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FRY'S ELECTRONICS OPENOctober 18, 2007Michael AllenSCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA DOUG MILNE: Michael, welcome to the media center and thanks for coming by. Great round today, 7-under par 63. Start off, I'm going to take you back to Turning Stone and I was with you in your solo second that erased any concerns about finishing in the Top-125. So as you made your way here to 7-under 63, just a couple comments about how you're feeling and how your game is. MICHAEL ALLEN: That week was awfully good for me. Even though I was one of last out, I was hoping to have a solid finish and get myself in good position and to get it done in one week was awfully nice. Having said that, I wanted to play well the last few weeks, but I knew this is a week I would feel good at. So I kind of put a lot of attention on this week, too, to try to see if I can get one spot better, which is the one thing I've always wanted to do. Q. Can you just walk us through your round a little bit, some of the keys you thought to the score you posted? MICHAEL ALLEN: I think obviously the key was that little stretch there of 14 through 16. I hit a good shot in there on 14 to about a foot and a half or something, which kind of got things going. And then that hole down the hill, I hit a good drive down there and had a real easy bunker shot, and, you know, I knocked it in. It was, you know, perfect. Then the next hole, you get up there, and that's a good hole, I don't care when you're playing. And I hit a pretty good shot but just fell off the green to the right. That's a tricky little chip, especially where that pin was, and I knocked that one in, too. It just died right in the center. That kind of got everything going. Obviously I was in great shape after that. Q. Chipped in from how far? MICHAEL ALLEN: I was just about the middle of the green off to the right. So that was probably a 30-foot chip, 40-foot chip. So it's tough to chip around here, the tight grass and the grain gets against you. So I felt pretty good about it. That was awfully nice. Q. How familiar are you with this course? MICHAEL ALLEN: Well, the guys here have been wonderful with me. They always let me come up if I have a guest. The guys at Grayhawk could not be better. We play a tournament, Desert Marlin, every year, so I've played that the last three or four years, and happened to have won it a couple of times. It's been a good spot for me. Q. Would that be two out of the last three years? MICHAEL ALLEN: It would be, yes. Q. What kind of scores do you shoot in that? Of course, that's a team competition. MICHAEL ALLEN: Yeah, probably 63. It's a par-72 event. Q. Were you surprised with the 63 today? MICHAEL ALLEN: Well, a little bit. I didn't know that it was -- I knew it was out there. I knew you could shoot some good scores out here, especially this time of year with it playing as short as it does this time of the year. Also, things run out a lot faster. But yeah, out here, if you can get the ball in the fairway, in the middle of the fairway out there in pretty good shape, you're going to get a fair amount of good opportunities. Q. Is the 63 your best opening round score in a TOUR event? MICHAEL ALLEN: No. I shot that in L.A., Riviera one year. I've had a few of them on TOUR. I think I've only had one other opening round 63. Q. Playing at Turning Stone and playing here today, how much difference is that playing, knowing that you have to cash in soon, or, 'hey, I'm free to freewheel this thing'? MICHAEL ALLEN: Well, it is a big difference when I was there, I was focused like it was TOUR School, I just would not ever try to let myself make a mistake and play a little more conservative. So that's my mind-set there. Here, I'm still trying to -- that's kind of the good and evil I guess. The last few weeks when things didn't go well, it was easy to say, okay, oh, well. It didn't hurt my gut like it usually does because I'm usually grinding so much -- or at least any time after March, I'm ready for TOUR School. Having said that, I also have to get myself back to the point where it is important to not let myself make a bogey and play a little more conservative, because that's obviously the way I play best. Maybe that's the lesson I need to get out of Turning Stone and some of my success I have when I'm playing at TOUR School. So I'm trying to turn that over and make that a part of my game out here, too. Q. Winning your first PGA TOUR event, you've been out here a long time and you're the king of Q-School and all that stuff; what would that mean to you? MICHAEL ALLEN: It's everything. It's the reason we all start to play is we want to win a few championships. You know, it would be the nugget at the end and what I've always been trying to do. It would show all this work that I've been putting in with Mike Mitchell and all the work he's helped me with, some of it is paying off. It is paramount, and it's going to change my life, probably not that much. It's what I want to do when I'm playing golf. That's why you show up. Q. Gets you an exemption for a couple of years, too. MICHAEL ALLEN: Gets me through 51. (Laughter). Q. You'd be going from one tour to another when you got finished. MICHAEL ALLEN: Well, I'd like to stay out here another five, six years would be like what I would like to do. But I don't have any status here. I have as much status out here as I have over on the Champions Tour. Q. How much does being comfortable, living in Scottsdale and being comfortable with the surroundings, how much does that effect you? MICHAEL ALLEN: I think it helps with your golf certainly because you kind of know the ball is flying, how it flies out here and you understand the grass a little better and how things roll. You know, it's nice just to have friends around out there. I had 20, 30, 40 friends out there yelling. You know, that's always really nice. You don't get that very often. So when you get things going, it's nice to see things -- have some fun. Q. How far do you live from here? MICHAEL ALLEN: I live about ten minutes. DOUG MILNE: Let's just real quick if you don't mind, we talked about this stretch, if you could just take us through some clubs on the other birdies if you would. MICHAEL ALLEN: Let's see, I missed a short one on 1. On 4, I had a driver and 3-iron into the front right bunker. Just blasted out to a foot, foot and a half, so that was pretty easy. Next hole is one of the few shots I didn't hit very well. I hit one kind of on to the front right of the green and had basically a dead-straight putt up the hill, but it was probably 30, 40 feet and made that right in the middle; that was awfully nice. And then 9, I really didn't hit it -- that was kind of the only bad tee shot I hit. I hit it right off the tee in the bunker and had about 185 to the hole and just kind of a nice little cut 6-iron out of there and came off the back hill, and I had about six or eight feet and I was able to roll that in. 12, I hit a good drive there. I hit 7-iron, I had about 180,181 and I hit 7-iron to about eight, ten feet right behind the hole. DOUG MILNE: Great playing. Best of luck tomorrow. End of FastScripts |
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