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THE 50TH BOB HOPE CLASSIC HOSTED BY ARNOLD PALMER

January 22, 2009

Richard S. Johnson

LA QUINTA, CALIFORNIA

MARK STEVENS: We would like to thank Richard Johnson for being here today. He's shot rounds of 63, 65. And is currently in second place. Richard, last year picked up his first TOUR win at the U. S. Bank Championship. If you would start out make some general comments about your first two rounds and where you stand right now.
RICHARD S. JOHNSON: Well, yesterday I played fantastic yesterday. I hit every club in my bag just perfect.
Today it wasn't as good. I didn't drive it that particularly good today. And I mishit a couple shots here and there, but overall, I'm hitting my irons fantastic right now. And putting nicely, which is made a big difference.

Q. This is the fourth time you've been in this tournament, you made the cut all three times, but you've never been, I think 24th is the best you've ever done. Is this a little surprising for you?
RICHARD S. JOHNSON: The one year I think I finished 24th or something, I was actually fifth or something going into the last day and played with Jonathan Kaye who won the tournament. So I've been up there after four rounds here before.
So this is usually what I'm pretty good at, short irons, and drive it straight usually. But no, I'm not too surprised. I'm more surprised to be three behind. Or four by the way.

Q. Normally if you shoot 63, 65 you're going to lead a golf tournament after two rounds and you're four shots back. Is that frustrating or do you just accept that as part of what this tournament is about?
RICHARD S. JOHNSON: No, it's five days, so you know that always, you're going to get hot in different of the tournament.
But Pat's a great player, I'm not surprised that he's up there. He's very aggressive, so you just, it's just impressive.

Q. Kind of a bizarre thing to say in a tournament, but five days you almost have to pace yourself out there. How do you approach that mentally saying, oh, well, I do great today, I will still be a couple shots off and see what happens tomorrow.
RICHARD S. JOHNSON: Well, the funny thing is how it works, even for me, today I wasn't really hitting it that great with my driver and still shot 7-under. I mean it was, it felt like you kind of left a lot out there. But it's just a matter of on these courses here, if you're hot with your short irons and especially if you're playing the par-5s well, you can do really well.

Q. Shifting sports it shows up on the scoreboard that you're a skateboarder, growing up in Sweden. I just wondered when the last time you got on a skateboard was and if you could just tell us about that.
RICHARD S. JOHNSON: The last time I went on a skateboard was actually for the Inside the PGA TOUR a couple years ago at Milwaukee. And about a year and a half ago maybe.
I can look decent, I would probably rank myself as an 8 handicapper right now.
(Laughter.) As a skateboarder. But the media always wants to run me in to like I won the world championship or something. I mean I was, I was a decent skateboarder, I competed a little bit, but I wasn't no Swedish champion or anything.

Q. Speaking of Milwaukee, you won Milwaukee.
RICHARD S. JOHNSON: Yes.

Q. Does a win change the way you look at tournaments now getting that first win out of the way finally?
RICHARD S. JOHNSON: Yeah, it does in one way because you know that you can do it and it's not necessarily always mean that you have to play that well. But if you haven't won in a while you kind of feel like you have to, you can't miss a shot all week, and kind of get in that position where it's, where it counts.
But all that really matters now is you want to be there with nine holes to go. And then on the back nine is where most of the tournaments get decided.
So it's just, you are going to have spells where you make a couple bad swings here and there and hopefully you can do some damage control.

Q. You mentioned skateboarding and you're not ready to take on Tony Hawk yet, but it's kind of a dichotomy to go from skateboarding to golf. How did you explain your skateboarding buddies that you were playing golf you go from heavy metal music to a little more sedate stuff. How did that work?
RICHARD S. JOHNSON: It was kind of funny, because we always drove by a golf course when I was younger and I always said, "Those idiots are out there playing again, look at that." I mean going out early in the morning. And then all of a sudden I started and got hooked.
We were all pretty young when we were skateboarding and I think we all kind of grew up. And I wouldn't think that the guys that I'm skating with, most of them are maybe probably not skateboarders today, it was more of a fun thing to do when we were younger.

Q. You played Nicklaus Private yesterday, right?
RICHARD S. JOHNSON: The one over there?

Q. Yeah. It's never been played in the tournament before. What were your impressions?
RICHARD S. JOHNSON: Well, the funny thing is when I drove out here, I came here late on Monday afternoon and I drove out, I was going to go look at it. And first I had the wrong yardage book, so I thought every short hole was a par-5. But after like seven holes I got lost out there. And I was like, this course seems impossible. It looked so narrow, so hard.
But it's not the longest golf course, but as the way this tournament runs, I think it's perfect. I thought the tournament was, this is what Bob Hope is about, I think, to make birdies and go low. So am I sad that the The Classic Club's not in the rotation? No.
And we all like this place. And it's close, which everything is here. Whereas before I thought it was a little unfair, because you could be no wind here, but blowing 25 down at the The Classic Club. So I think it's good that all the courses are right here.

Q. You mentioned that that's one of the hallmarks of this tournament, the weather, believe it or not, in the desert plays a factor. You got two perfect days, you don't have a bunch of wind today, but do you prepare yourself in case tomorrow -- I mean today it was supposed to rain, they talked about that. It's kind of a surprise when you got out there that it didn't rain, right?
RICHARD S. JOHNSON: Absolutely. Yeah, I mean it's, especially coming from Hawaii when it feels like you're playing everything off your back foot and you're not really ever hitting a full shot.
Whereas here it's, it feels like you're really hitting on every number. If it's 138 or 141 it makes a big difference. Whereas if it's blowing you can't really tell. But out here, it makes a big difference on the numbers. Because it's like indoor golf.

Q. I think Gary the amateur had the shot of the day in your group.
RICHARD S. JOHNSON: Yeah.

Q. Pretty excited to see that hole-in-one go in for him?
RICHARD S. JOHNSON: Well I was very excited for him. Actually didn't see the shot. Because I was speaking to my other amateurs from yesterday. I saw it land and roll in. But I just never saw him swing it.
But, yeah, it was really neat for him. What a great experience for him. It's just lovely to see the guys come out here and have a good time, because if it wasn't for them we wouldn't have a job again. So we got to keep them happy.

Q. When you come here what do you look forward to most?
RICHARD S. JOHNSON: For just the desert and all or the Bob Hope?

Q. In general the competition, the courses?
RICHARD S. JOHNSON: Yeah, mostly the weather, I would say. It's kind of rare that we play without wind and in very nice conditions. So this year we have been very fortunate. But the last few years there's been frost out here.
So, no, I would say juts weather and you know you're going to come out here and make a lot of birdies, which is kind of a nice start to the year to kind of get you going, get you feeling that you can make some birdies.
MARK STEVENS: Thank you for being here.
RICHARD S. JOHNSON: Okay. Thanks, guys.

End of FastScripts

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