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THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY MORGAN STANLEY

May 31, 2008

Mike Weir

DUBLIN, OHIO

LAURA HILL: Mike Weir, thank you for joining us here in the media center at the Memorial Tournament. I believe it's our only bogey-free round, maybe only the second one at the event. So you must feel pretty happy with what you did out there today.
MIKE WEIR: Very happy. It's tough to go out there with those conditions. I'm very happy with my round. A little bit of everything. I hit a lot of great shots but you get a little luck out there, you stand up on No. 12 and with that wind swirling like that, I hit -- it was blowing in pretty hard there and I hit a little 6-iron and it came up perfect.
But if that lays down a little bit, I could have easily flown it in the back bunker. Or if it gusts, you can easily be in the water. I just happened to time it right. Hit it in there about 10 feet and made birdie. So there's a little luck involved, but I played well. I hit the shots that I wanted most of the way around and more than anything I'm rolling a lot of nice putts in. And I haven't been doing that for a while. So that's the biggest thing.
LAURA HILL: Take some questions.

Q. I thought I heard you say something on the radio about you got a putting tip the other day?
MIKE WEIR: Yeah, Steve Stricker gave me a little tip on Friday of last week. Spent just five minutes on the green after I was done. I was so frustrated after Thursday, Friday last week because I felt like I was playing so well and getting nothing out of it. And he just gave me a little tip and I went out Saturday at Colonial and birdied five of my first six holes and I thought, wow, putts were going in from places they hadn't been. And I just feel more comfortable. And whether they go in or not I just feel more comfortable out there and confident.

Q. Had he been your playing partner?
MIKE WEIR: No, no, just a buddy of mine. And Steve and I go way back on the Canadian Tour.

Q. Was that a ball position or a grip or setup?
MIKE WEIR: It was really just a little more acceleration. That was just it. So just something simple.

Q. How often were you in trouble at all today in terms of in the rough or that?
MIKE WEIR: Number 10, I was in the rough. I had to kind of slash one down there out of the rough into the front bunker and almost holed it out of the bunker, but that was a little trouble there.
Outside of that, on the front nine I wasn't in any trouble. The best shot I hit today was really on probably the 6th hole. I birdied the par-5 before and it caught a huge gust off the tee and I had 215 yards into 6 and knifed a 3-iron in there about eight feet. That's when I knew that things were going pretty good, I was hitting solid shots, and outside of that I didn't have much trouble.
15 I played kind of poorly. I had a close birdie putt on 14 that I just missed and then hit a poor tee shot, but luckily it stayed in the first cut up the right side. If it was two feet to the right, I would have been in really deep stuff and struggling for par, but that was a nice little break there to stay in the first cut and I was able to have a decent birdie putt there.

Q. Kent State golf coach here Herb Page is from Canada and just wondering if you have a relationship with him, and then beyond that, of the younger guys he's sending out on TOUR now, if you're trying to help them at all, any mentoring or anything like that?
MIKE WEIR: Well, I know Herb, yeah, he actually recruited Ted Brandon, my caddie, to go to Kent State and he's always recruited a lot of Canadian guys. So I've known him through Ben Curtis for a long time and, yeah, he's always done a great job with his program and number of guys out here and so he -- yeah, he's a great guy.

Q. Did you know like John Mills was just coming in?
MIKE WEIR: Mills, yeah, obviously him and a Canadian guy and, yeah, I try to play practice rounds with Millsy whenever I can and have him pick my brain whenever he feels -- I always tell him, call me anytime. And so, yeah.

Q. I don't think you've been in this good a position here a lot --
MIKE WEIR: No.

Q. -- through the years and I wonder, does it have anything to do with how tough the conditions are and how tough the course is playing? Maybe it's shrinking the number of guys that can play well on a course like this.
MIKE WEIR: I've had some success here. I think I've had a third and a fourth here. But it's been a few years. And I shot some pretty good scores here. But I think with tougher conditions like this, when the wind's blowing like this, which we played in a lot of wind so we're kind of used to that, but my ball flight's low anyway. I don't have to adjust very much. I think that's maybe one thing that I can keep it down, control the flight, and I think that's made maybe a little bit of an advantage that I don't have to adjust very much.

Q. How much of a goal is it to get the next win? You would be the winningest Canadian on the PGA TOUR. How much of a goal is that?
MIKE WEIR: To tell you the truth, I don't think about it a whole lot. But it would be nice. Mr. Knudson was such a great player and it would be obviously an honor to win this tournament. I remember being here my first time and being an alternate waiting to get in and just Jack's been a hero of mine my whole career, so to win his tournament would be right up there with some of the big ones.
And it's such a great tournament. They do such a great job here, Jack and his whole family. So hopefully I'll just put on a good show tomorrow and really give it a good shot.

Q. When you were two shots maybe off the lead going into the final round and the leader's a guy that not only has not won on TOUR but not even threatened to win on TOUR, do you look at it a little differently than if it was say Tiger you were chasing tomorrow?
MIKE WEIR: Well, yeah, that's a little different.
(Laughter.)
But you know what, you have to win some time. And sometimes a guy when he hasn't won is hungry and wants to do it. And inexperience or not, Mat's been around a long time and he's a good player and a good solid ball-striker. I think that helps him in conditions like this.
But yeah, do I think maybe my experience will help? Yeah. I do. I think that's -- that might be a bit of a factor.

Q. From Thursday to Friday to Saturday, how much different did the course play with the way the conditions changed and which was the toughest day do you think so far? Was it today?
MIKE WEIR: Yeah, yesterday and today were extremely difficult. I think that just because of the firmness of the course yesterday it may overall have played maybe a little bit more difficult. But I thought the wind was much more difficult today. It was stronger. So I thought that the wind condition was -- but then we had the rain, that did soften the greens. So if you kind of even hit one low in there it would hold on there where maybe yesterday it wouldn't. But they're pretty -- 6 is probably, yesterday and today, it was right there.

Q. Is there something about coming from behind to win, because I guess you've done that in seven of your of your eight wins?
MIKE WEIR: Yeah, I have. I don't know why that is, but there might be something to that. I don't know what it is. But I do have done well from coming from behind. Hopefully I can do it again tomorrow and play well and get in there. But, yeah for some reason I've been able to shoot some final good rounds coming from two, three, four behind.

Q. Someone told me, I hadn't checked it out, but you were 3-over through 11 on Thursday?
MIKE WEIR: I was.

Q. Was that when the putts started dropping or did something else change?
MIKE WEIR: I was 3-over through 13. No, just a couple bad breaks really. I started on 10 and drove it in the rough and made a bogey. And then parred the next couple and then I hit it about an inch off the fairway on 13 and thought I had a good enough lie to reach the green and I didn't. It came out a little dead and went in the left rough. Stayed in the left rough. And then hacked it out of the bunker. Didn't get up-and-down and sure enough 3-over par. And if it felt like I hadn't -- literally I was that far off the fairway (Indicating). So those are the small little breaks sometimes you need. Today, like I said, a couple times it looked like maybe it could have been in the rough and it just stayed in the first cut. So today was just, I had those fortunate things happen today.

Q. Was that lie in the rough on 18, was that shot tougher than it looked?
MIKE WEIR: That was a pretty good shot. That was -- that 3-iron was pretty good today. But that was a good up-and-down. I didn't want to bogey the last hole after playing that well today. And just tried to get a little creative in there and hit a nice one.
LAURA HILL: Thanks, good luck tomorrow.
MIKE WEIR: Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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