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U.S. BANK CHAMPIONSHIP IN MILWAUKEEJuly 17, 2008Richard S. JohnsonMILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Richard, thanks for joining us here after the first round of the U. S. Bank Championship. Started the week off with a 7-under, 63, including a string of three birdies and a hole-in-one. Looks like you're buying drinks for the crowd this week. RICHARD JOHNSON: (Laughs). JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Maybe some opening comments about a great day for you. Congratulations on the hole-in-one. RICHARD JOHNSON: Yeah. Thanks. I said to the guys out there, it's kind of funny, you know, when it rains, it pours sometimes. I haven't been putting that good of late, so it's been nice to actually -- you know, I hit it close on those holes before the hole-in-one, but made some nice putts, and then all of a sudden one went in, so it was finally the end of the drought. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Maybe a couple of comments about the hole-in-one on 14. You hit a 7-iron, I believe. RICHARD JOHNSON: Yeah. I hit a 7-iron. I can't remember how far it was. 181 maybe. I can't remember. Yeah, something like that. The wind was kind of off to the left, so I just drawed a 7-iron straight up in the wind. It was one of those that looked perfect, but you never think it's going to go in when it's this windy. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Okay. We'll take some questions. Q. First of all, did anyone tell you that Tiger was the last one to ace that hole 12 years ago when he made his pro debut? RICHARD JOHNSON: There you go. No, I had no idea actually. No. Wow! That's actually unbelievable that nobody's made it, because it's a pretty accessible green to make one on, but yeah, that's always nice to follow him in something. (Laughs). Q. And can you just talk about your year a little bit, how you've been playing? RICHARD JOHNSON: Yeah. Kind of I've been struggling this year. I came out of Tour School, and it's just I didn't really get anything going early. And then the shuffle came in, and then after the shuffle, when you didn't play well in the first three events, it was just you kind of got down there in the 40s. And you just didn't get any starts with how the schedule is set now with all the big tournaments leading up to Augusta. And then you have that stretch Colonial, Memorial thing, so it's been hard to get any continuity going with the whole playing when this is my tenth event maybe this year in six months. So it's been spotty, but I've been playing well of late, so it's really nice to be able to get a good round in finally. Q. And just kind of going off that, how difficult is it to get a rhythm when you're not playing a whole lot? RICHARD JOHNSON: It's hard. It's all about momentum. It's probably like work or anything else. I mean golf is if you can get a little confidence going, all of a sudden the hole looks bigger, you start hitting shots that you believe in, instead of before, if you've got no confidence going, you're always kind of spotting around and hoping to get a good score in. Q. And now, last year in your final round you played a little bit quicker than you did today; is that right? RICHARD JOHNSON: Yeah. That was actually -- even if they gave me a cart, I don't think I could do it. I don't know how that happened, but it was a bit of running involved in the end, though. (Laughs). Q. And you played like in an hour and a half or something like that? RICHARD JOHNSON: An hour 22, I think the official time was, but I mean it was a fun thing. I actually played around. It was the best day of the week, so that shows you how much I need to concentrate sometimes. Q. And you had a flight to catch in Chicago; is that correct? RICHARD JOHNSON: Well, the thing was we were trying to catch one out of Milwaukee, but it got canceled, so it didn't help me. Q. So you did it for nothing? RICHARD JOHNSON: It was fun, though. It was a lot of fun, to see that you don't necessarily need to grind your head off sometimes to get it going. I just went up there and hit it. Q. Did you almost literally -- you weren't running between shots. You're exaggerating; right? RICHARD JOHNSON: The last six I was running. Q. You were jogging between shots? RICHARD JOHNSON: Yeah. It was really hard on 18 because I was really out of breath, and it was really hard to actually hit a driver when you're out of breath, but I played well. I shot even par. Q. Okay. Next question is British Open today, raining horizontally, guys shooting 82s, 83s, 84s. Would you rather be there doing that or be here making a hole-in-one shooting 63 and having the lead? RICHARD JOHNSON: Well, I kind of said to somebody this morning, I said, yesterday everybody blamed Kenny Perry to be kind of not the smartest man in the world to not go over there playing there when he's playing so well, but when you saw what they had to play in this morning, you'd have thought Kenny Perry was the smartest guy in the world. So it's always hard to say. Of course, you would always love to be at the Open as a European. It's very special, but my home is over here. I've always loved this course and this place, so I'm very happy to be here right now. Q. What really -- you had that stretch there, I think it was four birdies and an eagle with the ace. How did it get started? Was it just you were just making a lot of long putts? RICHARD JOHNSON: No. It actually started on 9. I hit it close on 9, lifted out; hit it close on 10, lifted out. And then 11 I holed like a 15-footer maybe, and that kind of opened the hole a little bit, because when you miss a few, you're like, "here we go again." And then at the next, 12, I hit it to like four feet. On 13 I hit it to five feet. So it wasn't like I was draining it from left and right. I was hitting really nice shots. And then I hit a great shot there on 14, so that was cool. Q. I mean I know you had the ace and all that, but would you say this is the best all-around round of the year for you? RICHARD JOHNSON: Probably not ball-striking wise. Score wise, by probably a million, but I've had some really nice ball-striking rounds of late, but just the putter has been unfriendly. (Laughs). Q. Have you wanted to break it? RICHARD JOHNSON: Well, it was close to going in the lake after the first day of John Deere, but I thought I'd pace myself. Q. Somebody made a comment today about a 10-footer on 18 there to make a birdie was what obviously got the momentum going? RICHARD JOHNSON: Yeah. I've been driving really well the last few weeks, and on 17 I hit it a little short and spun off the green. And I hit the first putt eight feet by, so I had a good drive, good 3-wood up onto 35 feet, and I got a little spooked from that putt before and just kind of shaking out a little bit and left it seven, eight feet short. So it was a nice putt to roll in there, and probably killed the record for the Pappas brothers. Have two brothers ever led a PGA TOUR tournament? JOEL SCHUCHMANN: As far as I know, no. RICHARD JOHNSON: Sorry. (Laughs). JOEL SCHUCHMANN: We're trying to figure it out. RICHARD JOHNSON: (Laughs). Q. I was actually going to ask about the Pappas brothers, if you know a little bit about them. RICHARD JOHNSON: Yeah. I've played with them a lot. Yeah, they're great guys, really nice guys. And it's good to see Deane out here. I guess he Monday-ed in for the second week in a row, so he must be playing well. Both of them are great guys. Q. When you looked at the leaderboard, did you have to do a double take? RICHARD JOHNSON: No. I saw this morning before I left like both the Pappas brothers are playing well. We actually had a match here once when we beat them pretty badly. It was pretty good. I've got good feelings for them. (Laughs). Q. Were you kind of surprise -- I mean you played really well. Did you notice the wind kind of picked up out there? It seemed to pick up for you guys in the end. RICHARD JOHNSON: Yeah, the back nine got tricky. It started really blowing for us, the back nine, I would say. The front nine I didn't really notice. I mean it was blowing, but you're more in the trees in the front nine there for us, in the end of the nine. So it was really blustery in the end. I mean the last four or five holes, it's hard with the cross-wind to kind of keep it in play, but it's the same for everybody. You look at the British Open this morning and you look out here and it's not that bad out there. (Laughs). JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Richard, thanks. RICHARD JOHNSON: Perfect. Thanks. End of FastScripts |
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