U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

August 3, 2008

Bernhard Langer

FULLAUDIOINTERVIEW

THE MODERATOR: With the third round best score at-4, 66, Bernhard Langer.

Q. Your low score for the championship, what was different?

BERNHARD LANGER: Finally broke par. It feels good. Made some putts. That was really the difference, and had some good up-and-downs on the back side.

Played pretty good on the front, made some birdies, had opportunities. Back side, I hit a couple loose shots, but had some really good up-and-downs, three or four of them, and made nice putt on 18.

Q. How long was that putt on 18, do you think?

BERNHARD LANGER: It was pin high, about 30 feet, maybe 34 feet, something like that.

Q. Can you compare the golf course today to the last three rounds?

BERNHARD LANGER: The golf course hasn't changed much. It's been windy a couple of times. Today there wasn't much wind early. When I played 17, all of a sudden a huge gust of wind came in my face. It should have been downwind.

When Gil Morgan hit, who I played with, it was downwind.

When I hit, it was into the wind. You get that kind of stuff happening every once in a while, so it made it tricky.

I had a driver three to reach 17, which was unusual. There was a lot of wind, and then there was nothing again. So it just comes and goes.

Q. Your up-close-and-personal visit with the bear, will you take home this week?

BERNHARD LANGER: It's certainly a memorable one. That's not going to happen again, I don't think. It's never happened before.

First of all, you don't see many bears, period, and you don't see them running across the fairway about 15 feet from you.

Q. You looked pretty calm in the photo. Were you really that calm?

BERNHARD LANGER: I was calm. The photo is only one split second of the whole thing.

We watched the whole thing. He was coming off from the right side. He ran through the bunker, across the fairway, and I saw he was heading into the trees. That's where he wanted to go. He didn't even notice us. He just wanted to go in the trees and hide.

Dottie Pepper kind of lost it. She was walking with us, and she panicked. I said, "he's probably more scared of us than we are of him."

Q. Regardless of how you played, how do you look at this whole tournament, how it went just in general here?

BERNHARD LANGER: I think it was tremendously well organized. It's a great venue, beautiful championship. Everything was fantastic. The golf course was set up pretty good.

There were a few questionable pins every once in a while, but when you have greens like this to deal with, you're going to sooner or later find a couple of questionable pins, because they are very severe.