U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 13, 2008

Stuart Appleby

RAND JERRIS: It's a pleasure to welcome Stuart Appleby to the media center, 1-under par 70 today, 3-under par for the championship.

Just start us off with some general comments about your round this afternoon.

STUART APPLEBY: I don't think I'm the first guy to say it's very difficult out there. Course is in magnificent condition, but certainly starting down the first is as tough, long hole into the breeze as you would want. Got off to a start with a bogey. Missing a very -- about a six-foot putt for par there and trying to not let that set the tone for the day.

But otherwise, the breeze was nominal today. It wasn't too much in our minds, wasn't too much playing into the distance of the shots. So technically, the course was playing very similar to the day before.

Nothing really much happened the rest of that nine, until I got up to seven. I hit a good drive that just ran out into the fairway bunker. Then hit a good 6-iron to probably about 15 feet there and made that.

Got up to 9, the par-5, and made a little putt off the fringe, probably about 15-footer after hitting my poor layup shot in the thick rough, hacking it out to that edge, and then making it just off the fringe.

So I certainly got the nine back with two birdies and a bogey to get under par.

Nothing special until about the 11th, where I hit it left, which was dead, make a four, miss a short putt for par on 12. That's basically sort of -- got a bit of a run of bogeys going there.

9, the par-5 next was coming up, playing off the back tees, knew it wasn't going to be reachable. Laid up, hit a full sand wedge from about 120 yards to about two feet. Make birdie there.

The rest of the nine really just panned out as some -- couple of good pars, and then just solid making pars, and then coming up the last laid up, hit a poor drive, laid up into a divot. Knocked it on to about 45 feet. Bingo.

RAND JERRIS: The weather conditions this afternoon were different than yesterday morning. Was this golf course substantially more difficult today than yesterday?

STUART APPLEBY: Well, no, probably not. I think the question will be a little bit -- are they going to me any of this grass. They will obviously mow the fairways, but will the rough cuts or the different heights they're using this week, will they be cut at all because if they're not being cut they will be getting more difficult. And all of a sudden the missed shots need to be 20 feet closer to the fairway than they were before. So that's probably where the course will get more difficult. I'm presuming the weather will be very similar again, light winds, mild temperatures. So I think anybody playing on the weekend will definitely have a feel for the course by now.

Q. I'm looking at the stats with some of the leaders, eight out of 18 greens hit, nine out of 14 fairways hit, nine out of 18 greens hit, 10 out of 14 fairways hit. 8 out of 14 fairway, 10 of 18 greens. Even Tiger only hit nine out of 14 fairways. And DJ Trahan hit nine out of 18. Is a real U.S. Open when you're not rewarding driving accuracy and you're not rewarding greens in regulation?

STUART APPLEBY: You look at the way they prepared the course and the course we're shooting, you're under par, you take away a couple of guys and myself, and you really are even par, and it's not going to get any easier. Pin locations would be one of the biggest factors. I don't think they're going to do anything else to the course but pin positions, making them a little bit more difficult to find is going to take away maybe one or two birdies out of the guys playing well. You imagine what it's taking out of the guys who maybe back further.

The course is very rewarding. You put it in the fairway, the short-siding yourself is no good here. I think the tone they have taken with the type of style of grass, the levels, and that is what actually we need to do more on TOUR. I think it was more than appropriate for the Memorial a few weeks back to do that. I think that this is where, the wider you hit it, the worse it should get. Being two-foot off the fairway or a yard or two and being dead is just -- it's terrible golf to watch. It's terrible to do it as a player, because you really are -- the luck becomes a factor. There's no luck around here anymore. It's predominantly skill. And you want to take the luck out of it.

I think they have got it right with this. I think this might be the third year they have done this format, and I think that it's right. I think it works good.

Q. Run us through that putt on the last -- was it obviously you're not trying to make it from that distance?

STUART APPLEBY: Well, no.

Q. Was it fairly straight uphill?

STUART APPLEBY: No, it was probably a good yard or more, maybe three to five feet of break, all the way uphill. Barely didn't even really level off. It wasn't even on top of a tier. It was just a little -- a big slope. Just thought, it's late in the day, these putts are getting a bit slower, got my line right, just really release it. Just hit it. Don't hit it too hard, you know. Typical stuff when you're at 50 feet. You try to just, I guess, use your natural feel. And I hit it, and I thought, well, that looks up. It doesn't look long, because it doesn't have that feeling off the putter. And then about -- probably a couple seconds out, I thought, well, this could go in, ! and then the crowd does their thing, and it sort of all adds to what looks like a good putt.

Q. Also, you're starting to appear on some leaderboards in Majors regularly the last couple of years?

STUART APPLEBY: Not regularly enough.

Q. Are you feeling in your comfort zone?

STUART APPLEBY: Majors are not a comfortable zone. They're not comfortable. They're not supposed to be comfortable. That's sort of why there's only four of them a year, and they're always on testing golf courses.

Do I think that I am more comfortable? Yeah, I guess I might be. I think as you get older, you got to find a way to be more comfortable in positions always trying to put you off balance or -- is there a physical skill out here? For sure, in a U.S. Open.

There's a lot of mental skill, too. And that's probably the one that you're trying to control the most. And being that you're trying to hit every fairway, being that you're trying to hit every green, being that you're trying to hole every putt out and do everything right, it just is not conducive out here to do that.

So I guess effectively by trying to gain control out here, you got to let go of control. And that is -- that's sort of not a natural thing to do, that's why it's so difficult.

Q. Same kind of theme, was there anything positive that you got in looking back from Sunday at the Masters last year with that?

STUART APPLEBY: I can go now. Tiger's here. You're all finished, right?

(Laughter.)

Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, a little bit. I think Tiger's a good example of certainly not giving up. And my start was pretty cold and heartless on -- after the first hole, it made it very, very difficult day there. But hanging in there is what you got to do. I think that is sometimes the fight, putting the fight back to yourself. And obviously, the golf course, that's what you got to do at times. I think that is just -- morally that gives you a victory even within yourself, maybe even if it doesn't turn out to be a victory, it's more of a mental one that you've got to get over.

There's some good things -- things that come from victories that could have been 10 or 15 years ago that you can use any particular tournament, but I'll be going, playing the course as I know it, using some of my experience that's getting better in these type of tournaments and just keep moving forward or if not moving forward, just being consistent physically and mentally.

Q. With Tiger being just one stroke behind you, how do you avoid getting caught up in all the hoopla that surround him all the time?

STUART APPLEBY: I think that you don't avoid it. It's always there. It's a given. So I guess as players we're sort of used to it. It is very different playing with him. There's a whole lot of more movement, action, sounds, whatever it is. So I mean, getting in your own world is certainly harder to do. And that's a learned skill in itself and that's been the way for many many years, whether you go back 25 years and it was somebody playing with somebody else, so, but I think we're very much used to it, so it shouldn't be a surprise, it's just a matter of going playing golf. He wants to go play golf, we want to go play golf. And I'll be doing my best to accidentally throw a club towar! ds his sore knee.

(Laughter.)

It would be an accident, of course.

(Laughter.)