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BUICK OPEN

July 30, 2009

John Senden

GRAND BLANC, MICHIGAN

MARK WILLIAMS: John, thanks for joining us. 8-under par 64, first round at the Buick Open. I heard a couple of reports that you could have shot 13-under, but you missed a few putts coming in. But looks like you had a good day overall. Talk about the round a little bit.
JOHN SENDEN: Yeah. I short-sided myself a little bit on 1 and didn't get up-and-down from the back of the green.
Six on the first was awesome, so I'm thinking, oh, this is nice. But bounced back nice.
No. 2, I holed about a 16-footer for birdie there. And I hit it twice on 4, kept it in there. And what else was there?
No. 6 was I holed a really nice putt there from about 20 feet, and then the 9th hole was actually probably the best shot I hit all day. I was actually left of the -- I was on the near side in the fairway, those tracks and had to putt it over a tree. And I thought I was in trouble on that hole because I hit a really good shot and caught the tree and stopped left. So that was bad.
MARK WILLIAMS: You made five in a row on the Back 9, shot 31 coming home. You've had four Top 10s this year. You're in the Top 50 on the Money List and the FedExCup. You've had a good year.
JOHN SENDEN: Yeah. I'm feeling good about my game. My middle stretch there through Bay Hill, Colonial, Byron Nelson and Memphis was really good. That was a really good stretch there for me. And the last couple weeks haven't been quite as good, but that's just a scoring feeling. The putter hasn't been that great, especially last week at home.
But you know, just happy with my year, just need to set the goals now to try and play well leading into the Playoffs, ending with the Playoffs to try and secure Top 30 spot on the FedExCup. So that's the goal.

Q. Did you say what happened on the first hole, how you made bogey?
JOHN SENDEN: Yeah. No. I hit my driver on the right and I had like 100 yards to the hole, and my ball just landed on the green and rolled to the back.
So I was kind of like short-sided, but I was coming out of it semi and ran my putt from off the green down to about 6 feet past the hole and missed it on the low side.

Q. What happens when you have a start like that, you know, for a seasoned pro? Does it affect you much or how did you take that?
JOHN SENDEN: Well, you gotta realize this course leads to a lot of birdies. You know realistically at the start of the day I was looking for 3, 4, 5-under round. That's almost the goal.
A lot of players are probably thinking like that on the tee, and when you bogey the first hole, which is a par-5, you're thinking, ouch, that's kind of not the greatest start, but you gotta realize what the golf course is doing out there. And you know that everyone's going to be shooting good scores, so I didn't really let it affect me, and bounced back nicely on the second hole.
And then had a few close putts on the Front 9, and I got on a good run on the back. So you know, it was telling me that, you know, you shouldn't let those types of things affect you and just forget about it. After walking down the second hole, I wasn't really thinking about the first hole. So it's kind of what we're all trying to do.

Q. Half of the players on the leaderboard so far on the Top 10 are Australians. Do you think it's a product of Nathan Green's victory last week?
JOHN SENDEN: Yeah. There is maybe slightly. But I think Nathan Green's win was sensational. I thought that he hadn't been playing great, and then he really just sort of turned it on.
Where he found that key from, you know, he said he'd been trying to improve mentally, which he obviously did last week, and held on nicely at the end of the week.
So that was great for Australia, Australian golf. He's going to go back to Australia this year. He'll be having a great time with the media there. They'll be all over him.
But I think this week with the Australians being up there on the leaderboard, it's a possible chance that could be it, but on the other hand, it's just -- there's a number of Australian golfers out here that are playing well, and I think there's a total of I'm not sure how many, but there's gotta be 10 or so players or more, and it's surprising that there's not more Australians out here playing and playing well because we have a good Tour at home, and our golf courses are great shape to play golf, and there's a lot of good young stars coming out.

Q. Obviously you knew what the course yields. It gives up a lot of birdies, and you got on that big birdie streak on 11. Was that something you were prepared for? It looked like an incredible streak, but is that just sort of par for the course?
JOHN SENDEN: I think so. I think par for that stretch of hole was maybe 2 or 3-under. But you know, especially 12, 14, that's two holes that you can really chase. You try to expect at least one birdie out of those two holes, and but you know what, the golf course is narrow. So you still have to drive the ball well to shoot a good score, so that's sometimes the difference around here.

Q. The shot of hitting five fairways, were you up by much or was it just getting into the rough a little bit?
JOHN SENDEN: Yeah, no. I was just -- I mean the last hole I was on the semi and the 16th hole I was on the first cut, there was probably one drive that I missed into the trees, but that was my only real bad blow.
But I've been driving the ball well, so it's just been a good-feeling ball-striking year, so I need to continue to drive the ball well around here. You're tough from the trees around this course.

Q. Before we let you go, you mentioned the last couple weeks haven't been good to you. Do you think fatigue has been a factor? I know you got off the Open late, and coming back must have been difficult with all the rain last week. Has that been the reason do you think?
JOHN SENDEN: Sometimes it is, yeah, because you know, I've been playing since -- I guess I played, what was it, Washington, John Deere, and I was preparing for a week off if I wasn't in the Open. And got a late start at the Open.
So this is going to be my fifth event in a row, so I feel that's a lot. I wouldn't normally do that.
But I wanted to keep going this week because I didn't want to take two weeks off before the PGA. So that was mainly the reason for being here this week. But you know, playing well, you might as well keep going while you're playing well.

Q. (Indiscernible).
JOHN SENDEN: Exactly. Probably playing 15 in a row by the time of the end of the week.
MARK WILLIAMS: Get some rest. We appreciate you stopping by.
JOHN SENDEN: All right. Thanks.

End of FastScripts

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