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TRAVELERS CHAMPIONSHIP

June 27, 2009

Paul Goydos

CROMWELL, CONNECTICUT

DOUG MILNE: We'd like to welcome Paul Goydos to the interview room. Paul shot a 63 today and currently has the lead by one stroke over Kenny Perry. Paul, if you'll just start off, give us some general comments about your round today and then we'll take some questions.
PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah. Good day. It was very similar to Thursday. I scored well. It's kind of an esoteric term. And just kind of took advantage of the good breaks I got today and survived the mistakes.
And you know, that's really what's been good the last couple of months is that I'm taking full advantage of every good thing that happens, and today was another day of that.
I made two birdies early -- not early, 2 and 7. I was just trying to get them up there close. One was a 25-footer up the hill and one was off the back fringe on 7, maybe 20 feet, and just kind of get them around there, if they go in, great, and they both went. Those are good things. They were good putts. There was no question when they were rolling toward the hole they were going to go in. But still, the mindset was par is fine.
Made a bogey on 8. You're going to make bogeys every once in a while. Didn't play the hole that bad. Just didn't really work. But again, followed up the bogey with a birdie on nine. Made a good putt there. And those are the things that kind of keep your round going.
Made a good par at 10 to keep the round going, and then I sort of settled down with some good shots. Hit close on 11, made a good little pitch shot on 13, good shot on 14, okay pitch shot and good putt on 15, and then circus putt on 16 to kind of, again, turn. And those are the things that turn the difference between maybe shooting 68 today and 63. And those are the little things I was able to do.

Q. (Inaudible question).
PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah. That was really the decision. With all the rain it's wet. It seemed like the safest idea, and so looking at it, my goal was to try to stop the ball between the fringe and the hole. I figured if I could hit it 10 feet -- it felt like if I hit it too hard, I could almost putt it off the front of the green. There's so much slope there.
And quite frankly, at the last minute walking into it, I said looks like it's going to go a little right. So just make sure you hit a little left. And it went a little right and got on the green. It looked like it was going to be short, but then it really rolled out well once it got on the green. I don't think it would have gone that much far by. Just kind of trickled in the center of the hole, and the only thing missing was maybe the Harlem Globe Trotters soundtrack.

Q. (Inaudible question).
PAUL GOYDOS: No. We were trying to guess the wind. I didn't hit the shot the way I -- exactly how I wanted to, to be perfectly honest with you, and it flew farther than I expected. But having said that, I wasn't 100 percent sure what the wind was doing.
But my ball landed four feet past the hole. I mean if I hit the ball two yards shorter, it probably stays on the green. Probably make three, but it probably stays on the green. But it is what it is. I didn't make a horrible swing and didn't hit it right over the top of the flag stick. Just didn't work out.
Again, what people don't realize or at least people that have only been here this week is that this golf course's defense is the wind, and 16 is a great example of that. It's a very hard hole to figure out what the wind is doing there.
And we finally got -- it wasn't a lot of wind, but it might have been blowing six or seven or eight miles an hour. Seemed like 20. We had blown a breath the whole week, and it does make this golf course a little more difficult even though the greens are still soft.

Q. You and Kenny and David are at the top of the leaderboard. There's a lot of experience. Is that going to affect --
PAUL GOYDOS: They have a lot of experience winning. I have a lot of experience playing. I played with Kenny last round of the Players last year.
I just gotta go out and play. If Kenny or David or anybody else goes out and shoots 59 or something, there's not a whole lot I can do about that except try to shoot 59 myself.
But I'm happy with the way I'm playing. I'm going to go out and play the best I can, and I think you need to make sure you enjoy it and make sure, if nothing else, learn from it. I'm going to go out and do the best I can and figure out what I can do and see what happens.
It's a golf course, too -- I mentioned this early in the week. It's been a little wet, so it hasn't been the case as much, but you can be five shots behind, standing on the 15th tee and still win this tournament. You can go two, two, three, three. I'm not saying it's ever happened, but it definitely is a possibility. So no matter what happens tomorrow, you'll probably still be in it standing on the 15th tee, at least hopefully.

Q. Anything you sort of gathered in the last two experiences playing in the last group?
PAUL GOYDOS: You know, you're the last people to finish. So you know where you finished right when you get done. You don't have to worry about waiting around.
But I look at where I played in the last group with the lead at Texas and at the Players. And Players, I played great. Just didn't happen. Sergio played better. In my opinion. Maybe that's a little bit egotistical.
And then at Valero for 70 holes I was very happy with the way things were going. I just kind of made a mess of the last two holes. Why I did that, I thought they were fixable errors. I didn't hit good shots when I needed to hit good shots, and those things happen. I think they happen more often when you're not as comfortable in a situation, quite frankly. And I definitely got a little bit out of probably where I wanted to be where I was on 16 green than where I was on maybe on 17 green and the second shot on 18. So you learn from that and you move on.
If I didn't learn anything from -- if you didn't learn from losing -- I mean that's where all the lessons come from.
I'm sure Tiger's the dumbest guy around. He never loses.
You learn from losing. You learn from your mistakes. Kids are in school and they take a test, and if they get 100 percent on every test, then they shouldn't be in the class. They should be in something harder. You learn from your mistakes and figure out why you made the mistakes and you move on. And like I said, over 17 years I've made plenty of mistakes.

Q. Paul, will you look at the scores tomorrow or will you just worry about your own game tonight?
PAUL GOYDOS: I look at leaderboards. It's part of the fun. I'm not going to sit out there and try to ignore what I'm doing. I think that -- I enjoy what I do. I enjoy the competition. I want to know what's going on, especially on this golf course. I think it's good to know.
And again, I think that's part of the enjoyment of what I do. I want to know. The good thing is it's all going to be in front of me. I get to see what's going on, and I'm sure somebody -- there's a hundred guys it looks like can go in there and got a chance to win probably. So good rounds are out there and we'll see what happens.
Hopefully the weather will hold. I guess the forecast is pretty good. We're playing twosomes. So they must be thinking something good's happening.
DOUG MILNE: Any other questions? Okay. Paul, if you could, real quick go through your birdies there.
PAUL GOYDOS: No. 2, I hit a good little 3-wood and sand wedge about 25 feet behind the hole, and again, just tried to line it up there and it fell in.
7, I actually -- 7 is the only hole this week so far where I've driven the ball in the rough. I've driven bunkers and short cuts, but this is actually in the high rough where I had to make a swing. And I hit 4-iron out of the rough and knocked it on the back on the green and made birdie, which was kind of funny. I missed the fairway and finally made birdie.
8, I three-putted. Probably could have hit 3-iron off the tee, but I hit 4-iron. As that hole gets deeper it gets narrower, and I hit the 4-iron in the middle of the green and it was not quite correct. Hit about a 50-footer, which I three-putted. Those things happen.
Nine, I hit a good driver, 8-iron about 12 feet, made birdie. Hit good par on 10. 11 I hit 7-iron, probably six feet, made birdie. 13, par-5, the greens are soft but I didn't have a full shot. I drove it good and I couldn't get it over the water in two. But I played pretty aggressively. I hit a rescue down the right side to leave myself a shot. That wasn't going to be with tons of spin. I had like 50 yards, hit it about five, six feet from the hole. I thought if I laid it back there, I'd have a tough time getting to a back pin with a soft green.
14, I actually had my foot slip on my tee shoot. I don't know if they got that on the TV or not, but I almost fell down. But I hit it out there farther than the other two guys. Down the left side, and I hit a 9-iron, I don't know probably 10 or 12 feet, made that.
15, I hit a perfect tee shot for me. I can't get there. And I've got it slightly on the up slope, left of the pin. Got some green to work with.
Didn't hit a great chip and got, I don't know, maybe eight feet and made that. And then 16, you know, that disaster. And 17, I drove it out there and I was looking at my lie and didn't like it and I was sitting down and couldn't figure it out, and they called it. So I marked my ball and I go in. And my ball was sitting in -- I don't know what they are -- these moles, big worms. I don't know what they are, and it was sitting in one of those. And I really didn't like the lie, and when I went out and warmed up, I hit all my 6-irons, which is what I figured I had to hit out of the divot, so I didn't hit it off the grass. And I still hit it thin, barely got it over the water, but I got it up-and-down. And actually played 18 pretty good.
DOUG MILNE: Okay. Thank you very much, Paul. Good luck tomorrow.

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