	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 BARCLAYS

August 25, 2011

Harrison Frazar

EDISON, NEW JERSEY

LAURA HILL: You won the FedEx St. Jude Classic this year and now with a nice bogey-free 64, you're leading the first event of the Playoffs for the FedExCup, so some nice synergy there. Talk to us about today.
HARRISON FRAZAR: Well I wanted to get done today. With the way the weather is coming, I didn't want to have to sit around and play too much tomorrow or too much Saturday. It's going to be a long week by the time this thing is over.
You know, I didn't start out very well. I didn't hit the ball good the first seven, eight holes. And I chipped in on 1 from over the green, which is -- if you hit it back there, usually it's bogey. I made, I can't remember, a made a couple of birdies in there that were pretty routine but then made about a 15-footer for par on 7.
Made about a 15- or 18-footer for par on 9. Got into trouble on both spots, and after that I settled down and played well on the back nine. Just didn't make any putts.

Q. Are you aware with some of the things going on in the state with the Governor evacuating the shore and what's coming on Sunday?
HARRISON FRAZAR: We are not really aware of much. Out here the vibe and the focus is Barclays and the FedExCup and to try to play golf. We are all sensitive to what the people on the East Coast are going to go through. A lot of the guys here are from Florida, they are from North Carolina, South Carolina, they ever got homes that they are worried about.
So you know we are all concerned about it but it doesn't do us any good, it's not in our power to do anything about it or to worry about it. So you know, if they tell us to play golf, we go play golf. If they tell us we are going to speed up and play 36 on Saturday and go home, then we'll deal with it.

Q. You said you shot 64 but you didn't make any putts?
HARRISON FRAZAR: No, no, I said I didn't make any putts on the back nine.

Q. Oh, the back nine, okay.
HARRISON FRAZAR: I hit it very well on the back. I played maybe about a 40 on the front and I played about 30 on the back. But I think the scores showed differently. I think I shot four on the front and three on the back.
You know, it could have gone either way. I hit it so far right on No. 1 that I was over by 6 tee box and hit it over the green from there. That's a no-no. We all know that. But I hit a good chip and it hit the pin hard enough that it went in.
So you know, I didn't deserve that, but I'll take it.

Q. How soft is the course now, and how much more water can this course take?
HARRISON FRAZAR: The course is very soft. The fairways are plugging. There was mud on the balls. The shots into the greens are just hitting and just stopping where they are. If they have got any spin on them at all, they are pulling. Numbers, I would say that 16 of the holes are fine and could probably take more. But 13 and 14, I don't know how much more those greens can take. That creek in there I think can get up pretty quickly. I think that's the question mark.

Q. You shot 64 with three hours of downtime in between. How do you keep yourself loose, how do you keep yourself ready to play in those three hours?
HARRISON FRAZAR: Oh, a lot of guys do it differently. Some go and take a nap. Some go to the fitness center. Some go watch a movie. You know we just sat around and kind of shot the breeze and ate a meal. You know, walked around a little bit to try to keep your legs and your back at least, keep them from locking up. Because you know that they are going to do kind of what they did; you don't know what's happening.
The radar kind of looks funny but you think there might be a break and the next thing you know, somebody says "in position in 50 minutes." So you can't take all of your gear off. You can't go lay down somewhere by yourself. You've kind of got to stay where everybody else is, so that you at least know what's happening.

Q. You guys go through weather delays all the time on TOUR. It looks in this scenario like this could be an extraordinary situation potentially. Could you just talk about the specter of that hanging over the tournament, and have you guys been told as players anything, potential contingency plans?
HARRISON FRAZAR: We haven't been told of any plans. There's out there right now nothing but rumours. Commissioner Finchem I believe holds the power to make the call, and he's going to do whatever is best for this tournament and for Barclays, as it should be. He's got a lot of factors that he has to weigh in. You know, you've got to worry about everything from down trees out on the streets around here, power; you've got to worry about the grandstands and the luxury boxes on 18, I think they want to get those out of here before this thing gets here, if they can.
You know, but at the same time, he's got to try to look after the best interests of FedEx and Barclays and Deutsche Bank. So I don't know what he's going to do. But I think the last thing that we want is to have a cancellation of the tournament. I've been a part of a few of those, and it just leaves a negative taste in everybody's mouth. The sponsors are not happy. The communities are not happy. The organizers are not pleased.
We as players want to play. We want it to be legitimate. We want it to be a full event. The TOUR wants to do that. So we are going to do everything we can.

Q. By cancellation, you mean shortening this to a 54-hole type of event?
HARRISON FRAZAR: That's obviously not ideal. No, when I talk about cancellation, I think my rookie year, we had to cancel AT&T, the Pebble Beach -- no, I'm sorry. That was the year before my rookie year, they had to cancel it. The next year, we had to come back like nine months later to try to finish the tournament, and a couple of years ago in Jackson, it just rained so hard, the golf course was flooded and it wasn't letting up.
You don't want to have that happen. They are going to do everything they can to get 72 holes in. If it happens to become 54, I think that's acceptable, especially given the circumstances.

Q. And my actual question was, can you remember a tournament where so much is already hanging over this and we are not even halfway through day one yet; they are already talking about Sunday being washed out, maybe Monday being washed out; Tuesday. What is the vibe in that locker room of what are we going to do?
HARRISON FRAZAR: I think that we still have to realize that we don't know 100 percent that thing is going to hit here, right? And so essentially it's a forecast and we deal with forecasts all the time, for wind or for heat or lightning, things happen, things don't happen.
We as players, we just have to sit and focus on trying to play golf, trying to do our deal and just roll with the punches. Nobody wants to see something bad happen here. So we are going to try to keep that in perspective but we are also going to just do our best to play the best tournament we can.

Q. Would you prefer to play 36 on Saturday or to wait it out next week if you had to?
HARRISON FRAZAR: I would rather not play 36. Physically I think it would be difficult for me, up-and-down these hills, especially with soft fairways. I think my back and my leg -- I don't know if I could -- I wouldn't be as efficient, put it that way.
It would be better for the tournament to play 36 on Saturday than it would be for us to come back on Tuesday or Wednesday.
LAURA HILL: Harrison, nice playing today. Thank you for joining us.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297