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THE 50TH BOB HOPE CLASSIC HOSTED BY ARNOLD PALMER

January 20, 2009

Harrison Frazar

LA QUINTA, CALIFORNIA

MARK STEVENS: We d like to welcome Harrison Frazar to the media center. Harrison shot a 59 about six weeks ago at Q-School out here in the desert to earn his TOUR card back. Harrison, if you could just lead off with some general comments about this week and your thoughts coming into this tournament and then maybe a little something about this being the 50th year of the Hope and your thoughts about what that means for this area and the tournament.
HARRISON FRAZAR: Okay. Well, when we were here in December people were very excited about the 50th already. There were banners up and that and a lot of people and the media. And a lot of people that were in the community were talking about it already. So I know that people get excited about it.
It's always fun to come here and see the celebrities and see the people respond so well to the celebrities. It's fun to play practice rounds where you're seeing all the amateurs and everybody is laid back and loose and riding around in carts and you can play your practice rounds in two and a half hours. And plus the weather.
So it's always going to be good weather here, you know that. And I guess we might get wind, that's about it. The rest of the time it's perfect.
So a great place to start the year, I think what they have been able to do here for 50 years is a testament to not only the organization, but to Mr. Hope and what he envisioned and what he cared about.
MARK STEVENS: Questions?

Q. You won six weeks ago you were here and had a great week for you. And it was just across the street. Does any of that possibly linger six weeks later or is that nice but now it's a different set of circumstances?
HARRISON FRAZAR: Yeah, I think it's kind of more on the lines of that of that's nice, but it's over, it's time to move on. There are a lot of things that I will carry with me. It's been years since I have proven to myself that I can continue to, that I can play at that high a level. And I know it was Q-School, it's not playing against these guys, but pretty close. And the pressure is greater.
So the fact that I was able to sit there and play well day after day. I think I had one day I shot even par that I did not feel very good on the course, felt kind of out of sorts. But the other five days I felt really good. I felt calm, comfortable, I had a game plan, I felt great with the putter, and was able to sit there and keep making swings and keep hitting shots to kind of keep the accelerator down instead of backing up and worrying about cuts or what happens here or what people are going to think. All of those things that can enter your brain and your mind when you're playing.
They were worse at Q-School and I was able to fight through it. So there's more positives that I'm going to carry forth with me. Doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to play well right now, that's proved by last week, I made the cut but didn't play very well. But I know that if I am playing well or if I'm feeling good that I can do it. And I know I can do it again.

Q. It is some of these guys you're playing against.
HARRISON FRAZAR: There's some. Yeah. There's some.

Q. But one thing you kept talking about that week was the putter. That you hadn't putted well since who knows when. And that that week you felt you not only made putts but you felt comfortable over the putts. Do you still have that going right now?
HARRISON FRAZAR: Well, it's, you know, right now, no; or today, I felt better today. I didn't feel great over the putter last week. But that's probably just because I haven't practiced much and haven't done much after Q-School. I just put everything away until about two weeks ago. So it had been since the middle stretch of the year, 2006, that I felt that good over the putter.
Now I never had that many putts go in, but feeling good over it, feeling like you're going to make good rolls and hit good putts, it had been over two years. So I know what I did to get to that point, a couple of months ago, so now I know what to do again. And that's reassuring if nothing else.

Q. You said that you were ready to move on from the 59, but are people letting you move on? Are people still talking about it? I mean, it was such a short time ago.
HARRISON FRAZAR: Yeah, people are still talking about it. And everybody asks me about it and people want to congratulate me and that's great, I love it. There's a lot worse things you can be known for. So if people want to call you Mr. 59 or rib you a little bit, that's fantastic.
And I certainly don't want to forget about it. But it means more to me on a level of knowing that it's still in there, than it does as an ego or a, whoopee, look at me, thing. I would rather go now go back to work and knowing what I did the months before that, get back to doing that, so that I might have a chance to do it again.

Q. You've also had success here at the Bob Hope Classic, a couple of top-10 finishes. What is it about the desert that has made it feel easy for you?
HARRISON FRAZAR: Well, I think for me it's relaxing to play with the amateurs. You're out talking and having a good time and you're relaxed. I don't play really well on courses that have deep rough typically. So courses that I can get the ball up by the green or and be able to attack par-5s, if I miss a fairway, I tend to do better.
So I think that that's a dominant trait of this tournament is the birdiefest and the fly at the pin so to speak and the attack mode. There's not a lot of chop out, wedge up, try to save pars.

Q. Which brings me to my question, which is we have a new course this year, just down the road here, do you think that course kind of falls into that birdiefest mode or will it take a year or two for people to understand the golf course?
HARRISON FRAZAR: Well, I think somebody's going to get at it. They always do. Somebody will shoot 7, 8, 9-under par over there. It's, if you're driving it well, it's a short golf course, I think, so you're going to have a lot of wedges, nine's and 8 irons.
But the greens are small. So if somebody's hitting it in the fairway, they're controlling their distance, they're going to end up with a lot of 10, 12 footers. If you get off the beaten path you're going to be in some trouble. There's a lot of rough stuff around, there's a lot of gorse and desert pampas bushes, stuff like that. So if you can keep it inside the alley, you're going to do just fine there. So I think that somebody that's having a good week, every week, every where we play, somebody goes really low. So it's going to happen on every single course out here.

Q. I think that's the shortest of the four courses in the rotation this year. How many times have you been over there?
HARRISON FRAZAR: Today was the first time I played nine holes. I did the red eye late, I drove around, looked at it, drove around through the west course or the Palmer Course, to try to refamiliarize myself with that one. And then played SilverRock.
So I haven't had a great week of preparation. I haven't had a chance to really go around it. But the shots that I hit for me are a lot of 3-woods, a lot of two irons off the tees, just trying to make sure I leave myself some kind of a shot at the green. You can attack it and try to hit drivers up in some spots, but I don't think you want to.

Q. You see the rock on the second hole?
HARRISON FRAZAR: Yes. Yeah, you see it. But thankfully you're only hitting a wedge or a 9-iron, maybe an eight. If the wind turns into you and you got to try to hit a 5-iron or 6-iron there, it could be interesting.
MARK STEVENS: Okay. Thanks a lot, Harrison.
HARRISON FRAZAR: You got it.

End of FastScripts

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