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ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL PRESENTED BY MASTERCARD

March 26, 2009

Tim Herron

ORLANDO, FLORIDA

MARK STEVENS: We'd like to welcome Tim Herron to the interview room. Tim shot a 4-under today and is currently leading the field at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. If you'd just start off by giving some general comments about your round and your thoughts from here.
TIM HERRON: Well, it felt like I drove it pretty well. I hit it in the rough a few times but caught some decent lies. The way the wind was, it kind of helped the golf course. I mean, I guess it didn't play as difficult as I thought it would probably play.
I thought the TOUR staff did a great job of setting up the golf course and letting us play and willing to hit some good shots. Like 2 they moved way up where you could get somewhere in the vicinity of that golf hole.

Q. You won this event in 1999 in a playoff with Tom Lehman. Are you able to draw on that experience each and every year and in particular when you won?
TIM HERRON: Yeah, hopefully it gives you some good positive feedback, winning. You can always draw on something positive that you've done instead of something negative. Yeah, the golf course is a little different than back in '99, but all in all, the routing and the holes and everything are the same, and the breaks are pretty much the same, even though he resurfaced the greens. This is the best I've ever seen the golf course look, and it was fun to play today for me.

Q. Is there something about this course that suits your game particularly well?
TIM HERRON: Well, I know I can play it well if I'm playing well. It's one of those golf courses where if you're just off a little bit, this golf course can eat your lunch. You have to be smart at times and be aggressive at times, and that's probably the hardest thing for a pro is to figure out when to be aggressive and when not to.

Q. Sometimes golfers will say I shot 68, could have been 64; I shot 68, I don't know how I did it. Elaborate on that if you would or comment on that.
TIM HERRON: Oh, the bogey that I made on 16, I drove it in the fairway. What I've been struggling with this year is probably my iron shots, and that's what I'm usually pretty good at. If I can get it in the fairway, I'm a pretty good iron player. I actually hit a bad iron shot there, which was too bad. It was a perfect number. Anyways, made bogey there.
8, I hit my first flare drive to the right and missed the fairway by that much and had to chip out. Those are kind of the bogeys, shoulda, woulda, coulda, but I putted well and had a really good line today.

Q. What was the yardage and the club at 16?
TIM HERRON: I had 205, I think, to the hole, and I hit 3-iron and pulled it actually left of the bunker. I knew if I hit it just solid it was going to carry everything, and just stayed aggressive and just pulled it a little bit. I think my tendency is to flare to the right a little bit.

Q. Where was your game entering this week? You mentioned your iron play, that you wanted to improve that a little bit. But how did you feel coming into today?
TIM HERRON: Well, compared to the last few years I feel more ready. I'd say mechanically and everything, I feel like I'm hitting it well, I'm putting well, I'm chipping it well, my bunker play is always pretty good. Now it's just time to get some confidence and try to talk myself into being where I feel like I'm supposed to be at. That's the hardest part.

Q. To what do you attribute maybe the improvement this year?
TIM HERRON: I've been working closer with a coach, where I stay on track with what I'm trying to do, instead of if you don't have eyes outside of what you're doing, you wonder am I taking the club back a little too inside, a little outside. You don't really know exactly what you're doing. If you have eyes there it's easier for you to stay on track.

Q. Can you elaborate a little bit on you saying the wind is actually helping the course?
TIM HERRON: Well, I wouldn't say it's helping the course. It's an easier wind than having 18 into the wind. 18 was kind of down from the right. That's what I meant. 1 and 10 are kind of down from the right. 3 would be a very difficult shot if it was in off the left, but it was kind of right to left.
And 4 now is a par -- I guess you can kind of go back and forth because 16 was into the wind. But 4 is downwind to where if that was into the wind you probably couldn't even get to that hole.

Q. It's a mix of helping and hurting then?
TIM HERRON: Yeah, I've played that wind before so I kind of know how the golf course is set up playing that way. But then 8 and 9 are into the wind, so I don't know what I was -- just disregard my first comment (laughter).

Q. Can you tell us a little bit more about who your coach is and what other things you've been working on?
TIM HERRON: My coach is Mark McCann. He's from South Africa and he pretty much kind of follows the TOUR with me. I asked him last year to help me with my putting here, and when I won Colonial in '06 or '07, he helped me with a tip putting and then I never really went back to him.
That's always been my downfall is my putting. I feel like I'm putting good, and that's kind of what we work on. He's from South Africa, he lives here in Orlando, and his mom was golf director at Disney World.

Q. She was or is?
TIM HERRON: I think she was. Now she's just a teaching pro.

Q. Spelling of his last name?
TIM HERRON: M-c C-a-n-n.

Q. Looking through your entry in the media guide before you got here there was one item listed in your amateur record that you beat Tiger in the second round of the '92 U.S. Amateur. What do you remember about that particular day?
TIM HERRON: I remember he was like 12 years old and up to my shoulder (laughter). Not much. He was probably a little more -- he was just learning the game. He was like 15 or 16 years old. You saw the potential there, and I think he's probably -- if you ask him about that day, not about the golf and stuff, he'd probably say I became a better golfer than I ever probably thought -- you knew the potential was there, but his mind, how he made his mind so great to play this game is just unfathomable, I guess.
MARK STEVENS: We'd like to thank Tim for coming in. Good luck the rest of the week.

End of FastScripts

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