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BUICK INVITATIONAL

February 4, 2009

Hunter Mahan

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

MARK WILLIAMS: Thanks for coming in. A purely selfish question, I want to ask how you enjoyed your trip to New Zealand, me being from there and you having won down there recently.
HUNTER MAHAN: Yeah, it's a beautiful place. I had a great time, great hosts, the Robertsons, and yeah, it was a lot of fun.
MARK WILLIAMS: Did you catch any trout?
HUNTER MAHAN: We did on the lake but we didn't on the stream.
MARK WILLIAMS: Good to have you here at the Buick Invitational. Tell us what your life has been like since the Ryder Cup and the wonderful week that you had there and how it's changed.
HUNTER MAHAN: Boy, it was a memorable week, played great. The team won. It was exciting. I mean, I guess I had expectations of what to expect of the experience, of the crowd, and of the pressure and everything, and everything kind of blew my mind. I've just tried to soak it all in since then and just tried to enjoy it, enjoy the experience, and just tried to feed off of that for this year. I just tried to learn a lot from all the stuff that happened prior and after.

Q. Are you playing or working on anything in your brief off-season?
HUNTER MAHAN: Kind of everything, you know, short game, trying to get that as -- trying to improve my ranking, get up-and-down, putting and everything, and just be more consistent.

Q. Is that statistically an area that looked like needed shoring up?
HUNTER MAHAN: Yeah, for sure. Statistically in every kind of way, just needed to get up-and-down more, hit it closer from 100, 120 yards and in, give myself more birdie opportunities and score better on par-5s. Short game comes through momentum. If you can get up-and-down from a few spots, it can really give you some momentum during a round.
MARK WILLIAMS: Last week at the FBR, that was your first tournament this year, right?
HUNTER MAHAN: Yeah.
MARK WILLIAMS: Did you notice anything different after your off-season practicing coming to fruition?
HUNTER MAHAN: Yeah, it was better. I felt more comfortable in a lot of areas. Kind of first week out, it's kind of new again, haven't played in a long time, so exciting. I'm really looking forward to this year and really ready to get off to a good start on the West Coast.

Q. Would you talk about your recognition factor since the Ryder Cup? Maybe just this last week, how much more recognized are you by people and what kind of things are they saying? I'm sure it's probably Ryder Cup related?
HUNTER MAHAN: Yeah, for sure. You really don't see the impact of the Ryder Cup until afterwards, until you win it, until you bring it back. Since Europe has played so well and dominated for a while, to get to come back to the United States, it's a really significant impact on the fans who watched you on TV, who were there. You know, definitely, like Paul said, there's millions and millions and millions of people that watched on TV all over the world, and they were watching us, and they were cheering hard for us.
Yeah, people always come up and say, "Hey, thanks for bringing the Cup back, go USA." I know Paul had a USA flag last week on 16 and was kind of running around with it. I know he's embracing it to the fullest, and he should. Yeah, nothing but positive reaction from everybody.

Q. How much more do you get recognized this year than this time a year ago?
HUNTER MAHAN: Yeah, people stopped calling me Justin Leonard, so that was nice (laughter). That was good. I kind of created my own identity, so that was nice. There's a resemblance, yeah; especially from Dallas, it's tough. But no, it's been great. I definitely get recognized more a little bit and only for the positives, so it's great.

Q. It's good up to a point, and then the point where you get recognized too much that's not good, to that Michael Phelps level?
HUNTER MAHAN: Yeah, don't need to go there.

Q. Corey Pavin seems like a slightly different personality, almost introvert/extrovert based on my experience. Would you go along with that? Have you had much elbow rubbing with him? What do you think he'd be like as a captain?
HUNTER MAHAN: I saw him for the first time since he was announced this week and told him congratulations. I think his passion for the Ryder Cup is the same as Paul's. You can tell both guys really love it and they love the competition. I think he'll be a great captain. I think he's really excited about it. I think he kind of relishes the fact that it's over there. I think that kind of adheres to his kind of personality, kind of always the underdog, always have to fight kind of an uphill battle because he doesn't hit it long, and he's always had obstacles in the way. I think he's really excited about it. But I think he's going to be great. I think just being around him is going to motivate us.
Definitely Paul was more outgoing, and he really brought the crowd involved, and I think Corey is going to really keep us tight and together and really pulling for one another hard.

Q. Did you find yourself taking an interest in the European captain at all and sort of the drama that went along with the naming of Monty?
HUNTER MAHAN: Oh, for sure. It was intriguing. I mean, they can pick anybody. Kind of the U.S., you kind of have an idea -- they could have picked a handful of guys, and they picked a Ryder Cup legend in Monty. That's a great pick. He's a phenomenal Ryder Cupper, and I'm sure he'll be a phenomenal captain. Yeah, we were all intrigued and waiting to see who it was going to be. So congratulations to him. I think he's going to be great.
MARK WILLIAMS: Looking ahead to the Presidents Cup, how do you think Freddie Couples' captaincy will compare to Paul's?
HUNTER MAHAN: Yeah, I just ran into Andy Pastor, and he had kind of a Presidents Cup list of things to do. Michael Jordan is going to be there, and I said, "That's kind of a logistical nightmare for you guys, when you have Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan in the same radius of a couple hundred feet," so that should be interesting. But you can tell Freddie is excited. I think he's going to be a phenomenal captain. I think people are going to be -- especially in the United States people are going to be just going crazy.
It should be a lot of fun. We should have a great time, should have a great team, and hopefully I can be a part of it.

Q. Speaking of Tiger, do you guys talk about his return at all? I mean, are you sort of like golf fans, sort of wondering when it might be and anticipating when that day will be and hoping for him to get back soon?
HUNTER MAHAN: I think so. I think we're all like you guys, trying to speculate and guess and see when he's going to return. I heard Hank was on The Golf Channel or something, said he looks great, swinging good, strong. I mean, I think we all expect greatness. I don't think there's going to be any sort of layoff.
I would expect there would be a little bit of rust. I mean, I don't know, what's it been, six months or so, eight months, seven months, probably another month before he tees it up. I mean, that's a long time. I would expect there to just be some playing rust, but I think he's going to look good. I think he's going to walk tall, and I think he's going to be fine. I think we're kind of guessing when he's coming back, but we're definitely not worried about when he's coming back, that's for sure.

Q. Do you think, though, that the game needs him back?
HUNTER MAHAN: Absolutely. Right now, absolutely. I mean, he is the spark -- well, actually he's the fire. He just adds a little something to the game. Especially people are going to be really intrigued to see how he comes back. He's been great for the game, great for every player out here. I'm excited to see him again and see what he brings to the table. Once again, he always comes strong with it. I know Augusta is definitely in his sights. I think he's going to be fully committed to that, getting ready for that. Should be a great year for him and the PGA TOUR.

Q. Not many events in any sport ever have a four-time defending champion, so is there a sense this week with him not here of openness, a better chance?
HUNTER MAHAN: I think so. I think in the past here you've seen a lot of guys, rookies, guys you haven't really heard of up the leaderboard. I think Durant played great last year, Streelman, Nathan Green, a kid from Australia was up there. I mean, I think it's a great tournament for someone out of the field to come and win. Great golf course that's playing extremely hard right now. The greens are extremely firm. It should be a great test.

Q. There is a report out of the UK that evidently they're thinking about one of the Dubai region golf courses is thinking about bidding on the Ryder Cup in 2018, which is not exactly Europe. I'm wondering if you had any thoughts on that. It's a big, booming area. Obviously it's become kind of the Orlando for tourist-type trade in that region, a lot of Europeans heading down there, growing like weeds. Maybe you wouldn't have as much of a disadvantage playing an away game since maybe there wouldn't be as many Europeans there. Seems kind of odd to stage a Ryder Cup in a non-European or U.S. venue.
HUNTER MAHAN: That seems very odd, because the European fans, they go ballistic for the game of golf. I mean, they love it. To take that away from them, to kind of take that advantage, kind of home crowd feeling, it would definitely have a weird feel. It's surprising to hear that. But I'm sure there must be a reason for it, I don't know.

Q. They put their sites up for bid. Basically the PGA over here doesn't do that, so it's a revenue stream for them to auction it off for the highest bidding.
HUNTER MAHAN: It would be interesting to see what a European player would think of that. It would be interesting for us to not have those fans there, to be a neutral kind of fan base, probably pro-us because of Tiger Woods; they don't get to see Tiger Woods that much, Phil Mickelson. To get to see them more often, I mean, they would --

Q. You'd see a lot more neutral people.
HUNTER MAHAN: Absolutely. It could be more of a Presidents Cup feel, actually, if they do that. But whatever, and we'll play wherever they want.

Q. How do these two courses set up for you, and what's the state of your game this week?
HUNTER MAHAN: It feels pretty good. I'm kind of still working on a few things, making some kind of swing stuff, but it feels good. Hopefully the weather holds out, beautiful the last couple days. The courses is in phenomenal shape. I've only been here four or five times, but compared to the U.S. Open last year when I thought it was perfect, it's almost as good as that, or as good as that, so I'm excited about playing this week.
I think it suits my game fairly well. I'm a good driver of the ball. Got to do that. You want to hit fairways over here. You don't want to be playing out of the rough into some of these greens. I'm very excited about my chances and how I'll do.
MARK WILLIAMS: I think we can wrap it up unless anyone has another question. Appreciate you coming in. Thanks for your time.

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