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84 LUMBER CLASSIC

September 15, 2005

Jason Gore

FARMINGTON, PENNSYLVANIA

DAVE SENKO: Jason, thanks for joining us. Maybe just get us started, 7 under for the day. Just go through your I guess just maybe some general comments, first off, and we'll get your card.

JASON GORE: I hit it pretty good today. I don't know if I missed a green. I hit a lot of good, smart shots, and that's what it takes to kind of get around here. You take your birdies when you can.

The par 5s are playing pretty well today. I reached a couple of them, so I had a couple two putt birdies, and sometimes you've just got to play smart on the holes that are very difficult and be more aggressive when you get your opportunities, and that's kind of what I did.

DAVE SENKO: You started with a birdie at No. 1.

JASON GORE: That was my 10th hole, so I hit driver down the middle and had like 76 yards to the pin, hit it like eight feet and made it.

On 5, I hit driver, 3 iron to about 15 feet and completely misread it and two putted for birdie there.

And on 8, I drove it in the left bunker, and then 4 iron to about 20 feet and two putted.

11, I hit driver off the tee, 3 wood almost in the water, about three inches from the cut, from the red line, and pitched it up there about six feet and made it.

Hit it to about three feet on 12 with 8 iron.

16, I hit driver, 7 iron in there to about 20 feet and two putted.

And then 18, I hit driver, pitching wedge to about 12, 15 feet and made it.

Pretty exciting, huh (laughter)?

Q. How much more difficult can they make the course? Obviously today it was probably a little less than it could be.

JASON GORE: I played in the afternoon Pro Am yesterday, and those were probably some of the hardest greens I've ever seen. I think they probably put a little water on them last night just to keep them alive. I think that if they continue to get harder, it's going to be difficult because there's so many little bumps and swales on these greens that there are some tough two putts. I think if the greens get firm, that's going to be the course's big defense.

Q. Did you have to play short and kind of guess a little bit to let the ball go back to the pin?

JASON GORE: Yeah, a couple. I mean, the greens are so good. They're so consistent that you pretty much are starting to figure out how far a 7 iron is going to roll or how far sand wedge is going to hit and stop and spin a little bit.

Yeah, you're always guessing, but once you get a few holes under your belt, you can kind of start to get a feel for what's going on.

Q. If you enter Sunday's round among the leaders, will what happened to you at the U.S. Open be a positive or a negative?

JASON GORE: It'll be a positive, no question. I mean, I think I proved that on the Nationwide Tour, that you can take it as a positive. You know, this will be a great event to have that happen, but it's a long way away. You know, it was great on the Nationwide Tour because I had a tournament down at Pete Dye just right down in Clarksburg where I had to make a five footer to win, and then the next one I won by 4 and then the next one was a playoff. So I've had, I think, a nice mixture of ways to win, and I think the last round at the U.S. Open kind of opened my eyes to be able to do that.

Q. How will you approach the I assume you don't want to get ahead of yourself, but let's face it, if you were to win here this weekend, it would be a big deal, not just for you but for us and everybody else.

JASON GORE: Hopefully I'll see you guys all on Sunday afternoon (smiling), but right now I just have to worry about hitting my first tee ball tomorrow. That's really the only thing I have concern about is tomorrow when I step up to the first tee. That's really the only thing I can control right now, and then I'll find that and hit it and then chase the next one and so on and so on, so we'll count those chickens after they hatch.

Q. You're a recognizable person now in golf. How much has your life changed in these weeks over the summer?

JASON GORE: It really hasn't. I mean, life is only when you make of it. It just means I'm doing my job a little bit better. You know, you can make it change as much as you want or you can stay the exact same. That's really the bottom line.

I've said this a bunch of times before, I'm just trying to be a good husband, good father, good son, and I'm just trying to do my job a little bit better. That's really kind of what it's come down to. It's all a matter of perspective.

Q. Any particularly lively interaction with the gallery today given the fact that you were playing well?

JASON GORE: They were pretty great. A couple people would yell, and you're like, "Gosh, I'm like five feet away, you don't have to yell (laughter)." I'll tell you what, the fans have been pretty awesome. It's kind of a really cool thing to see people get in your corner and root for you. It's a pretty special thing that they do for me.

Q. Were they yelling anything creative?

JASON GORE: No, nobody I can't believe nobody yelled Pabst Blue Ribbon because of Louis (Pullen)'s hat.

Q. How long did it take you to get the feeling that you were going to play well today?

JASON GORE: Never (laughter). I don't know, I birdied two out of my first three holes and then made like a 15 footer for par on my 4th, so I think that was pretty much a nice momentum keeper is I guess what you'd call it. I started off and I hit some pretty good shots. You just try to keep going, you just try to keep I hate to keep saying this, it's a dead horse, but one at a time. That's really all I was trying to do.

Q. At 12, what did you hit there and where did you aim, please?

JASON GORE: The par 3?

Q. Par 3.

JASON GORE: I hit 8 iron, and the pin was kind of middle ish left. There's a TV tower right there, and I just aimed right at the left side of the TV tower, which was like 12 feet right of the hole, and it kind of turned back in and landed like that (indicating three feet). The green is a little softer than the rest of them because if that green was hard, it would be impossible.

Q. At any point after the U.S. Open did you say to yourself, "I can make this a positive or a negative," or did you just kind of play it as it came?

JASON GORE: After shooting 84 that round, that was really all I had left. You know, I mean, I got a chance to play in the last group in the last round of the U.S. Open, and that's pretty special. You know, not many people in the last 20 years have done it. It was a great learning experience, and that was all I really could have taken from that. The tournament was over, and I shot myself out of the tournament, but, you know, I just had to take it as a huge learning experience and know that know now that I can play on that level, and that was pretty important for me to see at that point because not much longer before that I was thinking about hanging them up, and just to be able to see that, now I feel comfortable being in that position.

Q. Do you think the gallery has a sense that you do have some Pittsburgh ties?

JASON GORE: I hope so. They're right back there. Yeah, it would be kind of cool to get Pennsylvania in my corner. I definitely had West Virginia in my corner, even though they weren't too happy with being a Pitt fan, but that was all right (laughter).

Q. You said you were seriously thinking of giving up the game. Could you expand on that?

JASON GORE: Do I have to (laughter)? You know, I think when you put so much hard work into doing what you love to do and what you think you're supposed to do and you really don't get results out of it, then you get pretty frustrated, and it's pretty easy to get frustrated. You know, sometimes you just have to quit whining and pick yourself up and move on, and that's kind of what I did with the help of some loyal and faithful right foots to the butt (laughter).

That was just kind of what it was, just shake yourself off and keep moving. I think that was a big thing really about the Open. I didn't sit back and go back to the room and cry and woe is me kind of thing, just, "Hey, that was pretty cool." That was really about it.

Q. They were talking about it raining tomorrow. If it rains, what does that do to the course, make it easier?

JASON GORE: It'll make it play a lot longer, that's for sure. Because on Tuesday when we played, the fairways were pretty soft and they were kind of picking up a little mud. Today they started to firm up, so the golf course is going to be very, very long and some of those carries are going to be not carryable. You're going to have to take a couple different lines and expect to hit a couple longer clubs in there. I think in a sense it'll make obviously it'll make the greens softer so you'll be able to fire at a few more pins. It's just going to play really long.

Q. The fairways were holding okay today?

JASON GORE: The fairways were perfect. They were a little soft on Tuesday, but today they were perfect.

DAVE SENKO: Thanks, Jason.

End of FastScripts.

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