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BOB HOPE CHRYSLER CLASSIC

January 16, 2008

Tim Petrovic

LA QUINTA, CALIFORNIA

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Tim Petrovic is joining us in the interview room at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. Great start to the week with a 65 here at the Classic Club. Just talk about what you did well and maybe even the conditions out there and how they might have changed.
TIM PETROVIC: It was a little cold this morning, but as far as wind was concerned it was, conditions were absolutely perfect. There wasn't any wind probably until our 15th hole. The wind didn't really come up. Which was nice.
JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Is it starting to pick up now?
TIM PETROVIC: Yeah, it just started to pick up about 10 to 15 miles an hour. But it's blowing in a good direction. Especially if you're finishing on the front nine. The wind is kind of helping you coming in. And we finished on the front.
It was a little chilly, starting on 10, 11, it was kind of tough. But I was fortunate enough to hit a couple good tee shots. I drove the ball really well all day and started the day with a 30 foot putt.
JOAN vT ALEXANDER: And 31 on the back nine.
TIM PETROVIC: And then we had half time.
(Laughter.)
We had, yeah, it was, let's see, the Super Bowl half time is 20 minutes and ours was about 40 minutes. With no entertainment. So I walked around upstairs and visited the boys room, read the paper, I did all I could do. Sat on the porch and waited for the four groups to tee off and then we were ready to go for the second nine.
JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Questions, please.

Q. I was actually going to ask that. You come off of 18, 31 is pretty good, come over to new first hole there with the grand stand and it's like hitting a little bit of a wall. There's always a little bit of a delay it seems like at this tournament when you make the turn, but that seemed to be a little more than normal?
TIM PETROVIC: And you have to walk over underneath the grand stand, so you don't really see it until you walk out and down the hill and there it is. I saw about 20 people standing over there and I was like, oh, boy. It was four groups. But in this format you got foursomes, and it's a pro-am format, so we don't expect to run around here in four hours. So you just got to expect that and you can go hit balls or putt or whatever you want to do.

Q. And you went out and you parred the first hole, I believe. Did you feel like it impacted you too much?
TIM PETROVIC: No, I really didn't miss a beat. I hit all the shots that I wanted to hit. I hit every shot I wanted to hit on the first three or four holes. Probably would have taken me a couple holes to get back in a rhythm. And I made a bogey on that second hole, which is, we were just trying to figure out what hole we were on. We're like, is this 7, 2, 4? I recognized the hole, but I was like, okay.
But I hit a 5-iron, just hit it a little right, I think it actually caught the rake or the side of the slope and it kicked it dead right. So I was on a down slope and I had really no shot. And that was my only bogey.
But other than that one break I came back and I birdied the next two holes so I got my momentum back. So it didn't really affect me. I had the mindset that I had some time to think and sometimes that's bad for some guys, but I got a little snack and off we went. But it was a 40 minutes. It was probably one of the longest waits I've had between nines. Especially when you shoot 31 you want to really get on the next tee and go.

Q. Did you actually leave the course? Did you come up here in the clubhouse?
TIM PETROVIC: I could have. But when we're out here there's really nowhere to go. I thought about running down to McDonald's, that's like another exit or two down, but, no, I just went upstairs and just sat on the porch and watched the groups go off.

Q. A lot of players don't like the format because of situations like that. How do you reconcile it and what do you get out of it?
TIM PETROVIC: Well, you know the format before you come here and play. So the guys that don't like it, you don't have to play, you know. And some guys don't play because of the pro-am format. But it's not like we do this every week, I think we only have about three or four events where we actually he have a pro-am format. And I think it's -- I made a lot of friends, met a lot of interesting people. I met some celebrities, I think there's a lot of things, a lot of pluses that come out of it. Try to look at the pluses instead of all the negatives. The round is going to be a little slower, but you're playing the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic and that's part of the week.

Q. Would you expect to play your best golf given these kind of surroundings or do you just not even put that out of your head?
TIM PETROVIC: No, I can hit it further than all the guys in my group, so that's good.
(Laughter.)
So I got to get pumped up there on the first tee. But, no, it's another week for me. I enjoy playing four different courses. It's I think it's our only five round tournament on TOUR. So it's unique.

Q. Based on the draw, you would have, it looked like you maybe had a tougher, a the toughest two courses the first two days, Classic Club and SilverRock of course you haven't played competitively yet. Have you gotten over there and taken a look at the place?
TIM PETROVIC: Yeah, I think the SilverRock course is actually the longest course that we're going to play and I think on some of the tees they're going to bump them up. I think one of the par-5's is playing as a par-4 of 480. But it is the longest course. It looks good. The location's pretty good and depending upon which way the wind is blowing it's up against the rocks over there so you can get a little bit of protection over there.
But I think the way the wind blew today, if it's north, northeast it's going to be coming right into the side of the hill and you won't get much help over there.

Q. Given that it's four courses the first four days do you even bother trying to figure out what a leaderboard looks like at any point during the week until maybe Saturday?
TIM PETROVIC: No. Probably not. It's not really important until Saturday. I really don't do much leaderboard looking. It's not like I'm trying not to look, because if I try not to look then I want to look, so I just look. If I feel like looking, I look.

Q. How low could you have gone today? It looked liked you missed a couple short ones on 9 and 18. But 7-under is a great score. How low could you have gone?
TIM PETROVIC: If I didn't make the bogey and made those three, 6, 8-footers, then I would have shot 11-under. But I did, I made a couple -- I made one long one, I made one 30-footer and hit a really nice fairway bunker shot on my -- I don't know what hole it was, 7? Which is whatever hole that is.

Q. What did you hit out of there?
TIM PETROVIC: I hit an 8-iron. I had 142, it was kind of into the cross wind, the wind was just starting to come up a little bit and I hit it absolutely perfect. So I hit a lot of good shots today so I'm not really looking at the putts I missed. Everybody misses putts. In a perfect world it would have been great to shoot that 10-under here, which would have been tremendous advantage to do that here. But I'm happy to go 6, 7-under here and on this course. And if I could have a good round tomorrow I think I'll have a -- there really aren't any cake walk golf courses any more. It's, I think the Palmer Course is probably the easiest course. La Quinta, I think that it has the fastest greens, and those are hard to read too. Anything in the 60s there is a pretty good score.
So the Palmer Course is really the probably the easiest of the four now with the new rotation. You don't have that easy Bermuda Dunes or Indian Wells, where you're guaranteed, you know, not guaranteed, but a 66 or 68's basically like par, so if you shoot 65, 66, you need to shoot that to keep pace with everybody else.

Q. Did you know before you teed off today that they had rerouted the holes?
TIM PETROVIC: I was out here yesterday trying to figure out -- I went to 1 and it was like number 3. And then I went to and they shot me over to No. 1, which is over by number 18. We were just trying to figure out. There's a few crossovers, I think it's happened once before, you could of someone play the wrong hole. It could happen here this week. Hopefully not, but it could happen.

Q. But not you today.
TIM PETROVIC: No. I played them all in order. I will be paying attention next time.

Q. You were talking about a side benefit like getting to know some celebrities and so on. Is there anybody a couple of people that you've been particularly impressed with or had fun with?
TIM PETROVIC: I think that Justin Timberlake played a few years ago here and was it three years ago, over at the Palmer Course. And he finished his round and he came back out and signed autographs for two hours on the driving range. Most of them will finish their round and have a beer and they're gone back to their bungalow or getting ready for the night life. But he stayed out for a couple hours. I thought that was pretty classy move.
So I got to meet guys like Roger Clemens and I'm into music and even though Robby Krieger hasn't played in this one we'll have to get him to play next year from the doors, I got to meet him actually playing Riviera. So there's a lot of people. I ran into -- he was one of the Eagles. Was it Don Felder? Well then, yeah then I Googled him and found out he had a lawsuit so I forgot about, I was like, oh, God, what's going on. But there's always a story out here, that's for sure.

Q. Have you actually played with a celebrity rotation?
TIM PETROVIC: Actually the first year I played here I did. I was the last guy in the field as a rookie, I took K.J.'s place and we played Indian Wells the first round. And I was hitting balls on the range and I felt a presence to my right side when I was hitting balls like somebody was watching me hitting balls, arms folded. And I look up, shoulder over, sweater over his shoulder, there's Arnie with his arms folded watching me hit golf balls. And I'm like, "How you doing, Mr. Palmer?" "Well, when I was your age I hit balls up in those trees up there." Which is, that's pretty impressive considering they were playing with like rubber golf balls back then.
(Laughter.)
He took a big cut at it. And I hope to see him this week. I hope he comes out. But I actually played with a couple of members over at The Tradition, I guess he comes over, he goes over there and plays. But I heard a few stories, but he's a great guy and I hope he comes out this week. I don't know if he'll be on the range watching us hit balls, but we always love to have him.

Q. So you're saying of all the people that you, all the celebrities that have played in this tournament the biggest one you ever met is Arnold Palmer?
TIM PETROVIC: I had met him before and he looked down and he kind of gave me a little smirk and he knew who I was. And which was amazing is because that was like my rookie year. And I met him -- actually that may have been the first time I met him. The guy, the kid that was caddieing for him was actually worked with my brother when my brother was working bags at Westchester. I think that's, that they were talking and that's how Arnie came over and put his shadow over me.
(Laughter.)
He watched me hit balls. But that was fun. We chatted a little bit and it was just amazing even after the round that day he was still out hitting balls until dark with all the guys. He just loves golf. And I just hope I can have that kind of an enthusiasm and fire in my belly as the years go on to keep playing.
JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Well thank you for your time.
TIM PETROVIC: You're welcome.

End of FastScripts

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