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THE BARCLAYS

August 27, 2009

Steve Marino

JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY

LAURA HILL: Steve, great round today. A nice way to kick off the Playoffs. Maybe just a reaction to how you played out there.
STEVE MARINO: Just really, really solid. I putted real well. I made almost every putt that you think that you should make, and I drove the ball pretty well. I hit a couple errant tee balls and other than that, it seemed like I was in the fairway on every hole. That's the most important thing out here.
LAURA HILL: Thoughts on the course itself? Must be pretty good if you shot 65.
STEVE MARINO: Yeah, they were nice to us today. They could make this place play extremely difficult, and you know if we get some winds from that tropical storm that supposedly are going to come this weekend, you guys are going to see some carnage out there, that's for sure.

Q. What do you think is the toughest thing about this course?
STEVE MARINO: Just every shot just seems so demanding. First of all, in order to get off on the right foot, you've got to hit it in the fairway. The rough, it's not terrible, but you can definitely get some bad vibes where you can't even think about getting to the green. Even if you're in the fairway, it seems like every green is raised a little bit and everything falls off to the side. So that's the second challenge is trying to hit it on the green, and then if you miss the green, you have so many options of what you want to do, chip, putt, hit it, putt it with a 3-wood or hybrid, and it's just very mentally challenging I think.

Q. How is the wind on the par 5s?
STEVE MARINO: The wind was -- I think most of them were downwind actually, down with some sort of variation of cross-wind. None of them were dead into the wind which was nice. It gave us a reprieve on the hole to where you could go for the green in two.

Q. After Yang's win in Minnesota, does that inspire you that you could win?
STEVE MARINO: Yeah, maybe a little bit but everybody out here is good. You know, to some of you guys, maybe it was a surprise that he won and beat Tiger, but Tiger had a bad day and Y.E. played great on Sunday. There's a lot of good golfers out here that are capable of doing that. So you know, yeah, it's a little bit motivating, but it's not like the guy was a nobody and came from nowhere and won the tournament. He's a good player.

Q. How much money did you have on Yang?
STEVE MARINO: There's no gambling at Bushwood (chuckling).

Q. Do you think Tiger lost any of his mystique, given it was the first time that someone actually caught him in a major?
STEVE MARINO: No, I don't think so. I mean, you guys are the ones that create his mystique I think.

Q. Him, too.
STEVE MARINO: As players, all of us believe that if we were put in that position, that we could go out there and we could beat him head-to-head. If you don't think that you can do that, then I don't think you belong out here.

Q. Starting off on the leaderboard the first day; do you feel there's less pressure for you on day one, and do you think that the pressure will intensify as the tournament goes on?
STEVE MARINO: Yeah, I'm sure if I keep playing well and I'm up there on Sunday, there might be a little bit more pressure, but we've got a long way to go, and this is a very difficult golf course. Anything can happen out there. Especially if we get some bad weather.
But yeah, I just wanted to go out there today and just do the best that I could and try to put up a good number. If you had asked me yesterday, if 65 is possible out there, I would have said no. I thought 2-, 3-under was a good score and like I said, they were nice to us, moving some of the tees up and some of the pin, and the wind wasn't too bad today. If you played real well and putted well, you can shoot a number out there.

Q. Which holes, I only saw half the course today, I think.
STEVE MARINO: 18. I can't remember now.
A couple. Two or three holes. And then there are so many crazy places they could put the pins out there, too. They were very -- for this course, they were pretty easy.

Q. Secondly, this isn't necessarily a results-oriented question, but have you found yourself reaping any benefits from Colonial, and to a smaller extent, the Open, having put yourself there and gotten a taste of it?
STEVE MARINO: I think a little bit. My No. 1 goal is just to try to get better every day, and when you're putting yourself in those positions, the playoff at Colonial, leading the British Open after two rounds, I feel like I am moving in the right direction and I am improving. Just knowing that gives me a little bit more confidence.

Q. Paul Goydos said he uses some of the buildings as targets. Are you?
STEVE MARINO: No, actually I didn't.

Q. Have you ever played in a tournament that was affected by that type of weather condition, a hurricane?
STEVE MARINO: I played in the Deutsche Bank in 2005 and I think that's when Katrina came through. At the beginning of the week, I think the tournament was played on time, but the beginning and end of the practice rounds were kind of a wash. But never, I don't think in competition, have I ever been playing during a tropical storm.
LAURA HILL: Steve, thank you.

End of FastScripts

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