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TURNING STONE RESORT CHAMPIONSHIP

October 2, 2009

Nicholas Thompson

VERONA, NEW YORK

MARK STEVENS: I'd like to welcome Nicholas Thompson to the interview room. He followed up a 68 yesterday with a 67 today, is at 9-under. If you'd start off, talk a little bit about actually both of your rounds. Focus on today's round, and then we'll take some questions.
NICHOLAS THOMPSON: You know what, I mean over the course of two days, I played well. I made 10 birdies and two bogeys. Still have a lot to be desired on the par-5s. Played them at 1-under yesterday and 2-under today, but should be much better.
Today I started off with a bogey on the 11th, just got a little scared of the water. And then I hit 12 in 2 and two-putted from about 80 feet for birdie. I hit it to about three feet maybe on 13, made birdie. I hit it to about three feet on 16, made birdie. I hit it to about four feet on 1, made birdie. I made about a 15-footer on 2 for birdie and about a 10-footer on 8 for birdie.
So I mean, I had many of opportunities. I hit 11 greens -- 11 fairways both days and I hit 16 greens today and 14 greens yesterday. I still want to say I hit two or three fringes yesterday, too, so I putted out all but three holes for birdie and had good opportunities throughout.
MARK STEVENS: Okay. You've had a little time off the last few weeks. Do you find that you've kind of been rejuvenated by some time off? Did you do anything on your time off that maybe has helped you get to this point?
NICHOLAS THOMPSON: Yeah. As I say, for me it was kind of a blessing in disguise. I played since the beginning of the year just about it started just after the West Coast I've had elbow problems. So luckily over those five weeks I was able to kind of nurse them and practice, and took it kind of easy the first couple weeks, practiced some, played some.
And then once I started feeling better, about the last three weeks I grinded really hard, played a lot. I mean I was out there for seven, eight, nine hours a day, practicing, playing, and just trying to get ready for the fall finish.
MARK STEVENS: Okay. Thanks a lot, Nicholas. Questions?

Q. 68, 67 is really good. Are you worried at all that you're going to get upstaged by your little sister?
NICHOLAS THOMPSON: I hope I am. It's that simple. Whatever I do, I hope my brother and sister always trump me and they do better. I have no problem taking the back seat to both of them.

Q. Did you talk to her last night after the first round?
NICHOLAS THOMPSON: I talked to my dad and he said she played well. The golf course is playing easy. It's soft. He said they got poured on over the last couple weeks, but he said the weather is perfect. It's like high 70s, low 80s, maybe five miles an hour wind. So he said it's scoring conditions.

Q. Could you tell us quickly what elbow was your issue? And then when you were home, obviously you come from a big golfing family. Do you go out as a family and play 18? How does that work?
NICHOLAS THOMPSON: We go out as a family, and it's usually a tough match, to say the least. There's a lot of banter going on. We tease each other. We give each other a hard time, and we will just needle each other from hole 1 to 18 and then probably at dinner later.
And my elbow problem was -- it's kind of like tendonitis, but it's through golf. It depends, it's in either your right or your left elbow and it's either on the inside of your right elbow or the outside of your left elbow, depending on whether you push through the shot or pull through the shot. Well, I was a pusher and it was in my right elbow; and then when I started guarding away from that, it got to my left elbow because I started pulling through the shot.
So it just needed a little bit of rest. Not like total time off, just not seven, eight, nine hours of grinding time.

Q. What was it like out there today? I'm wondering, it seemed warmer at least, and it didn't rain this morning.
NICHOLAS THOMPSON: Well, I don't know how much warmer the actual temperature number was, but it feels like it was warmer because it didn't really rain on us. It didn't rain on us at all. And the wind maybe got up to 10.
So it wasn't like brutal, and actually the sun attempted to peak through. My caddie was like, hey, we haven't seen that in a while. You see that? And I was like, it kind of looks more like the moon. It was pretty good scoring conditions other than the temperature.

Q. I was going to ask a similar thing. I didn't have a look at the whole course yet, but did they move tee boxes or pin positions around today to accommodate the conditions?
NICHOLAS THOMPSON: I wouldn't think really any of the pin positions have been moved. They were all very similar to Friday pin positions in '08, but we did have a couple tee boxes up, because I mean the ball's -- you're lacking on the 20, 30 yards of roll that you can get.
And I mean to put the example, we played No. 9, my last hole, 17 or 18 yards up, and being one of the longer hitters out here, I still had a 3-iron in. I mean there are a lot of guys hitting 3-woods and hoping to get there.

Q. So is that factoring in to your difficulty on par-5s, just how much more club you have on in there?
NICHOLAS THOMPSON: No. My par-5s have been -- the majority of the drives I've missed, I've only missed on maybe two par-4s. I've missed it on three or four of the par-5s out of the eight. So you put it in the bunker. I could have gone for 5 today with a 5-iron, but I was in a bunker. So I kind of chose to lay up instead of going for it.

Q. And just one question about yesterday. Should they have played with it -- or was it just right on that bubble line of we shouldn't have played at all?
NICHOLAS THOMPSON: No. It was right on the bubble, but I mean, out of all the places I was out there, there was only one place that was questionable, and that was probably 12, the par-5 in the lay-up zone.
The rest of it was soft, but -- and there was casual water, but the majority of the places you could find casual water release, and if not, you played in just a little bit of water.
I mean it happens. It's better than washing the day and then having to grind it out for as many holes as you can throughout the week in this cold weather. I mean it's hard enough playing 18 in cold, damp weather. You go and play 27 or 36, that makes it even worse.

Q. (Indiscernible).
NICHOLAS THOMPSON: Yeah. I mean the conditions are -- the golf course is in as good a shape as it could be with how wet it is, with how much rain they've received in the last six or seven days. But it's playing long, and especially for a South Florida boy, it's cold. But today was leaps and bounds above yesterday.
MARK STEVENS: Until now, right?
NICHOLAS THOMPSON: I don't hear that.
MARK STEVENS: You guys all good? Okay. Thanks a lot, Nicholas. Good luck to you this weekend.
NICHOLAS THOMPSON: Thanks.

End of FastScripts

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