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MERCEDES-BENZ CHAMPIONSHIP

January 3, 2008

Jonathan Byrd

KAPALUA, HAWAII

DOUG MILNE: Jonathan, we'd like to welcome you hear to the media center at the Mercedes Benz Championship. I heard you mention out there that you hadn't played since the TOUR Championship. Obviously no signs of any rust developing, 3-under 70 today in round 1 of the Mercedes Benz Championship.
Just a couple opening comments on how you're feeling and obviously it's reflective of some good play.
JONATHAN BYRD: First of all, I'm just happy to be here. It's a great way to start the season, like most guys would say. I'm just happy I'm starting to feel well. My son has been sick a lot of this off-season, and I've gotten everything he's gotten. You can probably hear it in my voice. I really just started feeling better two days ago or a day ago. But I put in some hard work this off-season, I feel like I'm pretty prepared for this week, this year to start, and my game was pretty good today.
DOUG MILNE: Obviously coming to Hawaii, you're not exactly expecting the conditions you had to fight your way through today. How much of a factor was the rain, sun, rain, sun?
JONATHAN BYRD: Well, you expect the wind. You know that coming over here for both weeks that you're going to have to hit the ball solid in the wind. But it's hard playing this golf course. You're used to playing it so firm and the ball chasing so much, and I only got to one of the par 5s today in two, and that's a rarity for this golf course.
But once you get past that, the hard part today was the rain just kind of coming and going. You finally felt like it was gone and then you turn around and there was more coming.

Q. There were lots of birdies and bogeys. Did you feel like you left some out there?
JONATHAN BYRD: You always feel like you left some out there. I was displeased with a couple of the bogeys. I made a couple good saves, as well, but I bogeyed some of the easy holes. I bogeyed I think it's -- was it 6?
DOUG MILNE: Yes.
JONATHAN BYRD: The shortest hole I hit a bad tee shot, hit it in a bunker and kind of made a sloppy bogey. Then I made a pretty good bogey on 13, hit it in the hay and got up-and-down from about 40 yards for bogey there after a terrible tee shot. Then bogeyed the par 5, 15th hole, from the middle of the fairway, 65 yards, just an easy wedge shot.
But it's the first tournament of the year. You're going to make some mistakes. I was fortunate enough that my game was sharp enough that I made enough birdies to kind of make up for the mistakes I did make.

Q. Can you tell, how important is experience here?
JONATHAN BYRD: I think it helps. You know, the guys that play well here usually from year to year usually always play well, a guy like Vijay, Stuart Appleby, Tiger when he plays. You know, those guys kind of get a feel for the golf course.
I think the key to this golf course is just don't -- not to be real precise. You can't get real hard on yourself if you're not real precise because there's so many elements. You hardly ever have a flat lie. You're always having crosswinds, and the wind is kind of coming and going. Today we had rain. When you hit it 30 feet sometimes that's a really good shot, so you just have to have to manage your game and your emotions and just kind of enjoy the golf course.

Q. Was the wind consistent today or was it all over the place?
JONATHAN BYRD: It was fairly consistent. It didn't blow quite as hard as it maybe did yesterday. At the start of the round it did, and then it just kind of came and went. But for the most part it was fairly consistent. At least it's blowing the same direction that it has most every day.

Q. Doug talked about the sun and the rain and the sun and the rain. How tough was that to deal with? I mean, one hole you're putting on your rain slicker and the next hole you're taking it off because you're hot.
JONATHAN BYRD: It was hard. I mean, I had a rain suit with me. When I wear pink pants there's not much that goes with it (laughter). My rain suit is navy and orange, so that looks pretty bad with pink pants so I didn't bring it, so all I had was this vest. Every time I took it off a new rain cloud came. The rain was just kind of a nuisance, and every time I put my vest on I hit a bad shot, so I just kind of took it off and just kind of weathered it.
But it's just hard to keep your focus when you're having to do so much work. Fortunately I'm not having to carry my bag as well and keep my clubs dry; umbrella out, umbrella in. Today is a day you really appreciate your caddie.

Q. What were some of the things you wanted to work on during the off-season?
JONATHAN BYRD: Well, I got with my team and we went over the stats and talked about the season. I was very high -- I think I was No. 2 in putting this year -- last year, but I wasn't as high up in short putting, inside 10 feet. I worked hard on that. I worked hard on a lot of uneven-lie shots. Other than that, mainly my wedge game. Those were three areas where I felt like I really needed to get better.
But I worked on my golf swing some. I have a new driver, a Mizuno driver I just started playing with about a month ago that I'm very pleased with. It's performing well for me. You know, other than that, just trying to get a little bit -- in my golf swing, get a little sharper and try and make things more easy on myself, a little more athletic in my golf swing.

Q. What did the rain do to the greens specifically?
JONATHAN BYRD: We noticed yesterday how grainy the greens got when it started raining, when we played yesterday, because it was kind of similar conditions yesterday in the Pro-Am, and the greens really slowed down and they got grainier, so they were breaking more.
When it started to get wet today, we kind of knew what the course was going to -- how the greens were going to change and just had to hit your putts a little bit harder, and certain putts on slopes you just had to put a little more break.
But you could be a lot more aggressive with your iron shots, like 18, that wedge shot to that back pin usually runs out, and I flew it all the way back to the hole pretty much.

Q. Does the rain make this course easier or tougher overall?
JONATHAN BYRD: I think it makes it harder because the ball is not going as far. The 17th hole was not designed to hit a 3-iron into the green for me. I had a perfect tee shot, kind of drew with the wind and it rolled like four yards, so I had 220 to the flag. I don't like hitting 3-iron into that green.
The course plays longer, but -- I don't know, I feel like it probably makes it play a little bit harder. You can tell by the scores, only one guy broke 70 so far, so it's playing more challenging.

Q. If it stays wet like this and weather conditions like this through Sunday, what's it going to take to win?
JONATHAN BYRD: Who knows? I don't know. I mean, I guess today's forecast is just like every other day, maybe a 20 percent chance of rain. So hopefully we get less rain and we can kind of keep our rain jackets off and see some sun and just enjoy ourselves. I don't know, 3- or 4-under every day would probably be pretty good.
DOUG MILNE: You had mentioned some of the guys, Singh and Appleby, some of the veterans out here, and how they grasp onto that to perform well, but you look and you've got two first-timers, you've got Daniel Chopra and Brandt Snedeker, I don't know if you heard about Brandt's dilemma on 17. He cracked his driver on his tee shot and finished double bogey, bogey. But anyway, this is the first time they've ever played here, so is this the kind of course that lends itself to some of those types of players, as well?
JONATHAN BYRD: It's a great course to start the season if you do have rust, because the fairways are big, the greens are big, and you can get away with a lot of bad shots. I've always said that when I've come here. It's a perfect course to start the season.
Good ball-strikers, guys who hit the ball solid are going to do well on this golf course, I think, and a longer hitter is going to play well. We saw Furyk and Joe Ogilvie playing in front of us on 18, and the hole looked hard from where they were hitting their second shots from. So a long hitter is going to help, and hitting it solid into this wind, control your trajectory with your iron shots. All those things will help somebody play well this week.

Q. If we could lastly just run through -- you went through your birdies and bogeys. If you could just give us some clubs, if you don't mind, just on the birdies and bogeys.
JONATHAN BYRD: Let's see. 5, hit a driver, 3-iron on the green, two-putted there.
6, I hit it in a bunker and duffed a 7-iron, chipped a lob wedge, missed a ten-footer.
8, hit 4-iron into the green short of the ridge, made a good putt there from about 15 feet.
11, we hit an 8-iron to about five feet, made birdie.
12, we drove it down there and chipped it down there about 15 feet, made that.
13, hit it in the hay, dropped it right of the hay, 230 yards out, hit a 3-wood, 30 yards short of the green, got up-and-down.
14, 3-wood about 40 yards out, hit it to about a foot.
15, left it short with my wedge shot, came down the hill, made bogey.
Then 18, wedged it to about three feet and made birdie.
DOUG MILNE: Jonathan, thanks for coming in. Congratulations. Good luck tomorrow and on the weekend.

End of FastScripts

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