mark James and Bruce Lietzke today and haven't had a pairing like that for a long time.
DAVE SENKO: Thanks, Mark.

End of FastScripts

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