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AT&T PEBBLE BEACH NATIONAL PRO-AM

February 7, 2008

Olin Browne

PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA

NELSON SILVERIO: Olin Browne, welcome. Thanks for spending a few minutes with here in the media center. 68 today, including the eagle on 13. Why don't you get us started by taking us through your card.
OLIN BROWNE: What did I do, I birdied No. 3. I hit good shots on 1 and 2, and just sniffing the hole, then finally got one to drop on 3 from about, I don't know, eight or ten feet, something like that.
Then I birdied 6, hit it up on the green, two-putted. Again, had good looks on 7 and 9, didn't make them.
And then birdied 10, always nice to birdie that hole. And I'm 3-under.
I had a beautiful shot into 11. When we turned back there in that corner of the golf course, the wind was starting to really, really come up, so we were starting to hit longer clubs. I played really solidly on the back nine, birdied that hole.
I had a good look at 11 and didn't make it.
Then holed that shot on 13, which was kind of a nice bonus.
And then lipped in on 18.
All in all, it was a good ball-striking day. I wish the wind had been a little bit down on the back nine, but I guess it was up for everybody, so no biggie.

Q. Pretty comfortable here, though, at Pebble, right?
OLIN BROWNE: I like it here. This is a nice spot, and especially when the course plays like this when it's clear. You're not fighting all the elements. We had a little wind, it was a little cold, and the ball wasn't traveling very far and that's a little bit more work for me. But I like it here, I like -- it's so beautiful out here, you know, that really it fills you with wonder when you look out at some of those views, and especially at Pebble. It was just a glorious day, as you know. I enjoy that kind of thing, so it's always exciting to be here. It's always great to play Pebble Beach. It's just a great place.

Q. You won at the Callaway here in 2001?
OLIN BROWNE: Yeah, I did. And 2001 is when I played well here at the AT&T, too. So given the right conditions -- you know, you have to hit a lot of shots that aren't full shots. You've got to gear down on some iron shots, you've got to play some strategy.
Like I had a putt at 11, I hit a beautiful shot into the green, about six or seven feet above the hole, and I looked at my caddie after I missed it, and I said, there's not many six- or seven-foot putts you don't expect to make. It's one of those you're just ginching it down there trying to make sure that you give it a chance, but you can't take a run.
This course is what golf is supposed to be like. You have to play strategy, you have to think your way around. You can't just blast the ball and be super-aggressive on every shot. You have to play the game. I think that's the way this game was designed to be played. I think that's why great players love playing here. I think that's why great players' names are on the trophies at every tournament that's held here, whether it's AT&T or the U.S. Open or the PGA or whatever.

Q. Are you fully healthy? It seems like maybe the injuries from last year are gone.
OLIN BROWNE: Well, I figured out a way to manage it better. No, I did not do surgery. I'm not going to do surgery. I feel really well. I mean, I have no pain when I play, I have no discomfort, and I make sure I take care of it, though. I ice it every day.
When my wife is ticked at me, she tells me I'm 50 years old already. I'm heading along that way. But I'm in good shape.

Q. Along those lines, was it difficult -- it must be always difficult to go through some sort of injury.
OLIN BROWNE: It's frustrating because you can't -- golf is such a high-maintenance game. You can't leave it for six months and pick up where you left off. You can't do that. You have to -- it's a constant, floating crapshoot. You get one aspect of your game where you really like it, and because you've been working so hard on that aspect another one falls short and you've got to go work on that and you lose a little bit of what you were working on, and it's just a constant -- it's like raising your kids. You tell your kids 500 times not to do this or to do that, and they still do it. It's really a challenge in that regard.

Q. Along those lines, though, I mean, it's only one round, but are you really kind of getting back to the level that you had two years ago?
OLIN BROWNE: I hope so, I really hope so. It's been a tough couple of years, there's no denying that. I feel good and I feel like I'm doing some positive things, and I played -- I felt like I played great at the Hope and didn't get a lot out of it, and I felt like I played pretty well last week and didn't get a lot out of it. I had a couple putts drop. I left a bunch of them out there just like everybody else.
But I've got new equipment this year, too. The new irons that Callaway has are really good, and I'm able to hit some of those shots that I really like to hit where I maybe gear down on it, drop two fingers on the club and hit a three-quarter shot. You have to be able to do that out here because you can't just hit full shots into some of those pins; you'll draw the ball right back off the green. At the same time, you can't challenge those back pins, so you have to be able to manipulate the ball a little bit. That's how I like to play.

Q. This tournament obviously brings out different types of fans and whatnot, and going back to the Callaway, I understand that you had forged some friendships with some of the local kids here, one of them Michael Wilson?
OLIN BROWNE: How did he play today?

Q. 2-over.
OLIN BROWNE: Good for him. He's a nice young fellow. He caddied for me out here in 2001 as a matter of fact. I called Rich Patterson and asked me if he'd hook me up with caddie, and he said, let's get a junior. He might learn something and have some fun. Rich called me back and he said I've got good news and I've got bad news; I got you two because the one I got you has to go play a tournament. That was Kevin Murfeld.
So Michael caddied for me the first two rounds and Kevin caddied for me the last two rounds. As a matter of fact, Kevin has caddied for me every year since out here, and he just graduated USC and he's writing sports for the Santa Barbara paper.

Q. He interned at our paper so we know Kevin quite well.
OLIN BROWNE: He's a wonderful guy, and I've made friends with both those guys. I played a practice round with Michael on Tuesday and really enjoyed it.

Q. Had you kept in touch even just cursory over the years?
OLIN BROWNE: Absolutely. He called me. I followed his career. I know especially his freshman year he played terrific at Cal. He won right out of the box, and I know that he was a stalwart on that team. He's called me and asked my opinion about a couple things. Then when he called just last weekend to ask if I'd play a practice round, I was delighted, and we went and played Poppy as a matter of fact, so we had a great day.

Q. Any advice that you gave him about -- this is his first professional tournament?
OLIN BROWNE: Top secret stuff. You have to be in the group to find out about that.
He knows what he's doing. He's got a brilliant short game. He chips the ball beautifully, putts it very nicely. And he's strong; he hits the ball hard. He hits some very solid shots. I don't think he's got anything but positives in his future.

Q. And a tournament like this will just give him some experience. I know he's not on the TOUR itself, but --
OLIN BROWNE: Sure, it will, and it helps that he's a homey because he's got a lot of support here and he knows these golf courses. He doesn't have to wear himself out trying to figure them out. I think all that will contribute to a great week for him. Plus he's got the skills to shoot some good scores. Where did he play today?

Q. Poppy.
OLIN BROWNE: He's the skills to shoot some good scores.

Q. We've had a lot of rain lately so there was a lot of talk about the courses being wet and that maybe affecting play. Did you have any problem with that at all?
OLIN BROWNE: The course was wet in places but I thought overall it was pretty dry, and the greens were very consistent I felt. They were all bumpy (laughter).
I mean, I think I had one or two balls that plugged all day long, and I didn't have much mud on my ball. Let me go ahead and knock on wood on that one.
I suspect that Spyglass and Poppy were probably wetter than Pebble because they've got that clay underneath and there's nowhere for that water to go. I thought the course played find. The wind helps dry it out. Downwind the ball is moving a little bit, and into the wind the ball is backing up. It's pretty standard Pebble Beach stuff.

Q. You obviously have been around, but in looking back, did you leave something out there on the course?
OLIN BROWNE: I don't think you'll ever talk to a PGA TOUR professional who will tell you that he didn't leave something out there. You know, and you know that coming into this tournament, that you are not going to make the number of putts that you feel you should, and you're going to get some funny bounces and so forth.
I had a nice day, looking forward to a nice day tomorrow and a nice day the next few days after that, and we'll see what happens.

Q. What happened with the eagle on 13?
OLIN BROWNE: Well, the wind just was hawking on that hole, and I roasted a tee shot and then roasted a 4-iron and I actually thought I hit it over the green, and the ball hit perfectly and it just kind of dribbled out and went in.

Q. Not to harp on the negative, but what happened on 18?
OLIN BROWNE: I drove it into a divot off the tee, and it was a deep one, too, so I couldn't hit the club I wanted to because I was on the right side of the fairway and I had to aim right of those trees, and if I squirted the ball with my utility club -- I've got a 7-wood in the bag. If I squirted it, it could have gone out of bounds. I just knocked a 5-iron out of the divot, and then I had a 5-iron into the green and I hit solid shots on both of them, I hit a good bunker shot and hit a really good putt and I knocked my 6 in and I walked off the green and signed my card.

Q. People have talked that everybody has to play all three courses. Is there anything that you particularly like or dislike or -- playing Pebble first and then having Spyglass and Poppy?
OLIN BROWNE: I'd just as soon play Pebble every day. I'm playing Poppy tomorrow. I wish we were going to Cypress tomorrow, but that's the way that goes. Poppy is a great opportunity, five par-5s on that golf course, and it's a pretty good golf course. The greens are pretty -- pretty challenging golf course certainly. The greens are in pretty good shape. So I'm going to go and do the same things that I did today, which is get the ball in play off the tee and hit some quality iron shots and give myself as many looks as I can because that's the name of the game this week.

End of FastScripts

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