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JOHNNIE WALKER CLASSIC

February 28, 2008

James Kamte

NEW DELHI, INDIA

RODDY WILLIAMS: James, thanks very much for coming in and joining us, a little bit after your round finished, but we caught up with you in the end. A great finish to your round in particular with the eagle on the last hole. Can you talk us through that hole?
JAMES KAMTE: Yesterday or Tuesday I sort of spent a lot of time around the greens, and I saw how tough it was when I hit a lot of shots in there on Tuesday. I just thought I would try and pitch it on the green and run it up and make sure the ball stops there. Then hit a great 5-iron about 220 yards, and it just bounced, just trickled onto about five feet.
The putt, I hit it about two balls right and it just went in. It was a great feeling.
RODDY WILLIAMS: And obviously a great end to a very good opening round, you're 4-under par sharing the lead in the clubhouse at the moment.
JAMES KAMTE: Well, at this stage, I didn't look that much on the leaderboard. I thought as I walked up on the 18th, I just marked my ball and I just looked and I saw a lot of 3-unders. So I said on the tee, if I make this one, I will be the only one who will be 4-under, and fortunately I made the putt.

Q. Going back to the very beginning, how did you get involved in golf and did you have an inspiration?
JAMES KAMTE: I think it was about 1997, roundabout there, I started off as a caddie. So as I just went along, I took it up seriously about 2001, and I started practising after that.
And I just -- the only thing I like about the game, it was more about mental and just only me and the golf course. It wasn't more about the team game. I sort of like individual games. That's one of the reasons that inspired me to play because it was more about the individual game, and I'm quite a very positive person and I like competition.

Q. Where was that? Where were you when you began to play, caddie?
JAMES KAMTE: 1992 to 1995, St. Francis Bay Golf Club which is in South Africa, and then a friend 1996, he joined St. Francis Bay Golf Club, so I thought I should also become a member. But the worst thing about it, I never played. Probably caddied more than I played. I played like four times a year, which was not really playing golf. But then thanks to help from the Nedbank and the Els Foundation, late '99, I had the sort of privilege to play week-in, week-out amateur ranks. And then through the Ernie Els Foundation which was very good.

Q. Tells us about your Cobra nickname?
JAMES KAMTE: I got that from playing soccer. I was a striker and pretty good at playing soccer so thought I was going to be more of footballer than a golfer. The guys used to call me Cobra because I was so quick and used to strike quite a lot. It came from there. Cobra as I used to strike and I was very quick and I thought I would lose it when I moved over to golf but I'll take it.

Q. How did you rate your performance today?
JAMES KAMTE: I just tried to do well on every shot I hit. I hit a lot of greens. I hit fairways and greens and tried to hit the right side of the greens. I spent a lot of time on Tuesday looking at the course and the right side of the greens. I thought if I can hit the fairway I would have a chance of putting the ball in the right place,

Q. Was it a tough call to choose golf ahead of soccer?
JAMES KAMTE: It was a tough decision but in the end was easy as I had more back up on the golf side than the soccer side. I was offered a scholarship for golf with Gavin Levenson in 2001. On the soccer side I had no back up so I had no option but to go with the opportunity I had at that time. Regrets? Not now. I am delighted I chose to play golf--
RODDY WILLIAMS: Well, well played today and thank you very much indeed.

End of FastScripts

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