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RBC CANADIAN OPEN

July 25, 2008

Billy Mayfair

OAKVILLE, ONTARIO

NELSON SILVERIO: Billy Mayfair, thanks for spending a few minutes with us here in the interview room.
BILLY MAYFAIR: Good to be here.
NELSON SILVERIO: 66 today, finished off with a birdie. Why don't you talk about that birdie and then just some general thoughts on your round today.
BILLY MAYFAIR: I birdied the 9th hole, which I birdied it yesterday, also. But I hit a real good drive down the middle of the fairway, had about 180 yards to the hole and hit a nice little high 7-iron, was playing a little bit downwind and hit it in there I'd say about six, seven feet from the hole and made that for birdie. It was a good way to end the day.
Overall was real happy the way I played today, drove the ball very well, hit a lot of good iron shots and I had a lot of opportunities to make a lot of birdies and didn't make every putt I looked at, but I made enough of them out there, and I was real happy the way I played. I played real solid and didn't miss very many greens, and I like the position I'm in.

Q. A question about 9. Putting the trees in the left-hand side there, has that changed the strategy playing that hole at all?
BILLY MAYFAIR: I don't think so too much. The rough is high there anyway, so if you hit it left, if the trees are there, more than likely you're not going to go for the green, so you're just pitching back out.
I have seen the trees there and all that, but I don't think they're going to play that much of a difference because usually the rough is so high there, you can't go over the water anyway.

Q. Playing lift, clean and place, can you quantify, is that worth a shot a round or a shot and a half or two or any way of doing that?
BILLY MAYFAIR: Well, when you have conditions like this, you obviously don't want to hit a good drive and get down there and have a big hunk of mud on your ball, especially this afternoon, later in the day and into tomorrow. If we don't get any more rain, actually we're going to probably get more mud on the ball. So hopefully we'll play it up again tomorrow. You don't want to see a guy hit a good drive down the middle of the fairway and have a big hunk of mud on the ball and not know which way it's going to go.

Q. Just to clarify, 66 today without ball in hand, is that a 68, or does it make a difference?
BILLY MAYFAIR: It might save a shot or two, but overall -- the biggest thing to me about having lift, clean and place is if you hit it around the collars of the green and you're not quite on, now you can move it a club length. You can move it closer -- not closer to the hole, but I mean, you can move it closer to the green, you can move it in a better position to putt uphill, downhill, however you want to do it. So to me that's the biggest advantage, and obviously getting to clean the golf ball.

Q. I just wondered, you shot 66 today, and I think that was one of your best rounds of the year so far. Is there anything about the course in particular that sets up to your eye really well?
BILLY MAYFAIR: Well, I like Glen Abbey. When I saw in back on the schedule, I obviously put the tournament back on my schedule. Nothing against other golf courses, but I played here when it was here every year. I don't know how many times I've been here, but I've played it year after year after year, and I enjoyed coming here. I like the area, I like the setup. I like the golf course. I'm not real fond of the holes down in the valley, but I played them good this year.
But it was nice to come back to a golf course you haven't been to for a while. I think we were here in 2004 and missed a few years after that. So it's just good to be back at Glen Abbey.

Q. Was there something that was just working for you today? Did you have that feeling, that it was just dialed in?
BILLY MAYFAIR: Well, like I said, I'm driving the ball real well, driving it in the fairways, hitting good iron shots. When you do that, you're going to have a lot of birdie putts and you're not going to work too hard. That kind of goes with the steady-Eddie right there. I really started hitting it good last week when I was home in Phoenix, and it's kind to followed up to this week.

Q. How close were you to teeing off yesterday when the delay came, and could you just talk about playing 27 holes? When I talked to Jim, he said it was like walking in sand out there, that 27 felt like 36.
BILLY MAYFAIR: Yeah, it did. We were probably within three to four minutes of hitting it. We saw the clouds. We didn't hear any thunder at the time, but we knew we were probably going to have to stop sometime.
I thought we'd get out, play a couple holes and probably have to come in. But we were probably three or four minutes from teeing off.
It does feel like walking 36 out there because when you walk off the tee, you're always kind of walking around the mud and you try to find the drier spots and you're never just going flatfooted like we normally do. It's definitely hard out there to walk, and 27 today felt like 36.
Plus you've got to remember, when you go down in the valley -- and the golf course doesn't play real fast here. We teed off at, what, 8:00 o'clock this morning, and we got done a half hour ago. And even though -- we had a half hour break in between, so we were on the golf course for a long time.

Q. Just wondering, when you finish high in a tournament, it means more for you obviously as far as FedExCup points go. I'm just wondering if compared to last year, is FedExCup big in the players' mindset, or is it still Money List, the traditional --
BILLY MAYFAIR: Well, I think the Money List is obviously something we all look at. We were born that way. I mean, I've been out here 19 years. Every year it was the Money List.
But the FedExCup means to get into the certain tournaments, the Top 30, to get in the Masters, to get into the invitationals next year. That all goes by FedExCup points now. So I think guys are starting to look more at those points and play -- change our schedule to try to get as many points as they can so they can get into position when the playoffs start.
Last year was a great example. I finished second in Greensboro a week before it started and I jumped from 70th to up to about 30th or 40th, it let me in the first three and I tried to get in the fourth one, which I wasn't able to. But it jump-started me in getting me into the playoffs.
I think that's what a lot of guys are trying to do right now. They're trying to position themselves for when the playoffs start, which is kind of a neat idea.
There were some flaws last year with it, and the points and the way they gave them out and all that. But I think the TOUR has done a good job of trying to correct -- learn from the mistakes. They're learning and making corrections every year on it.

Q. Is it easier now -- obviously there was some confusion last year. Is that what you're referring to, just the confusion?
BILLY MAYFAIR: Well, confusion, I guess, or we just weren't sure what was going on. I mean, we had never done it. We had read it on paper, but until you play them and all the tournaments and play through the playoff system, you learn things and know that you're probably going to have to play every one of them to get to the finals and all that stuff.
If you played in one -- when it hurts you, it's bad, and now I think they kind of changed that a little bit. We all read it on paper but we didn't know how to quite approach it, you know what I'm saying? So I think we have a better idea this year.
NELSON SILVERIO: Billy Mayfair, thank you.

End of FastScripts

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