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FUNAI GOLF CLASSIC AT WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT

October 24, 2004

Briny Baird

LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLORIDA

BRINY BAIRD: The round was okay. I played decent again, played good Thursday and Friday. Yesterday and today just played decent at best, didn'tÃ‚Â -- scored pretty good yesterday, actually really good yesterday, and today I left a couple out there, even though I didn't play all that well.

It's disappointing. I'm going to walk away disappointed this week because I felt like I had a really, really good opportunity. You can't help it when a guy shoots 62, but I felt like I left enough out there to at least get it to 22 where Ryan was.

I'm lucky in the sense that Ryan had to play this week, but congratulations to him. Again, another 62 in the final round.

Q. (Inaudible).

BRINY BAIRD: No, I tried not to, and I did a good job not watching. Every now and then you line up a putt and you watch. A lot of time it depends on how I feel that day, whether I think it's going to help me or hurt me to watch the leaderboard today. I felt like it was going to hurt me. I felt like I could pretty much control my own destiny.

I know when I got to 20 I still had enough holes left to get it to 22. I asked my daughter what was leading. I said, "Just tell me what's leading." No, I did not watch the leaderboard, but I did find out whatÃ‚Â -- I didn't know who it was that was at 22, but I assumed who it was when it wasn't Ryan.

Q. (Inaudible).

BRINY BAIRD: No, I felt tons of pressure. You'd be crazyÃ‚Â -- anybody sitting up here who says I didn't feel any pressure today, either they teed off at 8:00 this morning or they're crazy. No, I definitely felt pressure. It doesn't affect how you play sometimes and sometimes it does.

I mean, there's not really any other way to answer the question. You definitely feel nervous while you're playing a round of golf. That's why we all strive to have golf swings that repeat, so you can sit there and feel as uncomfortable as you could ever feel and feel like you're not going to hit the ground even, and your swing is that good that it just repeats without you having to think. That's why we strive to have fundamentally perfect golf swings.

Q. (Inaudible).

BRINY BAIRD: No, it's a three-putt, but it was from off the green, and it was from a long way, and it was fast, downhill. The first putt actually wasn't that bad. The second putt didn't break. I probably started it just outside the hole and I wanted to start it just inside the hole. Yeah, I was pretty much done from there.

Q. (Inaudible).

BRINY BAIRD: Well, he's been in the position before so it's not like your typical rookie. He played well, and to his benefit, I think he shot 62, is that right, at Southern Farm, 64, and he ended up losing to Fred Funk by a shot, so I think to his advantage, that was only a couple, three weeks ago or something, so I think being flush like that, having instilled all he could recollect from that round I think was a huge, huge key to him shooting 62 today, and I think it was probably easier than normal for him to calm himself.

Had he not played for three months, then it's harder to play as well as he did. You've always got to watch out for someone who's been playing well because they've been in the hunt. That's why I figured Tom Lehman was going to be tough to beat today, because he had been in the hunt the last few weeks. Sometimes that can work in reverse, though, probably putting too much pressure on himself, but I thought he was going to be the guy to look out for.

Q. (Inaudible).

BRINY BAIRD: It makes me feel terrible, thanks (laughter). Yeah, I just told Jon Brendle this is a really, really tough Tour to win on. It's unbelievable. I've play out here for five years, however many events I've played, and it's tough. It's still a disappointment, but like I said, I take pleasure in playing well, consistently well. I played well this week, and again, if you look at it negatively, yeah, another L and another check in the loss column. It's hard to beat yourself up too much because you'll go crazy.

Q. (Inaudible).

BRINY BAIRD: I played well, yeah, but there's only been a couple times where I actually felt like I had as good a chance as anybody in the field to win, and I felt that way at the Southern Farm after I teed off. Going into the round I didn't feel that way, and I felt that way at Westchester last year and ended up shooting 76 or 77. I honestly felt going into the final round that this was my tournament to win. I felt that today. I felt like I controlled my own destiny. There was not going to be any wind, and I thought that was to my advantage. I honestly thought I could throw a 5-, 6-, 7-under and make it to beÃ‚Â -- it would take a 62 to force a playoff.

Q. (Inaudible).

BRINY BAIRD: I think it's been more fun at other times. Today wasn't necessarily as much fun because I didn't feel like I was in as great a control of my golf ball, so I think that's probably why I felt a little more uncomfortable. I think nerves come from fear and fear comes from not knowing where the ball is going to go, and today I didn't know where the ball was going to go. I'm not 100 percent sure where it's going. There's times where I'm so sure about my golf swing that I'm nervous but it's a different kind of nerves, and those are the good days because you know your swing is perfect, and your swing keys are great.

I used a couple swing keys this week that were just running on empty. They were slowly leaving me. I was overworking them and overworking them and eventually you know they're going to run out and I hit a few skanky shots out there, but I got it in okay.

Q. Do you want to your over your card? You shot 1-under on the front. Birdie on 7?

BRINY BAIRD: Birdie on 7, hit a good shot, hit a pretty good number, just an absolutely full sand wedge as hard as I could hit it, which was a good swing because I actually could throw it behind the hole and bring it back to about six feet. Tom showed me the break with his putt, so I made that one.

Birdie on 11, hit it to about two feet, hit pitching wedge in there close.

Another one on 14, par 5, good drive. The layup was a real good layup, so I had a full sand wedge in again, which was key. It's a tight layup, so I hit a sand wedge in there probably 10 or 12 feet.

Bogey on 16, three-putt there from off the green, but it was from 80 feet.

Q. (Inaudible).

BRINY BAIRD: I hit 3-wood, and I regret it having missed the fairway. I regret having hit 3-wood there. I figured by hitting 3-wood, it gave me a betterÃ‚Â -- a wider fairway, and it seemed like the smarter play. I'm not secondÃ‚Â -- I second-guessed it a little bit because I wish I would have stood up there with driver and swung hard, but if I pulled it left in that bunker and had to chip out, then that would have been stupid, so I was playing the percentages and I just hit a bad shot.

Q. (Inaudible).

BRINY BAIRD: Vijay hit driver in the bunker? So he did miss a fairway this year (laughter). Good for him.

NELSON SILVERIO: Thanks, Briny.

End of FastScripts.

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