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SHELL HOUSTON OPEN

April 1, 2011

Chris Kirk

HUMBLE, TEXAS

MARK STEVENS: Alright. I'd like to welcome Chris Kirk. Chris, you got to 9-under. Birdied last two coming in. If you want to talk about those two holes and what it meant to your round, and then we'll take some questions.
CHRIS KIRK: Sure. That was great. To finish like that after I made a double on No. 4, just made a real mess of that hole and after making two birdies. So it's -- to get both of those shots back on 8 and 9 was really great.
MARK STEVENS: Okay. Questions.

Q. Let's get the bad one out of way. What happened on 4 that you butchered?
CHRIS KIRK: 4, par 5, it was into the wind, and usually you can kind of take it over the corner of the bunker. And being into the wind, I was trying to just make sure I kept it right of it and blocked it a little bit and went a lot further than I thought I was going to, took a hard bounce and went down into the hazard down there and then dropped and hit -- after I dropped, hit it up there, my ball stopped about a foot from the back edge of one of the fairway bunkers. So I had like one foot down in there kind of and one foot -- it just a really weird stanze and was only able to get it on front fringe and had about a 100-foot putt and 3-putted.

Q. Did you kind of have to mentally regroup after that? To have a hole like that, the round you were having, was that kind of like a shocker? Did you have to regroup on that next tee?
CHRIS KIRK: Yeah, definitely. You know, but, I mean, I just kind of told myself, you know, I made one bad swing off the tee and it wasn't even really that bad. I didn't hit it that far right, just went a lot further than I thought it was going to. One of those things. No matter how good you're playing, that kind of stuff just happens sometimes.

Q. The players had talked about the course. You're kind of at the weird time that the course changed from like the beginning, in the morning was kind of the fog and kind of the air was kind of thick. By the end, the wind picked up and the ball was flying. Can you talk about that. Did you notice that at all?
CHRIS KIRK: Yeah, definitely. It was playing pretty long this morning. The air was kind of heavy. And as that wind picked up, the ground got really firm and so you had to kind of hit some clubs off the tees that you would never really think that you would hit, hitting 3-woods off 475-yard par 4s and stuff like that. You had to be a little bit more careful, really think your way round.

Q. Is this your first time in Houston?
CHRIS KIRK: I actually played a college event here at Redstone. I believe it was my either sophomore or junior year of college.

Q. Where that's?
A I played at the University of Georgia, and we played a college tournament here at the tournament course.

Q. This course?
CHRIS KIRK: It was this course, yes.

Q. Was that '06?
CHRIS KIRK: I have no clue.

Q. Is that the one Kim won?
CHRIS KIRK: Anthony shot 10-under and nobody shot under par for three rounds. I think he likes this golf course (laughter).

Q. Do you remember how you played that round at all?
CHRIS KIRK: I think I shot a bunch of 74s or so. Nothing very memorable.

Q. Chris, golf, especially for young players, is up and down and back and forth. Did you come in feeling your game was on an upswing this week, or is it just hard to tell?
CHRIS KIRK: Well, I had my two worst tournaments of the past couple years the last two weeks at Tampa. I shot 75-75. Bay Hill last week I shot 75-77. Just was kind of in a little bit of a funk, I guess. And really, to be honest with you, I don't feel like I was playing that bad of golf. I just lost interest somehow.
That's horrible for me to say that as a PGA TOUR player, and I have the best job in the world, but I did. I sort of lost interest and got to the point where I would make a couple bogies and felt like I didn't want to be out there. And so I went home this past weekend and just tried to change basically as many things as possible to try to spark my interest.
I've been working with Titleist for awhile now on the new 910 driver and the 710 irons, and I put both of them in play this week. I had been sort -- I played so well last year, I was sort of hesitant to change my equipment, and then I just -- like I said, been working on them and knew that I liked them but figured why not? This is a good time to do it. Sort of sparked my interest a little bit and got me back excited about playing, and obviously the results have been good so far.

Q. What changes, some mental change as well as physical?
CHRIS KIRK: Not really. That's really all it was. I think realizing that was the biggest mental change, that I needed to get my head out of you know where and try to just enjoy it and go play some solid golf.

Q. How many times have you played Augusta?
CHRIS KIRK: I played there four times.

Q. Just college or what?
CHRIS KIRK: Yeah. It was one of the big perks of playing at University of Georgia. We had a lot of alumni that they were members there, and so they would treat us and take us out there once a year.

Q. With your Georgia connection, what does that mean?
CHRIS KIRK: That's a huge goal of mine, whether it happens this year, I'm not exactly expecting it to happen this year. But, I mean, down the road, that's the one tournament that I grew up watching and that I would love to play in and love to win that tournament one day.

Q. When you played Augusta, how did you play?
CHRIS KIRK: Reasonably well. I remember my senior year I shot 40-30. That's the only real round. I don't think I played great the first few times I was there. But, yeah, I remember shooting 40-30 my senior year, which was pretty fun.

Q. Back-9 rally.
CHRIS KIRK: Yeah. The back-9 out there at Augusta is like no other nine holes in the world. You can get in a whole lot of trouble out there. But if you the hit great shots, hit the right shots as we see every April, you really get rewarded and you can make a lot of birdies and eagles.

Q. When you're playing Augusta as a collegiate, does it go through your mind this is to win the Masters, are you thinking like that?
CHRIS KIRK: No, not really. I was just trying to take a couple bucks off my teammates.

Q. Considering the last two weeks that you had, you've got to almost feel a sense relief and feel really good where you are right now heading into the weekend for this tournament.
CHRIS KIRK: Definitely.
A Golf is such a frustrating game sometimes, and you have a couple weeks like I did the last few weeks and you feel like you don't know how to play anymore, like you've forgotten how to play and you're completely lost and hopeless sort of for a little while there. And then as soon as that happens, then you play a round like I did yesterday and just -- I don't know. It's a crazy game. That's for sure.

Q. I would say, did you take pictures when were you at Augusta or do you scoop up any sand or anything like that?
CHRIS KIRK: I think I took a few pictures. I had one of my teammates take a picture of me hitting off 12 or something like that.
MARK STEVENS: Anything else? Thanks a lot and good luck this weekend.
CHRIS KIRK: Thanks.

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