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WGC CADILLAC CHAMPIONSHIP

March 12, 2011

Dustin Johnson

MIAMI, FLORIDA

CHRIS REIMER: We want to welcome Dustin in, a 65 today, start with some opening comments. Was that one of your best rounds of the year so far.
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Yeah, it was probably one of the better ones so far this year. I played really well in San Diego, but just the putter was not working. Finally feel comfortable with the putter so things are going a little better.
CHRIS REIMER: Low scoring conditions, but the wind was still blowing. More of a helpful wind.
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Yeah, today, the wind, it was blowing but it was kind of steady in one direction where the past couple of days it's kind of been swirling a little bit. It's a wind that you can kind of attack the golf course a little bit pure in the fairway.

Q. Your consistency this year probably has not been what you would like IT to be I'm guessing; does that get frustrating or do you just keep your head down and keep grinding? Obviously to get into the top 5, you're going to have to start rattling off those Top-10s?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Yeah, I played okay the first couple of events and just haven't played all that well -- it was mostly due to the putter. Just wasn't -- I didn't practice all that much the off-season, I don't know why but didn't really have much -- the weather wasn't so good back home. So didn't really, when it's real cold, it's hard to sit there and putt.

Q. What is it going to take to win tomorrow?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: I'm going to have to play well. It's going to take another good round. I played well today, drove it well, putt it well, hit the ball well; so I'm going to have to do that again tomorrow.

Q. Kind of a spotty start at that time year, does that switch flip on when you get to March, Florida and you know the Masters is coming?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Yeah, but I would have liked to have started a little better. Still, it wasn't too bad of a start. I'm not doing terrible but definitely not as good as I would have liked to have started. But you know, me and Butch have been working pretty hard and I've been working pretty hard on the putting.

Q. Butch said you had a little session on the range with him this morning?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: I did.

Q. How did that go and why did you call him?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Well, there wasn't anything going wrong. I just wanted to get him out there just to take a look at some things. I still -- the first two days, I didn't really drive it that great. I hit into the fairway a little bit but I wasn't, you know, hitting the type of shots that I wanted to. So we worked on the driver a little bit this morning and then got that going really well.
So I hit a lot of good drives today. Struggled with the wedges, too, a little bit. So we worked on that for a little while and hit some pretty good wedge shots today.

Q. Your performance last year in the majors and the way you're getting into form now, do you feel like you're better prepared going into the Masters than you have been the first few times?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Yeah, for sure. I think I'm consistently playing better golf now than I was the past couple of years. This past like, you know, eight, ten months, really played a lot of good golf. You know, going into Augusta feeling pretty confident.

Q. Bragging he shot 65 -- (no mic).
DUSTIN JOHNSON: He said there's a 65 out there, though.

Q. Is that all it takes?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: I'll take 65 every time I do that.

Q. How much time did you spend with him this morning?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Just 20, 30 minutes.

Q. How much did that cost you?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Nothing (laughter).

Q. Flat rate, isn't it?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Yeah. It's a flat rate.

Q. The World Golf Championships, where do you rate them in terms of importance?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: They are very important. For one, there's no cut, which is nice. You definitely get four rounds. But obviously if you're in all of the World Golf Championships, you've been playing well, but the fields are so good. You want to come to these events and play well.
It's a small field but it's the best 70 or the best 50 in the world. They all play this event. So any of the World Golf Championships are great events. They all happen on good venues, and you know, you want to play well and win these events.

Q. What did you hit on 16, 3-wood?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Yeah, I hit 3-wood in the front bunker. It was one of those funny yardages where 3-wood unless I really kill it, it's not going to get there but driver is going to go too far. So we figured front bunker, wasn't too bad, which it wasn't and I made birdie.

Q. Bigger picture question, looking at the board now with you and Mahan and Watney and I think Luke Donald is 32, right in his prime, is there a transition taking place now with the World Rankings, Rory is in the mix, too; that we are seeing play out increasingly frequently? Know what I mean?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: No (laughter).

Q. Tiger and Phil not as much as before and other new, young guys like yourself increasingly more in the mix.
DUSTIN JOHNSON: There's a lot of really good young players. When you talk about Tiger and Phil, they are always going to be in the mix, maybe not every week, but they are going to be in the mix because they are great players. They have been great players for a long time. But there's a lot of good young players coming up right now that you are going to see at the top of the leaderboard a lot.

Q. What birdie impressed you the most today?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: I chipped in on 13. That was a pretty good one. I hit a good shot but straight downwind, tough to hold the green. It went just in the back fringe and pitched in, which was nice.
CHRIS REIMER: Thanks a lot, good luck tomorrow.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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