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TURNING STONE RESORT CHAMPIONSHIP

October 1, 2008

Will MacKenzie

VERONA, NEW YORK

Q. You just got playing about June or so?
WILL MACKENZIE: Yeah, July. Right at the Congressional.

Q. Why don't you just kind of recap your season from there.
WILL MACKENZIE: Well, it was almost a blessing for me to get hurt because I was playing -- I was struggling with my golf swing and trying a few different things with my golf swing with not much success.
Had time to sit back and watch golf and think about my golf swing and how I wanted to attack this final part of the year. Starting at Congressional I just started playing a little better, and then I had a good week at John Deere. Had a chance to win.
Then we had the birth of my child, which is the week of Canada, which is a huge plus. Then I just played great at Annandale.

Q. Now you've won two years in a row and you're going back to Hawaii in January.
WILL MACKENZIE: I played the Mercedes in 2007.

Q. Right. You won in 2006.
WILL MACKENZIE: I won in 2006.

Q. Sorry. How did you do there in 2007?
WILL MACKENZIE: I played well. Played great. I actually had a chance to put a little heat on Vijay, but I sort of flailed a little bit towards the middle of my Sunday round. I had it around 10 over, and I think I finished at 8. I think I finished tied for fourth. It was a real good week.
It's jsut unbelievable to be out in Hawaii. To start your year off in Kapalua, you know you have two events. To go out to Sony and shoot a couple pair of 72s and get on the plane and go back home after two days, that's not how you want your Hawaiian adventure to be.
So we'll go out early and just enjoy being in Kapalua and then go to Oahu after that.

Q. How many more events are you playing this fall?
WILL MACKENZIE: I will play four total, including this event.

Q. Are you going to finish up at Disney?
WILL MACKENZIE: Yeah. I'm going to play this, Vegas, and then the two in Florida.

Q. How is your knee?
WILL MACKENZIE: Yeah, I mean, it's hanging in there pretty good. You know, it's not perfect, but it's not bad. I can do all my exercises on it, and I'm almost getting down to a full squat with it.
But it's not quite 100%. It takes a little time.

Q. Great second win there down in Mississippi at the Viking Classic. You had a nightmare there on Saturday on that 18th hole. What happened there?
WILL MACKENZIE: You know, I just made a huge mistake. We had the ball in our hand all day. I was in the rough and right on the hazard line. I squatted down to look at my lie, because I had a dicey little 115-yard shot over water out of a pretty nasty little lie.
There was little grass trimmings in front, and I just brushed it out of the way. I mean, it wouldn't even affect my golf shot. I just did it out of ignorance. I stood up and sort of thought, uh-oh. Huge mistake here. I wanted to jump in the creek, man. I mean I wanted to jump in the creek head first, and there was about six inches of water in there. I was pretty frustrated.
That's just the way it goes. I mean, you can make a huge mistake, and I was fortunate enough to come back and somehow get the victory.

Q. Five birdies in the last six holes on Sunday.
WILL MACKENZIE: It was a good finish. You know, I felt -- I don't think I was -- i was probably playing a little tight early on in the round, but obviously my form was really good all week.
Then finally I just started flowing with it and started hitting quality shots and getting really strong with my tee ball and believing in it. I started getting stronger as the day wore on. I was so far behind and I was able to play catch up. I'm sure the leaders were starting to play a little tight. That's how it goes.

Q. What are you looking forward to here in the last six weeks of the year?
WILL MACKENZIE: To try to get in contention again. You know, just try to play some good golf. The win is great, but there's still a lot of golf left. You know, every time I do something good I start thinking like, Well, why don't you do that more often? It's like, Are you getting everything out of your game?
It's easy to look back at this game and go, Wow, I should've done this; I should've done that. I'll probably do that a lot in my career, but hopefully this can sort of vault me into a little bit better places and play some quality golf.

Q. Your now a two-time champion on the PGA Tour. Congratulations.
WILL MACKENZIE: Thank you.
JOHN BUSH: Have you played here before, Turning Stone?
WILL MACKENZIE: Yes. 2006 when it was the BC Open here.
JOHN BUSH: Right. Thoughts on the golf course.
WILL MACKENZIE: It's fantastic. I remember it being really firm, and then we got drenched with rain and it softened it up and it played a lot different. It was good conditions other than that.
But I really like the golf course. You can mistake a lot of birdies out here, and it's in fantastic shape.
JOHN BUSH: Some cold weather ahead for us and perhaps some rain. Just comment on what that means.
WILL MACKENZIE: It's gonna -- you know, extra patience. A lot of people are going to cash it in. It's easy to do, you know. You get a couple over par and you're just like, Man, this is bogus playing in this type of weather.
You start dreaming about the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic or something in 75, 80 degree weather.
Hopefully I can just throw the Gortex on and put some snow boarding gloves on in between shots on and just hang in there and enjoy my little walk out there.
JOHN BUSH: And a $6 million purse to play for is not too shabby either.
WILL MACKENZIE: Yeah, that's huge, too. I mean, it's not all about the money, but it's nice to be playing for a big ole purse.
JOHN BUSH: Comments about heading back to Maui in January.
WILL MACKENZIE: Yeah, I almost want to play Maui more than the Masters, but I need to win one of these tournaments to get you in the Masters. That would be awesome. I'm so stoked getting back to Maui. The vibe out there is perfect. They treat me so well out there. I get to mix up a little golf and a little bit of surfing, and that'll be perfect.
JOHN BUSH: I know you probably get tired of the question, but are you going to keep your hotel room number private?
WILL MACKENZIE: You know, that's to be determined. Just depends on -- you know, I can run off at the mouth sometimes by accident. Who knows?
But I'll be staying in a villa this year. That's all I'm saying.

End of FastScripts

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