	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY NATIONWIDE INSURANCE

June 2, 2011

Chris DiMarco

DUBLIN, OHIO

MARK STEVENS: We'd like to welcome Chris DiMarco. You got to 5-under, and if you want to talk about your round and we'll take a few questions.
CHRIS DiMARCO: Yeah, you know, this course obviously is very long, so I have to drive it pretty straight and putt real well. Right out of the gates the 10th hole I hit a good drive and had 224 yards in and hit a beautiful 5-wood in to six feet and made birdie. It was nice to get off to a good start like that. Then made three birdies on the back, but made three bogeys and then turned and played flawlessly on the front side.
I think I missed a couple six, seven-footers for birdie which would have given me even a little better, but certainly 31 on the back side I'm happy with.

Q. Are you on a sponsor exemption or something for this week?
CHRIS DiMARCO: I did get in with a sponsor exemption. I thought I was going to get in on my own and it turned out that I missed by a couple and they gave me an exemption.

Q. Helps to know the old man a little bit?
CHRIS DiMARCO: Yeah, Presidents Cup helped. There were a few things that were good, there was no doubt about it. I kept reminding him, Remember that putt I made in the Presidents Cup? I could use a spot here.

Q. Was he the captain of that one, the one you won?
CHRIS DiMARCO: He was the captain, yeah.

Q. Did you feel rounds like this starting to come on?
CHRIS DiMARCO: I played really good last week. I was in sixth or seventh place going into the weekend last week and the wind really picked up. Like I was saying out there, I'm lifting my putter off the ground and it's really helping me smooth things out. And last week with the wind blowing 20, 25 miles an hour it was knocking me all over the place and I didn't make many putts on the weekend. I hit the ball pretty good, but I just didn't make too many putts.

Q. When lifting the putter --
CHRIS DiMARCO: I worked with Rick Smith probably two, three years ago, and he just said -- I said I was having trouble getting the putter back and he said just lift it up, it kind of takes the tension off it. I don't do it all the time, but when I feel like I'm pushing the putter into the ground, so to speak, like putting pressure on it, it's hard to get the putter back.
So by lifting it off the ground, it's not so much different than what Charlie Wi does with his putter where he kind of bounces, it's the same type of thing. You're just trying to get the putter started going back.
For me, just lifting it that little bit off, I know Mr. Nicklaus does it, too. Last week, obviously it was bad because it was knocking me all over the place, but the wind could have blown my ball and I wasn't going to get penalized because I never had my putter on the ground.

Q. How long ago did you start to feel 100 percent physically?
CHRIS DiMARCO: I would probably say -- I had surgery at the end of '07, and then '08, it took almost a full year, and then my wrist started hurting a little bit in '09. I would say about the last year since Memphis last year is when I really started feeling 100 percent shoulder is good.
Other than just the normal getting old, the back here and the neck here and things like that. But as far as just physically in my golf swing, yeah, it's been about a year.

Q. Some of the other players were talking about how even though the greens are soft and receiving shots, are they putting really fast?
CHRIS DiMARCO: Yeah, they don't look as fast as they are, which is kind of weird here. Normally they look as fast as they are, they are what they are, which is ridiculously fast.
Like DJ today, he struggled. I had good speed with them, Josh Teater had great speed with them, we both shot 5-under. You could see putts getting away from you, they don't look that fast, then all of sudden the next thing you know it's five, six feet by the hole. And that's when they get tough, especially if you're putting uphill, you're knocking two, three, four feet, then you hit that little slider coming back down. Those are the tough ones.

Q. Were you able to pick up on that not as fast as they look on the putting green or did it take a couple holes?
CHRIS DiMARCO: No, it was pretty much the putting green was pretty much the same speed. I was pretty lucky today, too. It seemed like I was always just inside somebody, almost on the same line, not necessarily giving me the read, but definitely giving me the speed, so that was always nice to see today.
Especially tomorrow they're only going to be faster, especially as late as we go tomorrow. I think we're bringing in the pins, or one group behind us. They're going to be a little bit more bumpy and probably a little bit faster tomorrow.
Patience is the key out here. It's a weird wind. It's kind of like an Augusta wind in the fact that it's not blowing hard enough, but it's blowing variable. So it's going -- you never know which way it's going to go, and a lot of these shots out here you've got over water and it's difficult because especially No. 12, No. 6, a lot of these shots into the greens you're thinking -- you don't want to go long, long is just as bad as short. So it's tough to hit the right distance out here.
MARK STEVENS: Thanks a lot, Chris. Good luck tomorrow.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297