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WYNDHAM CHAMPIONSHIP

August 21, 2009

Sergio Garcia

GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA

MARK STEVENS: I'd like to welcome Sergio Garcia to the Interview Room. Sergio, if you could talk a little bit about your round today and we'll take some questions.
SERGIO GARCIA: Well, it was a good solid round. The course was there for the taking. If you played well, you could have a lot of birdie chances. The greens were soft.
The same time, quite a lot of spike marks. It was tough to roll some of the putts in, but, no, I felt like I played good. I managed to keep the bogies off my card which is always good and, yeah, looking forward to the weekend, see if we can keep playing the way we played the first couple of days.
MARK STEVENS: Thank you. Questions.

Q. Can you tell us about the eagles, please?
SERGIO GARCIA: On 15, hit a good drive off the tee. I hit a very nice 5-iron just left of the pin, kind of took the slope and rolled within six, five, six feet and I rolled that in.
Par then on 5, I hit a decent drive down the right and then I hit a 5-iron. Hit it a little left. Got lucky there because it was short enough, kind of hit the left bank of the green and came back into the green and probably had about a 30-footer and rolled it in. So, it's good to see that happen.

Q. When Riley was in here earlier he said he didn't hit driver very much. How often did you hit driver today?
SERGIO GARCIA: That's because Chris is really long (laughter). It depends. This course you can play it two different ways. You can play it a little safer off the tee and hit probably a good amount of 5-woods, even long irons, maybe a couple 3-woods and then have a little longer shots into the green so you can be a little more aggressive and hit some drives, try to carry some of the bunkers and then have wedges into the green.
So I guess it depends on how you feel. How many drives did I hit? I don't know. One, 2, 3, 4, 5 -- 6, 7 -- 7 drivers. So, you know.

Q. Sergio, could you just talk a little bit about your mindset going into the weekend, you know, you seem a lot more encouraged than you did earlier in the week.
SERGIO GARCIA: Well, there's no doubt that I saw a little bit of improvement in the game, which is good. Don't get me wrong, though, I'm still not happy the way I played. I feel like there was some shots out there that I could have executed a little better.
But I'm looking forward to play. That's pretty much it, just play and try to keep getting a little bit more confidence on my game and, you know, see if I can shoot a couple good rounds and see where that takes me.
So, you know, hopefully we'll be able to do that and see what happens.

Q. The game of golf, people want to win golf tournaments, they want to win money and now they want to get points.
Do you have any specific goals of what you'd like to do with this weekend?
SERGIO GARCIA: Obviously the best thing to do would be to win. Not only because of the other things you said but because, you know, a win is always nice and it always gives you confidence, it gets you up. But at least if you feel like you are playing better, that's a good start.
I'm hoping to keep doing that and, you know, see if we can finish as high as possible.

Q. Sergio, I think it was Lee Trevino that said Sedgefield is a course with 18 par 4 holes, meaning doesn't have a par 5.
SERGIO GARCIA: They don't have a par 3, either (laughter).

Q. Does it need to do something about the par-5s to make them more challenging?
SERGIO GARCIA: No. I mean to tell you the truth, there's only one thing that you need to do to make the course harder and it's not grow the rough, make the fairways narrower or anything like that, it's just some how -- obviously this time of the year with the bent grass greens, it's too difficult to have them firm because you can lose them in this heat and humidity and everything.
So, if you look at it, the toughest courses we play are the ones that usually the greens are firm and fast and, you know, that's where things happen.
So, if you have a course where the greens are not too big and you manage to get them -- obviously the weather needs to help, but you manage to get them firm and fast, that's it.
Your shots from the fairway need to be well struck to be able to hold the greens and hit it somewhere close and even in the rough you're struggling to hold the greens all the time.
That's really the only thing you can do.

Q. Along those lines, can you talk about how the greens are starting to get a little bumpy and how they might be over the weekend and how much more difficult that will make them?
SERGIO GARCIA: They're going to be the same because the good thing is they cut them every morning. They're starting good early in the morning but obviously as people go by they get bumpier and it's hard because I mean sometimes -- for example, today, on my second to last hole on the 8th, I had a putt where it was almost -- it wasn't impossible to make it but almost impossible because I had three spike marks on my line and if I hit it right of them, it was -- I was going to hit it way too high and if I hit it under I had to hit it really hard to hold it.
So I tried to just put a good stroke and hopefully miss -- see if it misses them and goes in and, unfortunately, I hit a couple of them and missed left.
You just got to deal with it, I guess. It's going to happen to everyone and you just got to hopefully play solid and give yourself a lot of chances and if you manage to do that, then you should be fine.

Q. Sergio, there's a kid here this week, 16 year old who is holding his own out there, playing pretty well. Do you remember coming here when were you 18, what was going through your mind? I think you turned pro right after this.
Did you think you were going to set the world on fire?
SERGIO GARCIA: No, I didn't turn pro after this. I turned in '99, the year after.
But, yeah, I do remember coming back here. I remember that the course played fast and remember that Joe Ogilvie won. I was fortunate to play well. I finished 3rd or something like that.
Yeah, I have good memories about this course. I didn't remember some of the holes. I remember four, five holes but I didn't remember all of them, 12 years ago and when you're reaching 30, you know, Alzheimer's starts coming in, so you don't remember as well as you used to.
But, you know, it's a good course. Like I said before, I'm sure if you play them in another time of the year and the greens are fast and firm like the way they're supposed to be played, this course can be very, very challenging because the greens can be very, very difficult when they get the right way. So, it's just a shame that we can't do it.

Q. Sergio, you said you weren't happy with some of your shots today. You must be doing something well. What part of your game are you happy with?
SERGIO GARCIA: Don't get me wrong. The good thing is some of my bad shots are much better than they've been lately so if you hit a shot that you're trying to hit one way and you hit it straight or something like that and instead of hitting it to 8, 10 feet, you're hitting it to 25 feet, you're still not happy about the shot but it's because the greens are soft and everything, you still have, most of the times, a birdie putt and usually an easy par.
I drove the ball fairly well over the two days. I hit a good amount of greens which I haven't been doing lately and, you know, I've rolled the putter pretty well which I've been doing lately.
So, if you mix it altogether, you know, it all adds up to where I am.
MARK STEVENS: Thank you, Sergio, for coming in. Good luck this weekend.

End of FastScripts

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