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DEUTSCHE BANK CHAMPIONSHIP

September 1, 2008

Mike Weir

NORTON, MASSACHUSETTS

STEWART MOORE: We'd like to welcome Mike Weir to the interview room here at the Deutsche Bank Championship after a runner-up finish out there today to Vijay Singh, who was borderline not even catchable, but certainly you played a great week, moved up to third in the FedExCup points race heading into the BMW Championship next week. Why don't we just start with your thoughts on the day.
MIKE WEIR: Yeah, I mean, Vijay obviously played a wonderful round. I mean, that is just a fantastic round in those conditions. As I was telling the guys out there, I think the weekend shaped up for a longer hitter to do well. Not saying I didn't think I could win, I really did; but I saw him eagle 2, he could reach that green into the wind. I couldn't. The next one, No. 7, the par-5, I couldn't even get across the cross bunker so I'm leaving myself a 6-iron for my second shot and he's flipping a little wedge in there.
It's hard to combat that firepower when the wind was blowing like that. You know, it played hard. I thought the golf course played very hard today, so Vijay's round was really exceptional.
All in all, it was a good week for me. I played really well, but I think that the turning point really, outside of No. 9, I mean, that was a big misstep there, but the two putts I hit on 11 and 12, I hit a great birdie putt that hit a spike mark about four feet from the hole and missed, and then I had a putt on No. 12 for par from about eight feet that I don't know how it didn't go in, but it didn't. That really deflated me a little bit because I knew Vijay was on such a roll.
STEWART MOORE: Let's go through the two birdies on 4 and on 8 that kind of got you out in the lead, and then tell us what happened on 9.
MIKE WEIR: 4, I drove it in the greenside bunker and splashed out of there to about three feet, two feet maybe.
8, I hit a wonderful little 5-iron in there into the wind to about eight feet, made that for birdie.
And then 9, I was right in between clubs, tried to hit a hard 5 and got riding the wind to the left, and I just got a horrible lie over there in the rough and splashed it over the green and chipped back and missed it. That was a poorly-played hole, but outside of that, I played okay the rest of the day.
Like I said, I hit a great 3-iron into No. 11 from about 18 feet. I don't know how it didn't go in, and then missed a short par putt on 12 -- well, not short, it was about eight feet, that just burned the edge.
Then 16, I hit a 9-iron in there to about 20 feet, made that for birdie.
17, I was just off the edge and putted it down there not real close, to about 12 feet and missed that.
And then 18, I hit a wedge to about two feet on the last hole.

Q. What was the ruling on 9?
MIKE WEIR: It was an embedded ball. It was about the only really thick patch of grass and my ball ended up right in it. It was embedded in there.

Q. Would you talk a little bit about Vijay doing what he's doing for the last few years, but now he's doing this at the age of 44, and he's a guy who hasn't always had the hottest putter in the game. Can you talk about that?
MIKE WEIR: Yeah, I mean, it's incredible. I guess since he's turned 40 he's had 20-plus wins, so he just keeps getting better and better. And obviously his work ethic, it's not from lack of effort with Vijay. He spends the time, and he's willing to try things to get better with his putting. He always strikes the ball so well.
He just has that kind of body that he's a big guy and he's kind of loose, so I think he'll always kind of hit it far, even as he gets older. He just kind of has that smoothness to him that he can still move it out there with the longest guys, even at 44. So that's still a big advantage for him.

Q. Could you give us your thoughts on the FedExCup? Evidently you, Sergio and whoever wins the BMW are the only three players who can catch Vijay right now.
MIKE WEIR: Right. You know, I guess after last year, everybody was a little bit upset that there wasn't enough movement. If you played well, you couldn't really move up, and if you played poorly, you didn't really move down a whole bunch of spots. Well, they tried to fix that. Now there's probably a little bit too much movement to tell you the truth, but it is more exciting, and it's playoff time. It's just like any playoffs, that if you play well during the playoffs, you're going to do well. You know, it's just like in hockey, if a team is the eighth seed and they get hot, they can go all the way to the Stanley Cup Final. That's how this is set up right now, that if you play well at this time of year, you can move right up.
So I think they've accomplished that. Whether they're going to take a look at something different for next year, I'm not sure. But it's only in the second year, and you knew there was going to be a little experimental stage here to get some of the kinks ironed out. But all in all, I think it's more exciting for the players and for the fans. It definitely brings a little more stress into the game, whether you're trying to make the cut or you're trying to finish as high as you can because you know there can be so much movement.

Q. You played with Vijay in that skins game last week, didn't you?
MIKE WEIR: Uh-huh.

Q. Did you notice anything about the rhythm that he's got back in his swing, and did he tell you anything about that device that he's using to get his tempo back that he's practicing with?
MIKE WEIR: Yeah, I know he's been using that thing with -- like an earpiece for his rhythm. But that's kind of been the hallmark of Vijay's swing is his rhythm. And as I said, being a big guy, he has just a smooth and rhythmic golf swing, but he still pumps it hard. What I noticed, I guess, at the skins game, he was just confident. You could just tell that he was standing up there with driver and letting it loose, and he's hitting it long right now and he's putting well. So it's a good combo he has going.

Q. The approach on 9 when you took a bunch of different clubs, did you end up with the right one? Is that what happened when it went left?
MIKE WEIR: Well, I was in between. I was in between a 4- and a 5-iron. I could have hit it way to the right and tried to fade it and hit a high, soft 4-iron, or I could try to hit a low one, which I was trying to do with the 5, and bounce it up that neck. As I said, you know, I'm not a high-ball hitter, and the way the course firmed up, you know, the first couple days the balls were stopping, you could fly a 6-, 7-, 5-iron and it would stop. Well, that wasn't the case this weekend. I was just trying to shoot something right up the gut there, kind of punch it, and I punched it a little bit too -- got ahead of it a little bit and it just kind of rode the wind to the left. I think it was the right shot, I just didn't pull it off.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about the greens, especially on the back nine?
MIKE WEIR: Yeah. You know, I've noticed the trend on the TOUR the last couple years out here that, you know, the way the U.S. Open has always been set up as the week gets on, the course gets firmer and faster and the greens get -- they're not greens, they're browns. I've noticed that almost every week on TOUR now, that the golf courses change so much from Thursday to Sunday that it's almost like you're not playing the same place.
I'm not sure of the reasoning for that. I know you want the golf course a little tougher, but it's just -- some of the pin placements, with as firm and almost no grass on the greens -- like 17 you can see the balls, it's almost come to a stop but it takes extra rolls because there's almost no friction there, there's almost no grass. It's borderline, what do you want to say, mini-golf, almost, really. I'm not sure what they're trying to do with that. I don't agree with that myself.
STEWART MOORE: Mike, thanks so much for coming in.

End of FastScripts

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