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U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 20, 2008

Brady Exber

PINEHURST, NORTH CAROLINA

PETE KOWALSKI: Like to welcome Brady Exber, winner in 20 holes over Josh Anderson. Brady, kind of a funny question as you were walking in Ron says, how come the oldest guy left goes the longest match. So answer that question.
BRADY EXBER: The answer to that question is like I told Ron, he saw the 18th hole. I was 2-up with two to go and I figured if I could just make a par on the 17th that would be good enough.
I had a little wind against, 176, so I thought that might be playing about 190, I hit about a 185 shot. Wind stopped, ball hit the back of the green, released out, I didn't get it up-and-down. Josh hit a great shot in there. He made par.
Then on 18, I know not to be long there, and I have got 178 to the pin I hit a 165 club that went 175. And just hopped right over the green. And just, I hate to say it, but an amateur mistake, so.
Then didn't have a very good lie back there and tried to hit a shot that really the lie didn't let me hit. I tried to hit a flop shot out of a mower cut and that just wasn't the right shot. But I was kind of going for miracle because you get over that green and it's, it goes, once you get to the top, it goes away from you. So, but then on the 19th hole, I hit it good and made par.
And then on 20 Josh hit his drive in the right rough, deep rough, I was in the fairway, I hit a 5-iron about probably four or five feet from the hole. And Josh couldn't get to the green from his lie. And so just kind of made it, thank goodness, anti-climatic
PETE KOWALSKI: Second shot on 18 were you in the fairway or in the rough?
BRADY EXBER: I was in the left side of the fairway. I have to tell you just seriously, you know with the heat and humidity out there you're, my legs have been good for me for 52 years, but they were feeling a little tired today.
PETE KOWALSKI: This is your fourth Amateur?
BRADY EXBER: Yes, sir.
PETE KOWALSKI: How much did the wily veteran experience play in your favor playing the younger player?
BRADY EXBER: I think that, you know what? I think that it did come in a play because I saw, you know, Josh being, obviously Josh is great player, he's won some big tournaments already, but he, his emotions got the best of him a couple times today. And I, when you look at the line score you can see that neither one of us really played very good golf. And it was just one of those rounds of attrition. And I just knew because I had done this enough before that if I just hang in there and just make pars, that the golf course is going to take its toll on the player. The greens are really getting firm right now and the ball's running out. You can land it short and it will hop up. So I just kind of let the golf course take care of Josh today a little bit.

Q. This is the first time you've won a match at the Amateur?
BRADY EXBER: This is the first time I've been to match play. I played in '88 and then I played again in '97 and then in '98. And in 2008. So it's a pretty good spread. And you can test me for HGH any time you want. Not a problem here.

Q. You have to feel though pretty good about it. I mean being 52, and now in the round of 32, I mean that's a pretty good accomplishment. Out here with all these young guys.
BRADY EXBER: Yeah, you know what? This is -- and I've got Lisa here with me and this is just a dream. I mean it's, it really is. It's just the greatest thing. It's something that I thought in my working life that I would never be able to do is to take the time and get a game in shape and thank goodness that I got it just good enough in shape just in time, I think. Although when I look at Paul Simpson, I got a few years ago maybe.

Q. The 3rd and 13th holes, how do they fit into the flow of the round? You got a couple short par-4s there. Does that sort of break it up and what is your strategy on those holes?
BRADY EXBER: On 3 and 13? 3 today, I was kind of pleasantly surprised that the tees were up a little bit. Mostly because we didn't have to walk as far. But on 3 the wind in our face, it didn't make -- I hit a 3-wood anyway and played it short. I can't get anything over the bunker that's out there in the right. So I just played it short. And then I hit a wedge up there.
13, with the pin, boy that was really sorry it's not a pin, it's a hole location, that's a dollar.
(Laughter.) No, no, that's a dollar. That's going in the bucket.
With the hole location on 13, where it was, with the front tee, it was really tough. I had 70 yards to that hole and landed it hole high, because you can't be short it's going to come back 40 yards. But I landed it hole high and it rolled all the way up over the hump on the back of the green and I had a really hard 2-putt.
So I'm just not long enough to get it up close enough to the green to have a little chip, and I probably should have laid up there off the tee. Maybe didn't play it as smart as I should have off the tee there.

Q. What's been the difference this time around compared to the other three ones? Is there something specific that's helped propel you not only into match prey but obviously to a victory in your first round?
BRADY EXBER: I'm enjoying it more. And not to sound corny, but I get excited, I got Lisa an over here watching, and it's just it's fun to, when I do something well it's fun to watch her get excited, it makes me feel good. I think that has a lot to do with it, to tell you the truth.

Q. What about just your game, your play overall? I know obviously that as we had talked you had been working, you con really play that much, on a national level, but over the last I don't know what, five, six years, maybe you're playing more and it seems like you're just getting better at it as far as your accomplishments.
BRADY EXBER: Yeah, I'm sure if you watch me play, I'm a slow processor, and it, my confidence level is not probably what it should be. I should be a lot more confident in my game and success breeds that. And I haven't been out playing nationally very much and when I did, when I traveled back east or played in the Porter Cup I haven't finished very well. I've done real well out west, the Pacific Coast Amateur, I've had really good finishes there. And of course at home I play great.
But now I think my game travels better now because I realize that playing the Senior Open, the U. S. Senior Open last year and the British Senior Open this year I realized that it's just golf. I mean there's other people on the course and you might have heard of them, and they're really good, but at the end of the day it's just golf. And you have got to hit 14 drivers or you got to strategize a little bit, but it's golf. If you can handle all the outside stuff, just go play golf.
PETE KOWALSKI: So that makes it easier to handle a 2-up lead heading to the 17th tee and then, is that a fair assessment?
BRADY EXBER: You know what? I think it justifies if you lose after being 2-up. Yeah, I think that it does. I think that it helps, for me it does. It just helps get me in the clubhouse. You do the best you can and sometimes like today it's not very good, but I guarantee you I was trying on every shot and you do the best you can and that's all you can ask. If the guy, if it doesn't work out, it just doesn't work out. So it worked out for me today and it didn't work out for Josh.

Q. What's the, what's been the day job and why was it such that it did prevent you from playing more nationally?
BRADY EXBER: I used to be a partner in a partnership that owned some hotels in Las Vegas. So in that sense we had a pretty good sized company. We had probably 3,500 employees and about four or five hotels and pretty tough to get time off. Especially in that, in a 24 hour business like that. It's pretty difficult.
But I know that my dad would be real proud of me, even though I would go play in golf tournaments and I would say, dad, you know, I'm going to go play in this golf tournament; and he would say, well, how are you going to get the time off? I work for him, you know, he wasn't giving me any time off. So he says, how are you going to get the time off?
So I would go play real guilty about playing, not play well, but I, I know he was always rooting for me, but he had to kind of needle me a little bit.

Q. You said used to be a partner, not doing that any more?
BRADY EXBER: No, I'm not involved any more.

Q. Are you in another line of business or now?
BRADY EXBER: I just, you know what I have to keep Lisa happy and try to play good golf.

End of FastScripts

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