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AT&T NATIONAL

June 30, 2009

Anthony Kim

BETHESDA, MARYLAND

DOUG MILNE: Okay. We'd like to welcome the defending champion of the AT&T National, Anthony Kim. Anthony, thanks for joining us for a few minutes. Pretty good year. I was with you last week and you commented on kind of the difference you feel not necessarily specifics about your game, but do you feel stronger. You were coming off T11, I believe, at the Travelers Championship last week. Just talk a little about that and expand on your strength and well-being as you head into the week to defend here.
ANTHONY KIM: I'm definitely feeling pretty healthy coming in, as healthy as I've felt all year. It's been progressively getting better from the U.S. Open on, and last week had a pretty solid week, even though I didn't finish the way I wanted to. Showed a lot of promise, and looking forward to having a chance to defend this week and have some fun.
DOUG MILNE: We'll go ahead and open it up for some questions.

Q. How much has your life changed since you won here last year would you say?
ANTHONY KIM: That's a hard question to answer. Hopefully my life hadn't changed too much, but it's definitely elevated my confidence. It's elevated me in the eyes of my peers, I think, the fact that I won on a great golf course, and with a pretty solid field, so in that way, it's changed, but other than that, I'm still going about my business the same way and hopefully I'll have a chance this weekend.

Q. What are some of the pressures that came with having the success of last year and do you think that you've kind of gotten over a little bit of dealing with those pressures now?
ANTHONY KIM: There really wasn't any pressure. I just turned 24 a week ago, or ten days ago. I have no pressure from anybody. I want to play great golf. I want to win golf tournaments. I'm here to do that, but at the same time, I have so much to look forward to.
I heard you don't hit your peak at golf until 31, 33 years old, so I have a long way to go. I have a long career ahead of me, and as long as I stay positive and keep working hard, I should be in pretty good shape.

Q. Would you like to eventually down the road be as famous as Tiger woods or do you see the down side with losing all privacy, basically?
ANTHONY KIM: You know, there's obviously one Tiger Woods. You know, he's, in my mind, the greatest player that's ever played the game, and that's no disrespect to Jack Nicklaus, but in my generation, he is, and that's part of the reason I really wanted to play professional golf. He made golf okay to play.
Basketball and football were the sports you wanted to play, but he made golf cool, and all the fist pumping and the yelling and the people getting excited, that was part of the reason I wanted to be a professional golfer, so I'm not worried about what Tiger is doing and how famous he is.
It's amazing how he handles is. I can't imagine being in his shoes, but I'm happy with how I'm going about my business. I know the better I play, the more famous I'll get, and you know, I'll take it as it comes. I feel lucky to be in the position I am now, and hopefully I can keep improving and we'll see what happens.

Q. What's the greatest thing that's happened to you this year?
ANTHONY KIM: I made it to my 24th birthday.
Everything. I've learned so much about myself this year. It's probably been my toughest year on Tour. The fact that I've had these little injuries that have held me back, but I'm learning more about myself when I'm not playing well. I'm learning how to play this game. I'm learning how to approach different situations when you're not playing your best, and it's going to help me when I do start hitting the ball well and do start putting well when my game comes together.

Q. What's a good example of that? Can you think of a tournament or a situation?
ANTHONY KIM: Well, even though I didn't finish the way I wanted to at the U.S. Open, I finished 16th, but from the weeks before that, I was hitting it so bad, I wasn't able to physically make the move on the ball like I wanted to, that we had to hit more 3-woods and hybrids off the tee, so I was comfortable doing that at the Open, even though the golf course was long.
We hit 3-woods off the tee, and last year I wasn't comfortable enough to do that, but just to be able to get the ball in play was important for us at the U.S. Open. So in that case it helped me tremendously because there were four or five holes every day where I hit 3-wood off the tee.

Q. Where you would have hit driver?
ANTHONY KIM: Driver would have been in the weeds, so 3-woods were good.

Q. And not to have you go over your medical charts again, but what was keeping you from making a full go at it at that point?
ANTHONY KIM: I felt like I was 100 percent about two and a half months ago and I was making golf swing and something just felt wrong in my thumb and I have not been able to really put any pressure on the golf club with my left thumb, and that sounds like not a big deal, but it was a huge deal because I couldn't get through the ball, and I couldn't hit a fade.
So I was playing a draw, and that's not what my game is about. My game's about working the ball from left to right, so I wasn't seeing the shots I wanted to and I was losing a little bit of confidence as I was going along, but I've been getting treatment, getting stronger and getting in better shape, so it's starting to come around. My thumb feels as good as it has in probably three months.

Q. What was wrong with it?
ANTHONY KIM: I have no idea. It may have just been a strain that I didn't let heal, and it just kept lingering and bothering me, but I'm back now.

Q. Did you do any MRIs or anything?
ANTHONY KIM: No.

Q. With all that being said, having to deal with the injury, finishing 16th at the U.S. Open, where does that rank, battling there were a lot of guys that would have been happy with that week?
ANTHONY KIM: I've heard all the stats. I haven't finished in the top 20 in some odd event, and it was frustrating because I do feel like I've been working hard, but at the same time it showed me that even without my best, I was going to have a chance to win that golf tournament.
Everyone misses putts at the U.S. Open. Everyone hits it in the hay, and I was seven shots off of having a chance to be in the playoff of the U.S. Open, and that's the way I'm going to look at it. I was a shot off tenth, a couple shots off third, and you know, seven shots off of first, and if I go back and think about what I could have done to minimize some of the big mistakes I made and play a little bit smarter, I would have had a chance to win that golf tournament, so I have nothing but positive feelings from the last two weeks and hopefully it'll come through this week.

Q. How much different do you think it'll feel with Tiger in the tournament this year and you as defending champion?
ANTHONY KIM: I thought he was here last year. His name was all over the place. (Laughs).
No, whenever you have a chance to play against the best, it's a tremendous feeling you get on that first tee, but at the same time, I'm not playing against Tiger. I'm playing against everybody in the field, and I know a lot of people say that, but I believe it. So it's about me playing the best I can. And if things keep improving like they have the last couple weeks, I should be in good shape.

Q. You had your choice to play a tournament where the winning score was probably going to be between six and 8-under or closer to 20 to 22 under, what suits you, what do you like and why?
ANTHONY KIM: I like it closer to par, personally, because it requires you to stay in there and hang in there as long as you can, even if you're not playing well, and there's some guys that might not hang in there as long as I think I would, so you know, if you see a bogey or double bogey on your card, it's easy to be dejected and walk away thinking the round's over, but I've made so many double bogeys lately that I'm used to it and I can move on and try to make nine or ten birdies to go along with it.

Q. You made 11 birdies at the Masters one day.
ANTHONY KIM: That was a lot of fun.

Q. I mean you would seem like you're cut out for that type of golf.
ANTHONY KIM: Well, I do make a lot of birdies, but I think that comes with being maybe a tad bit aggressive, and we're trying to tone that down and not fire at so many flags, so I'm not going to be as close to the hole as I was at the Masters. I took a couple of chances and didn't need to do that and ended up making birdies, so we'll keep learning and keep grinding away.

Q. Looking ahead to the British Open in a couple weeks, what are your feelings going into that?
ANTHONY KIM: I've played in one British Open last year at Birkdale and loved that type of golf. I think it's great. I hit a rip driver 220 yards, so it was a lot of fun. It was a mental grind, and I know when we're heading over there, it's going to blow and the weather's not going to be great and just going to have to get ready, buckle down and try to hit some quality golf shots out there.
DOUG MILNE: Well, Anthony, best of luck this week and thanks for spending a few minutes with us.

End of FastScripts

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