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AT&T PEBBLE BEACH NATIONAL PRO-AM

February 12, 2009

Dustin Johnson

PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA

MARK STEVENS: We'd like to welcome Dustin Johnson to the media center. Dustin shot a 7-under today at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. If you'd start off and just kind of talk about your round today and then we'll take some questions.
DUSTIN JOHNSON: All right. Well, I started on 1. I holed it out of the fairway, which was nice, got off to a good start.

Q. How far was that?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: 151.
Then I birdied 5 and 6. I hit it in the hazard off the tee on 6 and dropped it and had like 240, and I hit it to like four feet and made it. So that was another pretty good one.
And then I birdied -- I don't know. I can't remember. I didn't birdie 2. I eagled 1, birdied 5 and 6, and then just made -- hit it close on the rest of the holes, made a bunch of pars and then birdied 12, 14 and 16. I mean, a very solid day. I never really was in trouble. I had a bunch of chances to make birdies, missed some putts but overall played very solid.

Q. Did you play here last year?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Yeah, I played well here last year. I enjoy being here, enjoy the tournament, the atmosphere. It's a great amateur tournament. My partner is a really nice guy. I enjoy playing with him. So it was fun.

Q. Between you and Garrigus, big boppers at the top of the leaderboard.
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Yeah, it is. Garrigus is a good buddy, a great player. He hits it a long way, too.

Q. Longer than you?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: I don't know. I've never played with him.

Q. Is there a competition among those kind of -- you guys in terms of length and who's at the top of the charts there?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: I mean, not really for me. Obviously I like hitting it far, but I like hitting it in the fairway. We're trying to get it in the fairway more. I drove it okay today. But yeah, I mean, J.B. and Bubba and Garrigus are probably the longest three, and then Gary Woodland. I hit it about as far as they do.

Q. Are you surprised at all there's so many numbers between 5- and 7-under?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Not really because the wind didn't blow today. Obviously this course is all wind dependent. If the wind doesn't blow it's going to play fairly easy. But with the wind not blowing very hard, it's nice.

Q. They're talking about the bad weather coming in tomorrow for the weekend. Is it an advantage to have played Pebble where the weather can really hit on a nice day?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Yeah, it's definitely nice playing Pebble when it's nice. But what I hear is the wind is not supposed to blow. If it's raining, it's not really going to affect it that much. It's all wind dependent.

Q. Which course, if there is any, or is one course more than another affected by weather on these tracks?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: I mean, I haven't played here enough, but I know Pebble is affected by weather a lot, and then obviously Spyglass is, too. Poppy, it's kind of in the trees so the wind doesn't really -- it swirls there, but it doesn't blow as hard.

Q. How have you been playing this year?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: I had a good -- I played good on the weekend last week at the Buick, so I was feeling good. I've been playing well the last week or so. And then I played well at the beginning of the year at Maui. So I've been fairly confident. I struggled a little bit at the Hope and the FBR, but worked on my game a little bit with my coach and got everything back feeling good. I'm excited about the rest of the week.

Q. Was there anything specific in your game?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: No, I mean, not really, just a little tune-up in posture and setup. That's about it.

Q. Robert when he was in just a little bit ago said his front side was about two and a half hours, back side was about three and a half hours, so you got some lag time in there. Were you doing anything during the downtime?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Well, I got a good group. I've got DJ Trahan and then Joe Rice is my partner, and then his partner, all good guys. We just kind of hung around and talked a bunch, tried to kill some time, because it gets pretty slow out there. We played the front side fairly quick, and then the back side took a long time.

Q. Can you talk about that first hole when you holed it on the second shot? I mean, what that kind of does for a round when you kind of get that unexpected --
DUSTIN JOHNSON: You know, it's always fun to make shots. I hit a 9-iron from 151, and it looked good the whole way. Obviously you don't expect them to go in. I knew when I hit it, though, it was going to be fairly close. You know, I hit it, and it landed just behind the hole and it spun back and went in. But I knew it had a chance. The guys behind the green were screaming, "go in, go in," and then it went in. It was nice. It gets the round started off good. You're in a good mood, so it helps a lot.

Q. Have you ever done that on the first hole like that?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Not on the first hole, no. Well, not since I've been on TOUR. I've holed it a couple times out here, but never on the first.

Q. When you look at the leaderboard and you see that Garrigus played Spyglass, which is obviously a tougher course, is that something that you know in the back of your mind that, okay, he's got that one out of the way and you still have that one to play, or you can't worry about those things?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: No, I don't worry about it. You can't control what other people do. You can only control what you do. I like Spyglass. I think it sets up well for me, so I'm looking forward to playing it in the morning.
MARK STEVENS: Thanks a lot, Dustin.

End of FastScripts

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