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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

May 9, 2008

Paul Goydos

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA

CHRIS REIMER: We want to welcome Paul Goydos. Thank you for joining us. I heard you say outside, again, just talk about the beginning of the day, if you were told you were going to shoot 1-under today, I bet you would have taken it.
PAUL GOYDOS: It was brutal. I don't know how it was yesterday afternoon, but yeah, hitting balls on the range, I was going, this is going to be a long day.
1-under par, I wouldn't have played; if you just said, take your 71 and go to the clubhouse and rest and watch TV, I'm on. I'm very pleased with that round of golf. It's pretty tough conditions. This is what they were expecting and I think you saw even par now might be in the top 20. It will be interesting to see how even par finishes out the week. I think the wind and heat is supposed to stay up. I don't think it's supposed to be like docile tomorrow. It should be a pretty good challenge all weekend.

Q. Is it the savvy veteranship why we have three AARP guys at the top of the leaderboard right now?
PAUL GOYDOS: I can't speak for Kenny and Bernhard, but I think that has more value to a guy who has done it a lot. Bernhard has won two major championships. Kenny Perry is arguably there, in the early 2000s, was the best player on TOUR for a while, other than Tiger. Comparing their records and mine, I'm more journeyman than veteran. I'm kind of a grinder. I don't know how much value that has.
Tomorrow, I think and Sunday will be bigger tests for those two things than the first two days.

Q. You pretty much dominated course with your length today, with the eagle.
PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah, I had the straight on the par 5s, I had the eagle, the birdie, the par and the bogey. I hit 5-iron into 16. So that's just crazy.

Q. Can you run through that eagle real quick?
PAUL GOYDOS: I was kind of on the driving range -- I don't do it, I don't play like the holes on the driving range. I know other guys do it but I don't; but the driving range goes the same direction as No. 2 pretty much, and with the hook-wind, it was a little easier tee shot and with the hurting hook. I was hitting it great on the range, just four or five just these turbo-hooks and I got up there and pull-necked it a pretty bit. Must have got a pretty good bounce because it ended up about a foot in the fairway on the left side basically where Pampling hit a good one. Had 240 to the hole, hit a 3-wood probably as solid as I could hit it, couldn't see it land; it rolled up about eight feet and made my second eagle this year. Made one last week in the last round, so you know, I'm dominating the five pars. I might be even par on them for the year.
I noticed Kevin Sutherland, who I play all of my practice rounds with was leading in par-5 play, I don't know if he still is. He's definitely near the top, so I've just got to watch him now.

Q. How much tougher was it yesterday than today, and specifically the greens, where you've got the afternoon, the sun all day, it was windy; were they firmer, faster or the same?
PAUL GOYDOS: They were definitely a little firmer. I definitely think that the two rounds are similar. I think they probably played two or three shots harder this afternoon in my opinion. I don't know what the scoring average is either day.
You know, in the morning round, there's a little bit of maybe moisture still on the greens. So you have maybe just a hint slower, and so therefore, maybe easier to make more putts.
But overall, I thought it was everything I was expecting and again, 1-under par, if it's these conditions tomorrow, 1-under par will be a good score. Even par is a good score around here. If you shot 72-72, you're in the top 20 and have a chance to win this week, no question.
It's a pretty grueling test. I'm very pleased with the way I've played.

Q. Did you get any comments from the gallery on your hat? I noticed you got some TV time last night?
PAUL GOYDOS: I got some e-mails from the Long Beach people. This is actually their baseball team's hat, which is the Dirtbags.

Q. Are they for or against?
PAUL GOYDOS: They were reasonably pleased. The golf coach sent me an e-mail.
I had a kid who said he wanted my hat, I said, "It's the only one I've got, sorry." It's a little rough because it's black, but it's fading to brown now; so it's hot. The color doesn't do me any favors, but the rest of the hats worked out pretty well. I said I purchased it Sunday night. Calvin Broadus, he went to Long Beach Polytechnic High School actually with Cameron Diaz.

Q. Did you hear the putter helicopter behind you?
PAUL GOYDOS: I really don't know what you're referencing. (Laughter) I was grinding out there trying to, you know, shoot as good a score as I can.

Q. When a guy does something like that, do you just let him go or crack a joke later or how do you address it? Hoffman threw it in the water on 18.
PAUL GOYDOS: Hey, you're struggling, I think he four-whipped it. He was having a rough day, a rough couple of days. This golf course, again, if you're driving it good, it's a bunch of driver, wedges for these guys and they are shooting, you know, 10-over par, Charley was. It's one thing to play Torrey Pines and when it's going to be 60 degrees and the ball is going 230 off the tee and you're hitting wood on every hole and you're ten over par, you go, yeah, that's about right.
Guys get frustrated. I'm the last person who is going to talk about that, because there are times playing with me where I'm sure I need to apologize as many times as possible. I think emotion is a big part of the game, and this is our biggest event, so you're going to see people be emotional. I think that's fine. I think that's part of the game and I think that if we stop showing emotion, you'll see a lot worse scores on TOUR.
CHRIS REIMER: Speaking of the putting and putting, through the round they have you ranked second in putts per greens in regulation and t-5 in putts overall. You have 25 putts rounds one, 27 putts round two, I'm guessing that's been the key to the first two days.
PAUL GOYDOS: I found out the keys to putts per green in regulation is don't hit many greens. (Laughter) I only hit eight or nine today.
But having said that, it played tough and there are holes where just 14 today, I hit the green and we were trying to hit it -- we thought short of the green was going to be fine, just don't do anything crazy and I just snuck it on by a foot. I have putted very well and I'm very pleased with that part of the game without question.

Q. I understand that Snoop Dog and Cameron Diaz -- that wasn't your high school?
PAUL GOYDOS: It wasn't, but then they are younger than me; they are kids. I want to say they were maybe eight years before me. I just heard of Calvin Broadus, one of the videos he did on top of this pretty famous building on one of these main drags in Long Beach, he had a video up there. So there is a -- you do hear in the rap songs, I guess on the West Coast -- I'm not a rap guy to be honest with you. But talking about Long Beach, it's a pretty big city for it. Maybe she would know, but we seem to get mentioned a lot in our city. I went to Wilson, Woodrow Wilson High School.

Q. Who is the biggest celebrity from your high school?
PAUL GOYDOS: We had Bobby Grich and Jeff Burroughs might have played on the same high school baseball team. I think Bob Lemon, too.
CHRIS REIMER: Round of the day and best of luck on the weekend, Paul.

End of FastScripts

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