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BMW CHAMPIONSHIP

September 11, 2009

Mark Wilson

LEMONT, ILLINOIS

MARK STEVENS: We'd like to welcome Mark Wilson to the interview room. Mark shot a 66 today, one off his career best at Cog Hill. Mark, if you'd start off and just give us some general comments about your round and then we'll take some questions.
MARK WILSON: Yeah, actually got off to not the start I was looking for. Hit a bad drive on 1 and kind of sculled my second shot over the green and made a nice 10-footer for par, and that kind of settled my nerves.
Then just kind of rolled in birdie putts when I had them, when I had opportunities, and made a couple saving putts. The greens have been rolling good for me. I've been able to read them good and see the lines, and they've been matching up with what I see, and thankfully I made a lot of putts, and that's definitely the reason for my low score so far.

Q. The Cog Hill connection, I know you practice here and you play here more than anybody. How much are you here? How active are you at Cog Hill?
MARK WILSON: It goes back to 2004. My then-fiancÃ© Amy and I moved -- we were living in the city and I was trying to find a place that would be convenient to play golf. Frank Jemsek has just been wonderful to me, the owner here, letting me play and practice, and I'd say '04, '05, I played and practiced a lot when I was home, in between TOUR events. And this was the only place I came to.
And then we moved to Elmhurst and it's still convenient now. Instead of 35 minutes it was 25 minutes, so it worked out really well. And Butler National down the road from my house has been nice enough to let me play, as well, so I've kind of split my time between the two. But this summer when I've been home I've been primarily coming out here because I thought it made sense to get ready to see the new golf course.

Q. I noticed that on the pairing sheet you're listed as being from Chicago. You probably don't want to diss Elmhurst, but is that your choice or who actually decides that?
MARK WILSON: I decide that. I think maybe down the road it'll be Elmhurst, but Chicago, people are going to recognize Chicago, Illinois; they're going to know where that is. I think of Elmhurst as a Chicago suburb, so I feel like I'm living in Chicago.

Q. Is there a -- I know you played here half a dozen times after it opened, and now you're at the top of the leaderboard tied with Rory. Is there a correlation between the course knowledge of getting those extra reps in here and playing well?
MARK WILSON: I guess ask me that Sunday afternoon. I mean, so far, so good. But there's been a couple times that I've hit it in spots that I didn't think were bad and got up to the green and said, oh, should have played it off of that slope. So we're all learning it.
Obviously a TOUR event, the conditions are different than I see on a day-to-day basis out here. Greens are faster, so there's a lot more roll-out on the greens. But I definitely took notes the few times I did play it. Didn't really take any actual pencil notes but just mental notes, and so far it's helped a little bit.

Q. You talked about your putting, but also, you hit it close a few times. It looked like your distance control with your irons is pretty good. Can you talk about that?
MARK WILSON: Yeah, it has been pretty good. The last hole was a great example; we hit it in the left side of the fairway and tried to pick a number. We thought if I could have 130 yards for my third shot downwind, it would be a perfect pitching wedge. So we decided to hit 6-iron from the lay-up, and sure enough, we had exactly 130. So we were pretty proud of that.
You need good distance control just because you're trying to just peek it over the bunkers because you're expecting a lot of release even with shorter irons. So far it's been pretty good. And then when I have not maybe hit the best iron shot, I've gotten up-and-down out of the bunkers quite a bit. You guys might know the stats better than me, but I think I'm 100 percent. Could be wrong.

Q. Obviously your dad and aunt were out there. How many total people, family and friends, do you think you had out here?
MARK WILSON: Yesterday was about a half dozen, today seemed like maybe about 15 of people that I know really well. There's certainly a lot more connections, other people there, and saw a lot of people that were saying, "Go, Elmhurst." It's nice to have the local people cheering me on.

Q. There will be 100 by Sunday if you keep this up.
MARK WILSON: Exactly. The multitudes are still chasing Tiger.

Q. The news that we were coming back here for this three-year stretch to this course which they announced middle of last year must have made you happy. And then the second question, is there some kind of Wisconsin thing going on with this FedExCup Playoff run?
MARK WILSON: I thought you were going to say there was something about Wisconsin and Cog Hill because both Jerry and Steve have won here before. So I've kept that in the back of my mind.
Yeah, I was excited to see it. I was obviously more geared up for this tournament than I was last year just because I do get to sleep in my own bed. Bellerive is a great course, but I truly believe living here in the Midwest and now living in Chicago that Chicago should have a tournament every year, and I'm really happy it's going to be here the next three years and that it'll have a lot of success and BMW will want to have it here every year.

Q. Sometimes somebody who's playing essentially a home game has a lot of distractions. You have those 15 folks following you. But how about off the golf course? Is it easy to be alone at home with just the immediate family, or is everybody calling for tickets and whatnot?
MARK WILSON: We tried to take care of that early in the week, and people have been very good about honoring that, to let us know last weekend or early in the week how many tickets they might need. John Kaczkowski, the tournament director, was very generous and actually mailed us a ticket package that helped us out so when we got home Monday night from Boston we could kind of arrange everything. The people in my corner here have respected that, and they're just coming out to cheer.

Q. You referenced the course conditions being different obviously when you're playing here at other times of the year. When you come out are you just paired with locals? Is it crowded?
MARK WILSON: It's crowded, yeah. I think Cog Hill is doing pretty good. It seems like they're sending people off every eight minutes, a good, solid foursome. I always used to play either at 6:00 a.m. or about 4:00 in the afternoon. Those are the two times that you'll see me on the golf course. I'll try to get out in front of the first group, play a quick 18. Takes only about two and a half hours. So I'll come out. Basically my son goes down for a nap at 1:00 and I'll come out and hit some balls, chip and putt at the back of the range. At around 4:00 I'll slip out and play the front nine until I kind of run into that last group and then I'll call it a day.

Q. I take it you're not having to pay the 140 bucks?
MARK WILSON: Is that how much it is?

Q. That's what somebody said.
MARK WILSON: No, Frank has been very nice to me and lets me go out there complimentary. I appreciate that very much.
MARK STEVENS: Mark, if you will quickly go through your scorecard for us.
MARK WILSON: Just the birdies?
11, hit a nice sand wedge in there, laid up to a good number, six feet, straight putt, no problem.
15, went for it in two, hit it in the front bunker and then hit a great bunker shot to tap in.
Second hole hit a 4-iron, but I didn't find a ball mark, so it must have carried just over in the rough and got a nice hop up there about six feet, which I think is probably the only way you can keep it short on that hole. So that was a nice break.
And then 7, played the slope nicely over on the left with a pitching wedge and it trickled done to about six feet.
And then 9, hit a wedge in there a little left of the hole, 20-footer, kind of a double breaker but ended up playing it straight, and it rolled right in.

Q. Obviously you need a good week to make it to Atlanta. Did you know coming in what was the minimum you had to do? Do you even think about it? Do you check it every day?
MARK WILSON: I'm not going to look at it because it just would be too distracting and too much can happen on the golf course. I know that I probably control my own destiny with a Top 5 finish and could get a little help from somebody else. But something tells me a win gets me way up there, and I'd rather do that, and I'll be going for that. If I fall a little short, then the consolation prize would be Atlanta and that would be good.
But I'm just focused on my golf shots when I get out there best I can, and I haven't looked at a leaderboard yet. Unfortunately they're everywhere, so you occasionally look through your putting line and you see it. Maybe I'm different than other people who play the game, but that's kind of how I'm going to do it. With a few holes left on Sunday, I may look to see where I stand, but that's about the only time I'll look.

End of FastScripts

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