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GINN CHAMPIONSHIP HAMMOCK BEACH RESORT

March 28, 2008

Fred Funk

PALM COAST, FLORIDA

PHIL STAMBAUGH: 67 today, your lowest starting round since Hualalai when you opened with 67. Your thoughts about how the course played.
FRED FUNK: It's about time. I played great. Playing difficult, greens are real firm, real fast and that's different. Fairways are a little narrower than last year, you've been that hearing that so I'll repeat.
It's a really good test. The weird thing was the wind, when we were walking up when we started, it was coming out of the south and just gradually started turning as we were on the front nine and started coming back in off the coast. So it went from kind of a south/southwest wind to a north/northeast wind and that was weird.
It made it play a little tricky, especially during that transition time, and 17 is playing -- even though you've got a front pin, it's a pretty difficult hole. I'm really pleased with my round overall.
To summarize what I did, because I've been really struggling with scoring recently and it felt good to make some nice saves with my putter and make some putts. So that's something I've been really working on extremely hard for about five weeks and finally got a good round in.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: Do you want to take us through your round?
FRED FUNK: Birdied 2 and made a nice putt. Hit in the bunker and hit it to 12 feet, ten feet, something like that. So that was a nice one, especially I missed it from four or five feet on 1 for birdie. I had to gear up my mental attitude from that point.
And then I made that one and hit it close again on 3 and missed it from about five feet.
But then I made a nice save on 4, and another nice save on 5 from the front bunker on 4, and I hit it in the right rough on 5 and hit a tough chip to get it close. I made probably an 8-footer for par at least.
And then I made a nice birdie after having to lay up on 6. I hit a wedge to five feet, four feet, something like that. That was nice.
And then finally hit a good drive on 7 and hit an 8-iron in there about 20 feet and made that.
And then 9 is always a nice one. I hit a good drive there and hit a 9-iron to 15 feet or so, 12 feet.
So I had a good front nine, especially after the putts on 1 and 3 that I didn't make, but I made the four nice ones and a couple saves. So really good, solid four nine, 4-under.
Then didn't birdie 10. I drove it bad and didn't get my wedge close, so that always hurts, because that was finally our first downwind hole that we had. It just seemed like every hole we played, it was into the wind, the way the wind was turning.
So gave one away there kind of. I think the field is probably birdieing that hole. And then that was nice, par 5, after running my putt by on 12, probably six feet.
13, really playing hard. The green, everybody is hitting -- at least in our group, is hitting over. I was on the back fringe and putted it by about eight, ten feet and made it coming back.
Oh, I eagled 13. I was thinking 14. I was just thinking 14, the par 5. That was pretty good, too. The eagle on 13 was really good.
Nice birdie on 14, I had to lay up.
16, I hit a nice four wedge off the tee and then hit it to four feet.
Ballooned a 6-iron on 17 and went in the bunker and didn't hit that good of a bunker shot. I had probably a 6-footer, 7-footer from behind the hole to the right. Tough putt to make, and I missed it.
Good up-and-down after a bad drive on 18. So real pleased overall, because I did make some good saves there in the middle and still made six birdies. That's always a good day on a really good golf course.

Q. Looks like tomorrow you are in a group with a guy in the Hall of Fame and a guy who is a career club pro, who, you know, didn't have much success on the PGA TOUR, Lonnie and Bernhard. First of all, have you got to know Bernhard?
FRED FUNK: Oh, yeah, Bernhard and I are really good friends. We've got real close probably the last three or four years. We've become really good friends through Larry Moody, our TOUR Minister, and really just being almost parallel last few years, we've been kind of running the same thing, just trying to do the best we could on the regular TOUR until we got out here, staying very competitive and working out and things like that.
He and I have got a lot in common the last few years. I can't say I have a lot in common prior to that because I didn't know him at all.

Q. Has he done what you expected out here?
FRED FUNK: Oh, yeah, he's a very competitive guy, unbelievable. He's a guy that's truly had the yips. Couldn't do anything on the greens at least twice in his career and has overcome that. You know, obviously he's gone on to win the Masters and -- how many majors does he have, two? Two Masters. Obviously he's a great player. He's physically in really good shape and mentally he's really strong.
He's on a mission. I think Bernhard is on a true mission to dominate out here -- if not dominate, to win the Schwab Cup. No question in my mind that's what he wants to do and that's his goal, and he's off and running.

Q. How important is it to get a good start like you did today in a tournament like this on a course that can be challenging?
FRED FUNK: Well, this year is more challenging than last year. I think there will be more separation in the scores, I think, just because of the firmness of the golf course; mainly the greens.
But with three rounds -- that's the biggest difference I see between the regular TOUR and out here is the three versus four rounds; it's like a sprint. You can't -- you're immediately into the moving day on Saturday after one round, and you've got to position yourself, and it's hard to position yourself if you're starting behind the 8-ball on the first day, if you shoot a higher number.
It's very seldom I think a guy -- I really don't know, but a guy like Denis Watson who shots 65 and to overcome that many people that he did at Valencia, that's pretty rare. Obviously we had really tough conditions and he got really rewarded for a great round, but you've got to start off pretty well I think.
I'm more or less trying not to look ahead, and that's the one thing out here, is that you can look at the scoreboard and you're kind of treading water and you're even par, 1-under, a couple over, whatever you are, and you look up and somebody is 5-, or 6-under and you start pressing and all of a sudden you go the wrong way; you can't do that.
You've just got to, as they say, take one shot at a time or one hole at a time. But it's hard to do. But you've got to focus that way.

Q. Tell us about the plane ride yesterday.
FRED FUNK: I got to land it twice, and he let me take off, and I had never flown before in my life. He put me in the pilot side on the left side and had me do all the checklists. I didn't even know -- he said: "Hit that button, turn the key and start taxiing."
"How the hell do you taxi? I don't know how to taxi."
He said, "Hit the throttle and use the pedals." Like I was going down the runway all over the place.
I said, "Does it count if you're not really going straight?"
He says, "As long as you don't hit anything." And so we're going down and he said, "Full throttle, take off." And I'm thinking, how is this thing going to straight? "So once you get to 75 miles an hour, pull it up," so we pulled it up.
He had a set of controls, but at taking off, he didn't do anything. But coming down, I said, "Keep your hands on those controls over there."
He said, "Don't worry, I'm not taking my hands off the control." Who knows, he said I had like 70 percent of the controls the first time landed in Miami, and then coming back here, we landed just at dark last night, just before dark, and he said, "Well, you had about 85 percent that time." I went, okay, whatever. I'm bouncing -- there wasn't even any wind and the plane is bouncing. I was a nervous wreck.

Q. Don't have to have a learner's permit?
FRED FUNK: I don't know. I'm not trying to get him in trouble. (Laughter).

Q. Was it easy?
FRED FUNK: The plane was great. There's no way I would want to land it in there's any wind or anything.

Q. They have a parachute, don't they?
FRED FUNK: Yeah, that's if you're high up enough and you can deploy that thing.

Q. Now, is this motivating you in any way to maybe go get a pile's license?
FRED FUNK: No. That was fun, though. It was fun. It was a great trip. Made that little deal -- I had to do this outing yesterday, and so I played the Wednesday Pro-Am and John Super's (ph) office said they could take me down there, and, well, that's nice enough. There's nowhere really to sit in back, there's not much room, so I was in the front on left side. Got in, said, "Well, isn't this your side?"
He said, "No, it's your side today."
PHIL STAMBAUGH: How long did it take.
FRED FUNK: About an hour and a half. It goes about 200 miles an hour.

Q. You were at the Miami Beach Country Club?
FRED FUNK: Yes.

End of FastScripts

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