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January 22, 2009
LA QUINTA, CALIFORNIA
MARK STEVENS: Jason, thanks for joining us by phone today. If you would talk about your round today and your mindset coming into this tournament, being you found out just a day or two before that you were going to be playing and talk a little bit about that and we'll take questions.
JASON DUFNER: Okay. Today was pretty solid again. I hit a good amount of fairways and greens. And a good amount of looks at birdies. And I was able to birdie some of them.
So pretty steady golf all day, same as yesterday. We got off to a good start.
As far as being an alternate, it's kind of one thing you have to deal with, being in the category that I'm in sometimes you get in the event on the Friday before and sometimes you're not.
The TOUR does a pretty good job of giving us a summary of what's happening in your place on the list. You see how many guys drop out. And so being the third alternate starting the week I felt I had a good chance of getting in and I was planning on it.
Q. Have you thanked Anthony Kim yet and have you been looking at the leaderboard at all to see that Pat Perez is at 19?
JASON DUFNER: Yeah, I haven't thanked Anthony, but I will do that. Especially if the week continues to go this way.
And Pat is playing well, I saw some leaderboards out here, but they're not all electronic. But obviously he's having another good day.
Q. Not only did you get into the tournament, but you found yourself in the middle of the celebrity field.
JASON DUFNER: Yeah.
Q. What's that like? I guess you played with Derek Anderson today and Joel Gretsch?
JASON DUFNER: Yeah, it's pretty cool. I played with a lot of celebrities growing up. I was a member at a club that Dan Marino was at and I played a lot with him.
So at an early age I got quite comfortable being in that environment playing with these guys. So it's kind of cool.
So playing with Derek was kind of cool today. I went to Auburn, I get to play with Bo on Saturday, so that will be great too.
Q. So yesterday you played with what, Oliver Hudson?
JASON DUFNER: Yeah and Kurt Russell. Yeah, that was cool. Watching the TV programs that both of them are in and movies and stuff. But they're pretty down to earth guys for the most part and it was a pretty cool experience.
Q. Starting tomorrow you come over to PGA West, I think you play the Nicklaus Private Course tomorrow?
JASON DUFNER: Yeah.
Q. Have you got much time on that golf course?
JASON DUFNER: Yeah, I played a full practice round on that course on Tuesday. Seems like it's in pretty good shape. Guys seem to be scoring well on it. Guys seem to be scoring well on every course this week, so I feel pretty comfortable on it.
Most of those PGA West courses are pretty similar. To the extent that it's PGA West. So being that I was out here for Q-School in December I feel pretty good on the setups right now.
Q. Do you have a Dan Marino golf story you can share with us?
JASON DUFNER: Oh, I don't know. I had tons of them. I used to caddie for him in pro-ams. He was always a pretty good player, pretty serious about his game, even when he was playing. I'm not sure. I haven't seen him in a while, so, you know, he kind of -- I played with him every once in a while and caddied with him, so that was just a cool experience to be in that environment and be close to that at a young age. You get to know that these guys are pretty normal guys, just like everybody else but they're extremely talented as an athlete or actor or whatever, so I think it was good for me to experience that at a young age.
Q. Could you explain the process of learning that you got into here and everything?
JASON DUFNER: Yeah, basically everything is done electronically through a web site that we have. You can check on Friday and see where your position is on the field.
When I was in Sony I checked after Sony and it looked like I was going to be second alternate for the week. I think a couple guys committed late on Friday so I think it maybe bumped me to third or fourth.
And then as people start withdrawing, you get a phone call. So I got a phone call about 6:50 a.m. on Tuesday that said I was in the field. So that's definitely a good thing.
MARK STEVENS: Okay thanks a lot Jason and good luck.
JASON DUFNER: All right. Thank you.
End of FastScripts
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