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ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL PRESENTED BY MASTERCARDMarch 27, 2009Jason GoreORLANDO, FLORIDA JOHN BUSH: We'd like to welcome our clubhouse leader at 5-under par, Jason Gore. Quite a roller coaster ride out there for you today. If we could just get some comments on your round. JASON GORE: It was a roller coaster. No, I played hard and I didn't necessarily play great, but I just kept it in front of me, just kept playing hard and tried to focus on every shot. I know that's extremely cliché and boring, but that's kind of what it was. Bogeys are there to be made out there. The golf course is playing tough. So I just tried to keep moving forward and just focus on the shot at hand. JOHN BUSH: And a nice birdie on 18 to close off the round. Just take us through that hole. JASON GORE: Yeah, I hit a really good 3-wood down there and had 137, just was a little downwind and just hit a little pitching wedge and hit a good shot and curled one in there, putt broke a little bit more, but thank God I had a gold glove winning hole there and it just kind of grabbed it and pulled it down. Q. How far was that? JASON GORE: Eight feet, nine feet, something like that. Q. You just mentioned that the course is playing tough. What exactly are you seeing out there that's keeping the scores so low? JASON GORE: That's making the scores so low? Q. Excuse me, so high. JASON GORE: You know, the wind is tricky and there's no giving up on any of these holes. The pin placements are tough, the greens are getting firm, and the rough is obviously not getting any shorter. So you really have to drive the ball well, put yourself in position and then go from there. I mean, a lot of the holes that you have wedges into are into the wind, so they're kind of hitting and spinning back, and the pins are back. It's difficult to hit shots close; especially the one reachable par-5, No. 12, the pin is right in front. So now you have this four-foot gap to hit it in between or four-yard gap to try to stop it or get it close, and if it lands on the green it's rolling all the way to the back. It's just a very strategic golf course right now and you just have to take your lumps and hopefully lump it back when you get your chance. Q. Do you have an example of what you mentioned about tricky wind, having to knock something down, shoot it out? JASON GORE: Yeah, 17 I thought I hit a really good shot in there. I kind of pushed it a little bit, but I hit it solid, and it looked like my ball just got knocked out of the air. You know, when we were walking up there, you could actually feel the wind turning back into you. Granted, I was aiming 12, 15 feet left of the pin there, but I hit it right at it, and it came down short in the bunker and then kind of got stuck under the lip. But if that ball lands two more yards I'd probably hit it pretty close. Q. What did you hit there? JASON GORE: I hit 6, and it was 213 or something like that. Q. Were you posing? JASON GORE: I was praying, but it looked like a pose probably. Q. How is it to be in a position where you have a chance to win a golf tournament? How do you feel about that? Are you going to change anything going into tomorrow or do the same stuff? JASON GORE: No, I'm going to do the same stuff. The good news is it's been a long time, but I've been there before, and you know, I'm such a streaky player that I'm just crazy enough or stupid enough or stubborn enough or whatever you want to call it to go out and play well this weekend. I'm just going to do the same thing and stay focused and know that this golf course is playing pretty difficult and just focus on what I'm doing and keep moving forward. I mean, like I said ten times, bogeys are there to be made and there's also birdies. The greens are rolling perfect, so you just have to be patient and do what you have to do when you have the opportunity. Q. Last seen you were close to death or not finishing at Torrey Pines with your back and so forth. How did that sort itself out? JASON GORE: I had a pinched nerve in my rib cage. My chiropractor, God love him, drove down from Valencia at night and couldn't get anything to happen. I mean, it was so tight and locked up. But somehow made it through, and then went one day and got a massage and went over to see him immediately, and it sounded like snap, crackle, pop. Ever since then it's been fine. I had something stuck back there. Q. You were good to go the next week? JASON GORE: Yeah, it took probably a week and a half to get over. If I was a little younger it probably would have taken two days. Q. That had to have been a huge relief. JASON GORE: Yeah, I knew nothing was -- I was more hurt than I was injured, so I just knew something back there was ticked off at me and I just had to get it knocked back into place and got the guy with magic hands back home. It was just one of those things that I couldn't do anything. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to swing, it hurt to walk. But I got good care. Q. How much more interesting is it to be up there when you've got Tiger and Harrington right there on the leaderboard, also? Does that make it more fun for you or does it change anything for you? JASON GORE: Why wouldn't it be fun? This is why we do it. This is why we spend countless hours on the practice tee and putting green and chipping green, to get in this position. This is fun. I mean, who the hell am I? I've got nothing to do but move up, so I'm just going to stay right there and be patient and see what I come up with at the end. Q. Does it help you that it's a golf course that you know pretty much nobody is going to go shoot 64 out there, that things are going to be a couple under or a couple over, that it's not like there's going to be someone that's going to run away? Does that help you being at the top of the leaderboard? JASON GORE: Absolutely. I played well yesterday and shot 65, so it's out there. I mean, somebody is going to get hot and shoot it, that's just the way it goes. Yeah, it's difficult to do. You just have to keep plugging along. You know that there's only going to be a few random guys that shoot it, you just hope that they're barely making the cut (laughter). JOHN BUSH: Jason, can I get you to take us through your card if you can. JASON GORE: No. 7, I hit 7-iron in there and just pulled it and was on the walking part where everybody walks off the green and kind of got a squirrelly lie and I just made sure that I didn't have the same shot twice, so I kind of gave it a little extra hoping it would come out soft, and it just came out a little fast and hit it to about 12, 15 feet or something like that and missed the putt. 12, I thought I hit a really good drive down there. The wind kind of caught it and took it left, went into the rough, and Heath Slocum, my playing partner, was right behind me and he had a pretty good lie and knocked it on the green, and I walked up and looked at mine and it was buried in an old divot. Rather than just going and throwing one in the water there, I laid it up and to the right and hit lob wedge and thought I hit a pretty good shot, it just spun back a little bit, and two-putted for a bogey. And then 11, I hit a good drive, hit 4-iron just short of the green in that little four-yard fairway and chipped it up to about three feet and made that. 13, hit a driver off the tee, hit the all the way down almost out of the fairway and hit a little sand wedge, landed about two yards behind the hole and spun back. That was one of the ones I was talking about being back into the wind, and I ended up making about a 20-footer there for birdie. 14, I pulled a 6-iron into the left bunker, hit a great bunker shot out to about three and a half, four feet and just completely shoved it. 15, I hit driver just down the left side in the first cut of rough and hit a great little knock-down 9-iron, landed about three or four yards short of the hole and ran about eight feet by, made that. And then I've gone through the bogey on 17. JOHN BUSH: Jason, play well this weekend. End of FastScripts |
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