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AT&T NATIONAL

June 30, 2011

Hunter Haas

NEWTOWN SQUARE, PENNSYLVANIA

NELSON SILVERIO: Hunter Haas, welcome to the interview room at the AT&T National. You started with four straight birdies and kept the momentum going from there. Give us some thoughts on your round today.
HUNTER HAAS: Thoughts on the round? My key for the round was just to hit fairways and put it in position to score out here. I know that's going to be difficult. The greens, I heard they were getting firm yesterday, -er, and quite honestly I played my practice round, I never played here before and I played Tuesday and it was raining, and I didn't think a whole lot about it. But I didn't realize it would firm up that quick.
But that being said, I just really focused on keeping the ball below the hole and getting the ball in play. And to be honest, the holes I didn't get it in play, I hit great shots out of the rough and ended up making birdie off one of them, so that kind of helps.
The bogey that I had today, I bogeyed 7, I didn't really -- I had a bad choice of club off the tee, and it was just playing a little different. Other than that, I'm really happy with the way I played. I stayed in the moment, and 4-under on this golf course isn't bad.

Q. How has your game been coming into this week?
HUNTER HAAS: Well, ooh, not a lot of rounds in the 60s. Actually this would be a second in a row. You know, I haven't been playing bad, put it that way, I just haven't been scoring really well, like I'm used to scoring. And that means instead of having two, maybe three birdies a round, that means having five, possibly six, and that's the difference between making it -- having a good round versus a mediocre or average round, which leads to Thursday, Friday, possibly missing the cut by a shot or something.
Someone mentioned I've missed three out of four cuts, and I don't even realize I've missed three out of four cuts. I know I didn't make the cut at Memorial, took off -- I think I had a couple weeks off, and I missed the cut at the Travelers. I guess the other cut would be Colonial.
But quite honestly I've played pretty solid all year, and I've just tried to stay focused and not get down on myself for missing the cut or not scoring well all the time, and it's just kind of something where you've got to be patient and let it happen.
So I've been playing all right, but there's a fine line there, too, you know.

Q. Could you talk about the fight to get on the TOUR and stay on the TOUR? This is like your third go-around, I believe, on the big Tour.
HUNTER HAAS: It's not fun. I think it's my 11th year. My first year out you could have hit me on the back of the head and it still wouldn't have woke me up. Went through a lot of caddies. I went through a lot of learning processes to get where I am today. So any time I see someone, a younger player come out, and they might be experiencing the same thing I went through, I try to help them out and encourage them. That's the best I can do.
There's a lot of people that dream to be where we are out here, and it's not easy. There's a lot of things that aren't easy about it, one being the competitive side, but the other thing is the family side is very difficult, trying to raise a family and traveling and keeping everybody happy, especially if you're missing cuts by a shot.

Q. How important was having four birdies to getting the round going, and can you tell when you're going to have a round like this when you start that way?
HUNTER HAAS: It's important. I don't want to start off with a couple bogeys and then have to come down the stretch making birdies. But you know, honestly I saw the scoreboard five minutes before I teed off. I didn't know what anybody shot. I just saw in front of 9 green, and I said, wow, I thought the scores would be a lot lower than that -- well, not a lot, but I thought they would be better than that. And that's just kind of where I put my mindset on the scoring and how to play this golf course. I didn't think it was going to be that -- I'm not taking anything away from this golf course; it's challenging, but I'm just saying I set myself a little higher, and it helped out. Stay positive and just attack it.
You know, four birdies in a row is -- I can't tell you how many times I've made two birdies in a row and then backed it up with a bogey or a double. It's not fun. So to have four birdies and then I think I had five pars and then I had a couple opportunities in there that I missed, I really played solid today. The only bogey, it was just kind of a bad -- I hit a bad chip or a bad putt. I putted from the fringe and I just hit a bad chip. Other than that, it was a pretty care-free, not a lot of trouble. I would love to have that every day.

Q. In the context you were speaking before about your first year and essentially not waking up from that, dreaming about that, did you mean that in a positive context, that you were in that rookie fantasy world of everything being good and you had to learn what comes with it?
HUNTER HAAS: Yeah. I didn't spend any time on the Nationwide Tour. I played a few mini-Tour events, played some sponsor invites, and then, boom, got my TOUR card and I was out here. I thought I was the cat's meow. I learned real quick. It was a tough first year out here. If you want we can go back and look at statistics and scores and we can break it down. It wasn't fun. It put me on the Nationwide Tour, and out there I figured out pretty quick what it was going to take. It's a good learning ground, that Tour.
NELSON SILVERIO: Hunter, thanks.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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