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U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 16, 2005

Retief Goosen

PINEHURST, NORTH CAROLINA

Q. The tough golf courses continue to be something you play well at, evidenced this morning?

RETIEF GOOSEN: Yeah, I would say this morning was perfect conditions, and the course was probably softer today than it was in the practice rounds. I think they were a little bit scared about what's been said with the course, that it's going to get too hard. But the greens were very soft this morning, and a lot of the short irons you could stop it from spinning back too much. The course played very much different.

But it was the same at Shinnecock. Shinnecock the first two rounds it was soft, and as the week went on they got firmer. I only see them gradually making it tougher as the week goes on.

Q. Are you happy with where you're standing?

RETIEF GOOSEN: I hit 16 greens in regulation, made three fairways, and three of them were in the semi and 32 putts or something like that wasn't really the way I want it, but hopefully we'll get better as the week goes on.

Q. The good side of that is that you can take 32 putts and shoot 68?

RETIEF GOOSEN: Yeah, that's true, and obviously the golf course is only going to get tougher as the week goes on. If I can keep striking the ball solid and keep it in play, we can try for Sunday.

Q. Are you feeling a little bit different as defending champion this time around?

RETIEF GOOSEN: Yeah, obviously last time I was quite new at it, just won it for the first time. And this time I feel a lot more confident and I feel like my game was starting to come on about three weeks ago. I was starting to hit the ball better, although I wasn't putting much better. But that's what you need to do around this golf course is to hit the ball well.

Q. What's the most important thing, the putting or hitting the driver in the fairway?

RETIEF GOOSEN: Hitting the fairways is definitely the most important thing. If you hit your iron on the green or miss the green you have a chance of getting up and down. But once you miss these fairways, you have no chance of getting them on the green.

Q. How is the USGA doing so far as opposed to where it was last year? What kind of grade do they have for Thursday?

RETIEF GOOSEN: Well, the golf course was a perfect setup for today. Like I said, this morning it was soft and I saw them already this morning starting to sprinkle some of the greens. But it's supposed to get a bit cooler as the week goes on so they can start drying the greens out a bit more.

End of FastScripts.

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