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EDS BYRON NELSON CHAMPIONSHIP

April 24, 2008

Eric Axley

IRVING, TEXAS

STEWART MOORE: We'd like to welcome Eric Axley, our current co-leader, to the interview room here at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship after a round of 67 out there in some blustery conditions. Bogey at your 2nd hole today and then you rip off four birdies in a row to fly to the top of the leaderboard. Talk about playing in some strong wind out there, and you get off to a hot start and then you have a setback with a bogey at 12 and just kind of keep it even keel.
ERIC AXLEY: The bogey at 2 was a tough hole with a right pin with a right-to-left wind, so it was a tough hole and I made bogey. To make those four in a row was really good.
It was a little setback to bogey 12. I didn't hit that bad of a drive and got a bad bounce off the edge of a tree and made 5 there. But then made two more birdies coming in and then just kind of a disappointing bogey on 18, as well.
STEWART MOORE: 18 a lot of players have been talking all day about how hard that stretch, 18 in particular, but 14 through 18 is playing.
ERIC AXLEY: Yeah, it's playing very hard. They're all into the wind, and you've just got to hit really good, solid shots, and you've got to hit it on-line, as well. It's just a tough stretch of holes.

Q. Just a walk in the park, right?
ERIC AXLEY: (Laughing) No, it was tough out there. You know, when you're playing well, it doesn't feel as hard as it really is sometimes, but no, it was really tough.

Q. The difficulty, more wind, more than the new course? If it wasn't windy, how much more difficult would the course be than last year?
ERIC AXLEY: It's still more difficult because of the bunkering. There was some bunkers you could carry in the past, and now they've added bunkers you can't carry. The greens now are a little more difficult to read I feel like. The course is more difficult now without the wind, so when you throw in the wind on top of that, it's even more difficult.

Q. In your run of birdies were you sticking it close or making some bombs or a little bit of both?
ERIC AXLEY: No. 4, I made about a 15-footer.
Then I hit a good shot on 5 to about six, seven feet.
Then 6, I made probably an eight-footer.
Then 7, I had probably a 20-footer for eagle and two-putted. So it was a combination of a couple good putts and hitting it close, as well.

Q. Obviously you need a lot of patience to play on a day like today. Are you normally a pretty patient player or did you kind of have to dig down a little bit today?
ERIC AXLEY: I really feel like here recently I've started playing a lot better and I'm becoming more patient. I think for me individually, I'm more patient when I'm playing well because I know I'm going to make some birdies, and if I'm not playing well, I seem to be very impatient. Right now I feel very relaxed and very patient out there.

Q. Is that the key today?
ERIC AXLEY: It was for me. You know, the four birdies in a row kind of got you in a state to where you did not have to -- I did not have to hit a lot of pins after that. I was kind of -- out here in this kind of wind, you really don't want to have to hit at pins. If you get a couple over, sometimes you feel like you have to fire at some pins you don't want to. For me, yeah, being patient helped today because I could play a little safer.

Q. It seemed like even with the rain last night that anything more than a 9-iron, the greens were bouncing hard.
ERIC AXLEY: Downwind they're bouncing a lot. I mean, even hitting 9-iron into the green, I think on 14, 13 or 14, if that's the par-3, I think it was --

Q. 187.
ERIC AXLEY: 187, and I'm trying to land a 9-iron 172. I played for 15 yards of runout, which is a lot. And it did, it ran out to about four or five feet, and I missed it.

Q. Do you prefer the week that ends in 8-under par, 10-under par, or do you like the 20-, 22-under par?
ERIC AXLEY: No, I like the 8- to 10-under par weeks.

Q. Does it fit your game more?
ERIC AXLEY: Yeah, I feel like you don't have to birdie every hole. You can grind it out and still stay in contention.

Q. Talk a little bit about your bunker shot at 18. What kind of lie did you have there?
ERIC AXLEY: The ball didn't get all the way down to the bottom. It was above my feet, and a little bit of a bad rake job whoever was in there before me, so there was some sand behind the ball. It looked like it was going to be really easy to hit it heavy because the ball was above my feet, so I kind of tried to make sure I was really shallow, and it came out really good.

Q. Did you find the bunkers a little inconsistent?
ERIC AXLEY: It's the only bunker I was in, so I don't know (laughter).

Q. I apologize for not knowing this. Are you a good wind player? Did you grow up playing in the wind?
ERIC AXLEY: I wouldn't say I grew up playing in the wind, but a lot of my good finishes -- when I won in San Antonio it was really windy on Sunday, and the wind blew pretty much all week there. I finished second in the Nationwide Tour Championship in 2005 in really, really windy conditions. I've never thought of myself as a great wind player, but I've had some good success in the wind.

Q. Last night there was discussion on a television station about the idea of taking the week off after majors. What do you think of the idea?
ERIC AXLEY: Taking the week off after majors?

Q. After each major.
ERIC AXLEY: You're talking about the TOUR or people? The TOUR would just not have a tournament?

Q. Yeah.
ERIC AXLEY: No, that's not a good idea.

Q. Why do you feel that way? Is that because you're taking spots away from guys basically?
ERIC AXLEY: Well, not everyone on the TOUR is in every major. That forces you to have two weeks off in a row, and that's -- just because you're not in the top 50 in the world doesn't mean you shouldn't get to play two weeks in a row.
STEWART MOORE: Eric, thanks so much. Good luck this week.

End of FastScripts

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