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GINN SUR MER CLASSIC AT TESOROOctober 25, 2007Craig KanadaPORT ST. LUCIE, FLORIDA DOUG MILNE: Craig, as noted, it's good to finally get in, and better late than never. Good playing today. 6-under, par 67. Just a couple general comments about the round and being here in general. CRAIG KANADA: I'm just glad to be here, I guess. It's been a long year, but I got two more tournaments. Obviously being 127 I need to play them both and try and make a little bit more to get into the top 125. DOUG MILNE: What went right for you out there today? Obviously got a lot of little circles here. CRAIG KANADA: I hit some good yardages and hit it close several times. I don't know if you have ShotLink available or not, but -- I really can't remember too much about the round. DOUG MILNE: A lot of greens in reg, 15 of 18. CRAIG KANADA: Yeah, and quite a few were inside of five feet, so maybe four or five were pretty close putts. Finally a couple good putts as well. The last five weeks previous to this was almost the opposite, where I felt like I really haven't struck it all that bad but nothing's going in and I just missed the cuts by one or two shots the last five weeks. DOUG MILNE: Questions? Q. How frustrating is it this time of year when you're missing cuts when you have to, and did this come out of nowhere today? CRAIG KANADA: It would have been frustrating -- well, the first couple of weeks maybe I was feeling the pressure a little bit knowing just all I had to do was make cuts and know it would pretty much get me my card. But after that I actually played pretty well, but just felt like I just got some bad breaks. Case in point was last week on the last hole I had to make a birdie to make the cut and hit a perfect shot and hit the flag stick and careened twenty feet off and missed the cut by a shot. I mean, I can't do anything better or anything else more than that. You know, just things hadn't been falling my way. Finally today obviously I felt like I was comfortable with the yardages I had and hit some good shots and they ended up close to the hole. The ball started going in the hole obviously for birdies, and that hasn't been happening lately. Q. Everyone is optimistic entering a year, and it probably seems like a whole lot longer ago, but how good do you feel coming of the tie for 10th at Sony, and how did you think that would set you up for getting some momentum early? CRAIG KANADA: I had just come off the Nationwide TOUR last year and had won two of the last six or seven tournaments, including the last one, so I had a lot of momentum going into the year. I felt like having won twice out there you've seen a lot the guys that do that have pretty good success out here as well, or at least they can compete. That gave me a lot of confidence and just the comfortable feeling of knowing that if I just keep continue playing and doing what I'm doing that good things will happen. Right away from the Sony it did and finished tenth. Being conditional obviously it's really good to have a good start and got me in a lot of tournaments. I've actually played a lot more than I wanted to, you know, but it's been a good thing in that this is my 33rd or something event. I normally don't play that many so I'm a little bit tired, but it got me off to a great start and I continued on for quite a while of playing pretty steady and consistent but never quite improved on that tenth place like I wish I would have. Q. Can you talk a little bit as well, obviously everyone knows what's at stake this time of year. How difficult is it to block that out when you're standing over a putt and tee ball? Is it constantly with you, or is it something that you can kind of put aside from time to time? CRAIG KANADA: This is my first time through, so I have to admit I've been looking and trying to figure things out about how much it's going to take. It probably hasn't helped me, but at the same time, when you're out there inside the ropes it's still just the game of golf. You still just take one shot at a time and just hope things, good things happen. You know, I've been doing this for long enough where I know that being inside of 125 would be a really good thing. But at the same time, I've been in a lot worse positions in my career, so 126 to 150 actually sounds pretty good. Q. There was a little bit of rain overnight. Did the greens change at all this morning? Do you think there's a lot of birdies out there for the guys this afternoon? CRAIG KANADA: The greens didn't change much. The fairways are definitely softer, and the lift, clean, and place was definitely needed. It's been playing fairly soft all week, and it's probably a good thing too. If this was firm and fast this would be one heck of a golf course. There's a lot rough and it's a lot easier to hit the fairways. Not out there just landing in the fairways and staying in there. The greens, obviously with the wind, are a lot more receptive and you can shoot at the flags. So really it's made the conditions easier with the rain, and I don't see it really drying out too much the next three days. Q. When you arrived this week did you like what you saw on the course? Did you have any feeling that this was a place that you could do well? CRAIG KANADA: Yeah, I do, because I think driving the ball accurately is one of my strengths, and I noticed the fairways were pretty narrow. Most of the carries on all the drives are right about my range, whereas some of the guys that hit it 30 yards past me are running out of room and have to back off a little bit. So I think it's going to be a little bit more even as far as where we all play from, which can only help me. I think it's a good course for me. Q. Since you've acknowledged that it's your first time through, that you've been looking at numbers, was there a point in the year, maybe after AT&T when you would look and saw you were around 90 and said, That's it; I'm in? Did it ever get to that point for you, or were you not so ardent a follower of the numbers three months ago? CRAIG KANADA: At that time I was really looking forward to the FedExCup playoffs. I was really just trying to focus on that and get myself in a good position to play, if not four, at least three of them. I played two and didn't quite achieve what I wanted to do, but it was a fun experience to be in that. Then after that, you know, I thought that's when I started thinking about finishing top 125. Q. And this one of those deals where if you had gotten a top 20 the last three or four weeks where you were assured you would be done you wouldn't be out here anymore like some of the guys? CRAIG KANADA: I have three kids, so we're definitely going to Disney. But as far as playing a practice round Disney, yeah, maybe not. I was not planning on coming here actually, but, you know, I had plenty the days off in the last five weeks so I was ready to come here and try to have a good week. DOUG MILNE: You started on the back side. If we could run through the birdies and I guess two bogeys and let us know what happened on those. CRAIG KANADA: I'll try. DOUG MILNE: I know. Some of the other guys been struggle as well. CRAIG KANADA: All the holes look the same. DOUG MILNE: Maybe start with the birdie at 14. CRAIG KANADA: Okay. Let me think. I can't remember. I'm sorry. DOUG MILNE: That's all right. How about the string of three birdies on the front? CRAIG KANADA: I remember 18. DOUG MILNE: Just whatever you can remember would be great. CRAIG KANADA: 16, I hit the green in it two. Hit a decent drive and had only about 232 yards or so into the green. Hit the green and then hit about a 40-footer and then 2-putted. 17, I missed the green over to the right in the rough and chipped out passed the pin about 12, 15 feet and missed that. 18, hit a 3-wood and 9-iron to about 10 feet or so and made that. DOUG MILNE: That hole has played really tough today. There were a lot bogeys on 18 today if there's any consolation. CRAIG KANADA: Really? 1, hit a driver and hit sand wedge to about 3 feet. 2 is Par 5, so I laid up and hit a sand wedge to about 2 and a half feet, maybe 4 feet, somewhere in there. 3 hit driver and 9-iron to about 2 feet. Then 6, what is six? I can't remember six. DOUG MILNE: Okay. CRAIG KANADA: 7, made a decent putt, so six I must have hit it close on there as well. I don't know what I did. DOUG MILNE: Okay. CRAIG KANADA: Yeah, 6 I hit driver to 9-iron as well and hit that about 8 feet or so. 7, laid up in the rough and hit 9-iron to about 20, 25 feet, and that was about the only putt that was any length that I made. 9, obviously I hit it short or on the green, but I don't know, it was about 60 feet or so and 3-putted. Actually hit a great second putt, just didn't go in. DOUG MILNE: Okay. We sure appreciate your time, and best of luck tomorrow and through the weekend. CRAIG KANADA: Thanks. End of FastScripts |
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