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LIBERTY MUTUAL LEGENDS OF GOLF

April 25, 2009

SAVANNAH, GEORGIA

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Loren Roberts, Mark Wiebe, 61 today, 11-under, including 29 on the Back 9. Maybe Mark, if you can just get us started, talk a little bit about your day and we'll get Loren and we'll get some questions.
MARK WIEBE: Okay. I felt good again. We hit balls next to each other on the range, and you know, watching Loren's rhythm to his swing helps me out. I think we both have similar games. We had a nice dinner last night.
LOREN ROBERTS: Had some wine.
MARK WIEBE: I probably had a bit more wine than Loren. We got off to a good start. Loren hit it in there close on No. 1. I thought our attitudes were great today. We just kept pushing forward, and we weren't happy -- I mean we were happy, but we weren't content. We just kept moving, and my caddie kept saying, "keep your foot on the gas," and I said, don't worry about it. In this format, you've got to go.
I feel like I'm a pretty good putter, and my partner is one of the best putters that I know of. So again, I'm feeding off that with my game.
And I thought we had good order. I've been leading us off, and trying to kind of start the hole off getting it in the fairway, and gosh, Loren played great again today. Like I said, the rhythm of his swing is contagious, and I just want to catch it.
So I just felt like we had good mindset, and I felt like we both thought that we left some out there today, too. So I thought we ham-and-egged it better today than yesterday. We double birdied some holes yesterday, and today we were better at sharing.
LOREN ROBERTS: Yeah. I think Mark hit right on on the front nine. We birdied the first hole and we kind of just treaded water for a little bit. We had some looks at birdies that we didn't get. We were patient, but a little impatient at the same time. We wanted to keep pushing it.
We turned the front nine at 4-under and probably felt like we were maybe just a shot behind the rest of the field, but Mark had a great stretch through the Back 9. He went birdie-eagle, so that kind of sets up the Back 9.
You get off to a really good start at those two holes sets up the Back 9. We made some good putts. We ham-and-egged it on the Back 9, and I think the real key to our round today was the finish we had. Mark made a really nice 25-footer for birdie at 17, and I made about a 30-footer for birdie at 18. That's kind of how our day went, ham-and-egg. We just stepped up at the right time, and the finish was the key for us today.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: If we could back up, the eagle at No. 11, what was the shot sequence on that?
MARK WIEBE: I had a really nice drive. I had 250-ish to the hole, and that hole is kind of interesting because Loren's ball just caught the right rough, and once he hit his second shot and cleared those cross bunkers about 30 yards short of the green, it gave me the green light.
And I hit a beautiful, I hit as soft a 3-wood as I could hit and cut it and did everything I could and hit it about 25 or 30 feet, I guess. And then Loren's ball was on the green and he putted it down there to four or five feet where I felt he's going to make birdie again just gave me the green light to go for it.
And I read one right. We've been talking, I've had some go the wrong direction or I'm reading it the wrong direction, but anyway, that was a nice putt and I really did get it going.

Q. How many feet was it?
MARK WIEBE: I'm going to say 25 or 30 feet. I was exactly pin high, which we were tickled to see. And I had a pretty easy putt, actually.

Q. What did you hit?
MARK WIEBE: I hit a 3-wood.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: Folks, again, if you have a question, we're getting a recording, so just put your hand up and we'll get the mic to you. Thanks.

Q. You said you were feeling good again. Could you kind of expand on why you were feeling bad?
MARK WIEBE: Well, I really -- I feel like I'm a pretty good putter, and I've had some putts that I think are going to go left-to-right and they actually go right-to-left, and it throws confusion into our system here. And gees, I had Loren read some putts for me yesterday and some today, and vice versa, and I just want to have the direction down.
So when I had a couple putts that I actually read to go the right direction, that made me feel a lot more confident with my -- not only with my putting, with my reads. You know, you gotta read the putt correctly or you're barking up the wrong tree anyway. So that put me into a better feel.

Q. I know I asked this outside at the scoring tent, but I'll ask again for everybody here. What was the difference between yesterday's good round and today's great round?
LOREN ROBERTS: We didn't double each other up, really. We just went along, and you know, if one guy made a par, the other guy made a birdie. You know, we didn't really double up on birdies. The only hole really was the 11th hole. I had a two-putt birdie and Mark rolled it in for Eagle, so the rest of the time we just ham-and-egged it really good.
MARK WIEBE: Yeah. Exactly. I thought we really shared today, and I thought, you know, that's key in a best-ball match. You know, you can go out and if we both make seven birdies each, but we do it on the same holes, we're not going to go very far, so today was very good with -- you know, and we never knew. We finished that way. I birdied 17 and Loren birdied 18. There you go. That's a great example of we had a fantastic finish, I felt, so we each contributed. So it's good for the morale, I think, heading into tomorrow, and yeah.

Q. You guys said you left some out there. Could you elaborate on some holes maybe you think you left them at?
LOREN ROBERTS: That stinking little 14 hole. We had a fight for par the last two days on that short little thing that you think you can drive it on the front edge there.
MARK WIEBE: We didn't even have a birdie putt today. We were both chipping or pitching, and yesterday we were, you know, 35 feet and 40 feet.
LOREN ROBERTS: Yeah.
MARK WIEBE: You know, it's a hole that we should munch. I feel like we both hit the ball fairly straight and I think we're both pretty good players.
LOREN ROBERTS: Yeah. We haven't hit the green-in-regulation yet on that little hole and it's 301 yards to the front edge.
MARK WIEBE: So we have a goal tomorrow. You can probably guess what that is.

Q. You guys were talking about you'll make a birdie and then you'll make a birdie, ham-and-egging, I guess is the phrase. How frustrating is it, though, when you maybe feel like you're not doing your share of the work?
LOREN ROBERTS: I'll answer that because Mark just played beautifully today. He got that great stretch run going on the back side, and you know, I was feeling, especially the 14th hole, I drove it in the first cut there and still couldn't get it on the green. And I was feeling a little bit, you know, gosh, I'm not kicking in here. And then we had a prime example, the next hole, 15, I hit a good 8-iron about four feet from the hole. Mark was about 10 or 12 feet under the hole.
We made a good decision team-wise there. Mark said, do you want to go putt this? I said, yeah. I had one in there short, so I go in there and knock it in. Now I knock the easy birdie in makes me feel like I'm part of the team, and then for me to knock the one in on 18, that was another. Yeah. Right. It was just a little thing like that can keep the chemistry going.
MARK WIEBE: You know, it was cool because that was so not premeditated. Neither one of us talked about doing that at all, but it just was a great time to have Loren step up and make his putt. I mean I have all the confidence in the world that he's going to make it, and if by chance something happened, I'm still putting for birdie, but it got our flow back again.
And you know, I think what happens in a format like this, I got the hot hand for a while, and since I was making putts, it almost took Loren out of his flow and rhythm to the round. And you know, you don't feel left out. You're happy.
I mean I'm loving it when he's making putts, but it also takes any rhythm away that you have for your own game. So it's nice that we had that back-and-forth thing today because I think we both, especially at the end, that move on that par-3, I think, was good.
LOREN ROBERTS: It was a good finish to the round.
MARK WIEBE: It was key because we got that one and then 17 and 18. So it kind of got us both back into our flow and if we could continue, it would be fantastic just to see.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: Everyone set? Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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