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EDS BYRON NELSON CHAMPIONSHIP

April 24, 2008

Ryan Moore

IRVING, TEXAS

STEWART MOORE: We'd like to welcome our current co-leader Ryan Moore to the interview room here at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship after a great opening round 67 and some pretty windy conditions out there. I'm sure by the time you got your round going this afternoon, you knew it wasn't going to have to be too low of a round to get up there.
RYAN MOORE: No, definitely. It was just one of those days that you knew it was going to be a battle the whole time you were out there. There was enough wind to make you think a little extra on every shot for sure, and it's a good, long, tough course and plenty of trouble. You just have to control your ball out there.
STEWART MOORE: A lot of players struggling out there today, but yet you made seven birdies. On your good holes out there what seemed to be clicking for you?
RYAN MOORE: Wow, I'll take that. To do that again tomorrow would be nice.
Let's see, it was kind of a combination of the ball-striking and then the putting, as well. I can't really say one thing more than another. It was just -- I controlled my irons very, very well except for that little stretch there, 2 through 6, I don't think I hit a green. But yeah, I had a bunch of really good looks at it and made a couple decent-sized 20- to 25-footers early in the round, and the rest of them were just good five-feet-and-in kind of putts.

Q. A lot of players are talking about the difficulty of 14 through 18, but you seemed to handle them pretty well. Talk about that.
RYAN MOORE: 14 through 18, those are great golf holes. You know, starting with 14, that's just -- that's a tough drive, and you're right back into the wind.
It's just kind of one of those awkward shots, and then you have to really place it in the right spot, or else you'd have an interesting little shot with a lot of trouble, obviously, going into that green. I kind of controlled a nice little 7-iron in there and made a good probably 25- to 30-footer. It's one of those greens you kind of want to get it right in the middle of the green and take your chances from there. That's what I did, and I fortunately rolled one right in there.
And then 15 is obviously just a good, tough par-4. It was pretty much straight back into the wind today. The two previous days we played it was kind of a left-to-right wind, almost helping, and I hit 7-iron in there yesterday. Today I had 225 straight back into the wind. I was hitting every bit of a 2-iron into that. So that's just a good hole.
16, they made that pretty tough. The bunkering, the layup, is not an easy layup by any means. You have to really think about that one. I fortunately placed it great, out in front of the green, 20 yards short, had a nice little pitch shot to about three feet and snuck that one in.
18 was probably the most interesting of all of them. I hit it way right into the trees, pitched it back out into the fairway, had about 135, hit a 9-iron just on the front edge, which was kind of a good place to be, just putting right up at it and it kind of tumbled in there from about 15 or 18 feet for par. So that was a little nice putt to keep the momentum going, where I could have bogeyed two out of three holes there. I kind of kept it going and ended up birdieing the next hole.

Q. Considering the conditions, how good of a 67 was that?
RYAN MOORE: That's a tough question. You know, I think any 67 is good. You know, it was just one of those days that there weren't a ton of birdies out there, and somehow, whether it was a few good putts and enough close shots, I just fortunately had a bunch of really good looks at it, good opportunities. So I'll take any 67 on any golf course any day. This is definitely one of my better rounds of the year, for sure, in those conditions.

Q. A lot of the guys are talking about the difficulty with the more undulating greens this year. Obviously you handled that pretty well. Did you find it just a good day with the putter? Did you not think they were that difficult to read? Some of the guys struggled with that.
RYAN MOORE: You know, I love bent greens, just any sort of bent greens, and I actually really sort of enjoy new bent greens. I don't know why. I've always enjoyed putting on them. There's just no grain in them. They're very true. And so I've always kind of enjoyed that.
Fortunately I had good speed control. A few times I hit it kind of pretty far away from the hole, and the rest of the day I was missing a lot of greens in the right spots so I was chipping it up to two and a half, three feet all day long. These kind of greens, you hit them solid inside the hole, and they're going to go in.
Yeah, I think they did a great job with the green complexes the way they improved them. I think they did a phenomenal job. I think they're very fair from everything I could see. A tough, windy day like today, and I still thought they played very, very fair.

Q. As you said, this was one of your better rounds of the year. How good does it feel to put together a round like this, especially with the ups and downs you've had this year?
RYAN MOORE: You know, it feels really, really good, especially a first round. I haven't performed very well my first rounds this year. But I've really had almost about the last nine or ten weeks off. I took two weeks off before Tampa and went and played Tampa and missed the cut, so I went straight home from there. Then I took five weeks off after that, then came back last week and missed the cut. So I've had a lot of rest lately (laughter).
You know, everything is feeling a lot better. I just had a couple things that were irritating me and I decided to take some time early in the season and get them out of the way. To come out today, it feels like I at least made the right decision to deal with those things, the fact that everything is feeling good and I can go out the first round and play good.

Q. What kind of things are we talking about?
RYAN MOORE: Just kind of the continuation with my hand, just not really feeling good, which was causing a little irritation in my shoulder. It's just the little stuff that comes with it. You know, two weeks here and there just doesn't cut it, and that's why I decided to take the five weeks. I just said, I'm just going to focus and dedicate my time to this right now and just make sure I can go play golf without something hurting, which has been a really long time since I could do that.
It's quite enjoyable, really. No matter what score I'm shooting right now, I'm enjoying it a heck of a lot more because it's not painful being out there.

Q. Were doctors pretty confident that the rest would take care of it, or did you just not know?
RYAN MOORE: You know, there was no doctors consulted, really. It was just more of a -- I don't even really know. I just kind of had a feeling that if I just went and took some time and worked with a PT a little bit, because actually my shoulder was bothering me more than my hand, but I know the two were just not helping each other.

Q. Compensation for the hand do you think, the shoulder?
RYAN MOORE: Right, I think the shoulder just got a little bit of overusage and just kind of took a little bit of time, worked with a PT, just working on some -- very minimal exercising but just working on the right ones and just getting the shoulder conditioned to where I want it to be, which is relieving my hand now because the shoulder can do its work and now my hand is not irritating as much. Everything just feels a lot better, so I'm very, very happy about that, the time I took off.
STEWART MOORE: Ryan, thanks so much. Good luck this week.

End of FastScripts

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