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THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT

June 5, 2009

Chris DiMarco

DUBLIN, OHIO

Q. What is it about this place? You seem to like it.
CHRIS DiMARCO: You know, I think it's the greens. I think the faster, the better. Usually for me.
I've always had a really good imagination. Here you've got to play a lot of break. You can have eight, ten footers and playing two, three, four feet of break. Your speed's got to be real good. I've always felt like I'm more of a speed putter rather than a banger inner.
Today I hit it where I was aiming. That always helps. Especially how severe these iron shots are under a lot of these greens. I was able to put it where I wanted to go. That always helps too.

Q. Augusta-like? Not Augusta obviously?
CHRIS DiMARCO: Speed-wise, I think it's right there. Augusta may be a little more undulating in spots. These are a little more subtle. You get some of these pins, on 18 yesterday for instance, that really is extremely fast. 9 yesterday.
You can get in some spots, 17 today, there's just a lot of really hard putting out there. And, you know, you want to keep below the hole, and it's really hard to just put yourself in position to stay below the hole. I think that's what makes this place a little tougher.

Q. Is it even more important here than other tournaments to be in the right place?
CHRIS DiMARCO: When the greens get this fast, absolutely. We talked about it all day. You'd rather have a ten footer from low than a four or five footer over the hole. You know you can be aggressive with a ten footer. You get behind the hole at any point, and it's a defensive putt. You don't see too many guys banging them in from five, six feet behind the hole. Last name isn't Woods.

Q. There are guys like Tiger who came up and said he drove the ball well and didn't put it in the right place.
CHRIS DiMARCO: It's hard. I had two great shots on the number 7, par 5, and hit it right in the front part of the green. Both guys missed the green, and they both made birdie and I three-putted, put it 12 feet by. You have to be really careful. You're trying to leave yourself five, six feet downhill. You'd rather not leave it by the hole and have the ten footer coming back.
Really with the greens undulating, and the last few holes they really got dry. It's going to be tough for these guys this afternoon. I'm going to enjoy watching them on TV.

Q. Does that affect you, as you're standing there on the fairway getting ready to hit into the green, knowing all that? Does that affect your thinking?
CHRIS DiMARCO: I kind of take the same mindset that I do at Augusta here. I'm not aiming for pins. There's a lot of slopes out here that will get the ball to the pin. You basically play maybe to miss -- not necessarily a miss. Like 18 I aimed a little right and make sure I got a little past because I knew the ball would roll back. They tend to roll back to the pin on certain spots.
That's pretty much what you want to do. Put the ball on the green somewhere, give yourself a slope, a chance to bring it back if you don't hit it where you want to hit it. Like I said, if you do hit it 30 feet, two-putt and get out of there.

Q. Given this, your round today is as good as it got.
CHRIS DiMARCO: This is probably the most flawless ball striking round that I've had in a long time. Think I made one five-footer for par. It was nice to go bogey-free around here. It was nice to shoot 67 around here. Means you're hitting the ball well. I'm looking forward to the next few days.

Q. Is that common? It's the best ball striking you've made in a long time.
CHRIS DiMARCO: I've been close. I've made a lot of cuts this year. 12 of 15 this year. The more you put yourself in a position, you get in a good rhythm. When you're making cuts, you play Thursday through Sunday and take Monday off and you get back in your routine. If you're missing cuts, it's hard to get back in the routine. I'm getting in a good rhythm, where, obviously, I'm looking forward to a few weeks coming up.
I've got a Monday qualifying here for the U.S. Open, so this carries over to that. Around here, you've got 36 more grueling holes around this place. I'm just looking forward to playing two good rounds.

Q. It's a long time this year or go back farther than that?
CHRIS DiMARCO: It's probably as good as it's been in probably, battling injury all last year with the shoulder, coming back from surgery, I would say this is the best my shoulder's felt and probably the best my swing's felt. It was just nice to go out there and swing nice.

End of FastScripts

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