U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 12, 2008

Justin Hicks

Q. Great round of golf. Thoughts on reflecting back on it.

JUSTIN HICKS: Well, basically we came out here, we kind of had a plan. I played in an Open before at Shinnecock, and we kind of saw what an open can be, like, from the standpoint of being really fast, really firm, really difficult. I think coming out here, I did a good job of framing in my mind a little bit of kind of what to expect from the standpoint of driving is going to be at a premium, greens were going to be firm, greens were going to be fast, difficult to putt.

Some guys that I talked to last week when I was at the Nationwide event said, "Geez, you're going out to the U.S. Open," kind of had almost a sense of, like, they were saying good luck with it, like, it's always tough to go to an open and shoot 73 or 74 and feel good about yourself.

But in the same sense it's all relative, 73 or 74 on a really tough golf course might feel like you shot 68 or something. So I think if you just approach it with the right mindset and stay patient, and like any other golf course, you play, just try to hit fairways and greens and make as many putts as you can.

Q. A great round though. Would you have thought seven birdies possible?

JUSTIN HICKS: I didn't even know that. I think -- I saw birdies out there in the course of the practice rounds. Seven birdies? In one round? Maybe not necessarily. I would have thought that I probably would have had to make pretty much everything I looked at. I made some good putts out there and I missed some putts as well.

I guess I just gave myself a lot of looks at it and just kept trying to make as many as I could.

Q. For people who are going to be getting home from work on the East Coast, they're going to see the leaderboard and see your name up top and may not know that much about you. Who are you?

JUSTIN HICKS: Who am I? Well, I think I'm another one of the guys out there playing the Nationwide TOUR trying to earn his PGA TOUR card. There's a lot of great young players in America, and we're all out there trying to get -- earn our way up to playing on this big level in front of the cameras and all the media and everything else.

A lot of times we can get lost in the shuffle down there because it's a difficult world down there. I finished 80th on the Money List there last year, and 80th on the Money List out there for this year. Probably would have got me maybe four or five starts, unless I played well enough to make money and get into the reshuffle. You finish 80th on the Money List on the PGA TOUR, the rest of the year, for the next year, is taken care of. You don't have to think about anything, you're in everything you want to be in.

So it's a very difficult world. It makes you play hard and always feel like that whatever you're doing in some ways is not necessarily good enough because you're trying to make as many birdies as you can and just keep going lower and lower.

Q. Why were you prepared to play this well here given the disparity between that TOUR and this. Your typical event and this one?

JUSTIN HICKS: I think that a lot of people like to say that there's a big difference between the two tours, the Nationwide Tour and the PGA, and I don't think there's as much of a difference as people believe to be.

Certainly the players out here are the best in the world. But we play a lot of great courses on that TOUR, and if you play good golf out there, I certainly believe that you're capable of doing it out here. And the proof's in the pudding.

You look at some of these guys out here that came from that TOUR, whether it be Camilo or Jason Gore or whoever, there's all kind of guys out here that played out there. Ernie was even one of the guys that played there at one point in time and you see how well they're doing out here. So it's just one of those things that you feel like that I kind of get after it here, and hopefully my time will come and I'll get out there and never have to look back.

Q. What would you compare this moment to in your career?

JUSTIN HICKS: Hard to compare it to anything, really. I don't know, for me it's a great round, and it's a U.S. Open, and I've never been able to say that I've been under par at a U.S. Open before, which is a great accomplishment.

But at the same time, I know there's three days left here, and I don't just want to be another guy that shows up and disappears. So I'm out here to have a good week and play some good golf over four days. So hard to really compare it to anything though, because it's only one day. I know that it's a marathon, it's not a sprint out here at all.

Q. Your high finish is 25th, and you haven't had a Top-25 on the Nationwide Tour. Have you been playing better than that though?

JUSTIN HICKS: I certainly feel as though I have, yes. I think my ball striking has been very good in the last month or so. And I haven't necessarily been getting as much out of my rounds with the putter. And it's one of those things you keep kind of tinkering with things here and there until you finally kind of find something. Last week I took my backup putter, which is basically the same as what I use regularly, and I took just a little bit of loft off of it.

And it just seemed like the ball was getting a better roll on it, seemed like sometimes I had just a little bit too much loft, the ball would hop a little bit. And speed is just so crucial when you're playing fast greens. The greens we played at Raleigh for our Nationwide Tour event last week are every bit as fast or faster than this week.

Even though I had gone 36 holes on Monday, I was very tired going into the week and I had 8,000 phone calls going on as well, but at the same time, I felt really happy about playing that week because the green conditions that I saw last week really kind of helped me to go into this week, saying first off, we got to figure out how to putt faster greens better because we're going to see it next week. So I was able to make an adjustment that I think has carried over to this week and it worked out well for me.

Q. What goes through your mind leading The Open?

JUSTIN HICKS: I think I heard somebody out there on about the 6th hole as I was walking by say something about, you're leading the U.S. Open, or that's Justin, he's leading the U.S. Open, or something like that. And for a second there, I kind of heard it in my head, and then I just kind of said, well, there's a lot of golf to be played out here today, so really does it ever really matter when you're leading The Open unless it's the final round?

So I know that it's a marathon, not a sprint, and our goal is to keep playing good, steady golf, and try to be standing here on Sunday night.

Q. A very up-and-down first nine. How did you keep your equilibrium?

JUSTIN HICKS: Yeah, that's a good point. I guess we had some birdies and bogeys in there. Had a pretty unfortunate break actually, I hit a pretty good shot into - trying to think what hole that was where I made bogey and went in the hazard. 13, after the par-5? And I hit a great shot at the pin there, I came up just a little short of my target, landed over the bunker but short of the green which should have just hit and trickled out on to the green and there was this sprinkler head there. And it hit the sprinkler head and sailed directly over the green into the hazard, 25 yards.

So at the time I was standing on the green and I saw this ball do that, I thought, well, I know the greens are firm, but I don't think they're that firm, and I knew something weird had happened. And after the round, one of the guys I played with said that was great. You were able to keep it going, because a lot of guys probably would have lost it or something like that.

And I kind of have seen so many up-and-downs this year with golf that for some reason or another, playing out here and in an event like this, I think I was kind of able to say, well, it's a U.S. Open and some crazy stuff's going to happen. You just have to keep plugging along. And I had seen some birdies fall, and I thought, well, maybe we'll make a few more and just get it back under par again, and we'll be all right.