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AT&T PEBBLE BEACH NATIONAL PRO-AM

February 11, 2009

Steve Lowery

PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA

MARK STEVENS: Welcome Steve Lowery to the media center. Steve is the defending champion of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. If you'd just kind of talk about your win last year and your thoughts coming into the event this year.
STEVE LOWERY: Well, I think last year it was definitely kind of a surprise that I won the tournament. I was really in a medical situation, and I mean, it was significant for me because obviously I was not exempt into all the tournaments. At 47 years old it was perfect timing for me.
That's the way my career has kind of been. I had a win in '94, 2000, 2007. I haven't had a lot of wins, just spread them out over a long period of time. It came at a good time for me.

Q. What was your rotation last year and now this year?
STEVE LOWERY: Last year we played Spyglass first and then Pebble and then Poppy. This year we're playing Pebble first, and I'm not sure where it goes after that. Probably Spyglass, but I don't know.

Q. Do you remember who you played with?
STEVE LOWERY: I played with Bob Kaylor was my amateur, and let's see, I played with Ryan Palmer. I can't remember his amateur. But it was kind of a weird deal because we made a bunch of birdies at the end and we got really close to making the cut, so I told my amateur, "I'll see you on the range tomorrow." It was one of those draw cards, match cards, and he didn't make it, so I didn't really see him until I think at the Masters I saw him. So I talked to him a few times, so it was kind of weird. We thought we made the cut and all that, but it didn't work out.

Q. Who do you have this year?
STEVE LOWERY: This year I can't remember the gentleman's name. He's CEO of Shaw Industries, but I don't remember his name. They've been rotating the amateurs a little bit. Bob Kaylor, the guy I had last year, I don't think he'll be in until next year maybe.

Q. You talked about how you have these ebbs and flows and wins. Can you talk about coming into last year, you talked about the medical exemption, and I don't know if it's because you obviously are older so you kind of know the ropes, but yet still winning is huge for you in that particular situation. I think we talked at Mercedes where you basically don't have to worry now until you're on the Champions Tour. Can you just talk about the pressures of at your age dealing with that and how much pressure was off you after that?
STEVE LOWERY: Well, I mean, it was a huge relief because there's just not a lot of guys in their late 40s out here that are -- a lot of guys are losing their exemptions. There's just not a lot of guys out here that are competitive. You've got a few guys, Vijay, Kenny Perry, but it just gets tougher and tougher to maintain that exempt status. I had had injuries and it slowed me down.
The TOUR doesn't wait for you. I mean, they're not going to say, well, you've been out here for a while, just come out and play. I had been to Tour school, I had written for exemptions, I think I four spotted the week before I won here at Pebble at Phoenix and didn't make it. So you're just trying to basically do anything you can do to get into tournaments.
It was kind of the mindset that I've really got nothing to lose, just go out and go for it. That's kind of the way I've played. It may not look that way because I've won three times, but you go out and you play to win every week, and I've been successful at winning three times my whole career. But you go out and play every week that way. I don't know, I think that's -- being exempt when you're 47, I think you appreciate it a lot more because when you're younger you just don't need to have to work as hard at it to be exempt. I think your talent level is higher. When you get a little bit older it's a little bit tougher to maintain it.

Q. I can imagine you have friends in the letter-writing business right now, and it's not easy getting sponsors' exemptions right now.
STEVE LOWERY: No, it isn't. I think I wrote -- I had been exempt for I don't know how many years, 15 years in a row, and got injured and wrote letters to everybody. I think I got one positive letter that said we're going to put you in the tournament. So you kind of accept that and you kind of get squirrelly against the wall, your back is squirrelly against the wall, and I think you realize that the only way out of this is to go out and play, go out and play really good golf.
I think you see that a lot of guys in the Fall Finish played well enough to get exempt again. I think guys get far enough against the wall, you've got to come out and play.

Q. Did you have situations after winning here and obviously being exempt that you had written to letters to places in the future and obviously didn't need the exemptions anymore? Did any of the tournament directors come up to you and say, hey, we were thinking about it or here's why we wouldn't have or any of that kind of stuff?
STEVE LOWERY: Yeah, and I think -- Gerald Goodman in Tampa told me right off the bat that he was going to give me an exemption there, but everybody else was like, okay, you're on a short list, or no, or whatever. I had kind of the mindset of -- I was in that medical deal so I had so many tournaments in order to keep my exemption, so I was focused on that. I had to win I think it was $300,000 or something like that. But the problem is you get in here at Pebble and then you might not get in again until New Orleans, you might get into Mexico; you don't know where you're going to play. So making a schedule, you have no idea where you're going to play. You just have to play as hard as you can when you have that opportunity.

Q. You took care of business early, though?
STEVE LOWERY: Yeah, absolutely.
MARK STEVENS: Thanks a lot, Steve.

End of FastScripts

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