MARCONI PENNSYLVANIA CLASSIC

September 21, 2001

Briny Baird

BRINY BAIRD: The day today was pretty good. It was long, obviously. Wouldn't have been too bad had we not had the fog delay. We had an hour-and-20-minute fog delay. And then we are ready to play, and then 15 more minutes and another 15, so it's hard to stay ready. Once we got going, it's not bad. Most of the guys out here are pretty good shape, so it's not bad so play however many holes. I played 30 holes or so. I don't think that has too much of an effect. The golf course is relatively easy to walk. As far as golf is going, I'm actually not doing -- I'm hitting my driver terrible. I'm not hitting my irons all that solid, but I'm chipping and putting really well. Came into the week, expectations really well, knowing that things can change real quick. They always seem to change real quick. You hit one good drive and you're like, "Oh, okay I remember how to play this game again." You hit one good iron shot. I never got into a good rhythm out there with anything other than -- really confident knowing I would get up-and-down. Just get it somewhere near the green, and it's not going to look real pretty and I can chip and putt. If you asked the guys I played with, they are probably laughing right now, seeing where I'm at. I had a good group and everybody seemed to play well, so it was hard for me to fall back into the over-par mode. Everybody seemed to be playing solid. So just chipped and putted my way around the golf course.

BRINY BAIRD: Yes, yes, no. Yeah I'm surprised the scores are not lower. Yes, the greens are receptive, so it does really surprise me. I look up on the leaderboard. I think 7-under is leading, is that right? That doesn't surprise me that, you know, Rocco is up there. It surprises me that 7-under is leading the event now. Granted, the other wave has not had a chance to play yet. That's probably going to change. I bet that Rocco is not going to be in the lead when the second round is complete. I think some guys are who are at 3-under are going to shoot 4- or 5-under to get into a tie with him, 7- and 8-under. I think Larry Mize got it going today. I think he was one of the only ones. He was 7-under for the day and he was on 18. I'm surprised the scores are not lower. I'm surprised, the way I'm playing, I look up there and see my name on the board; it is surprising, with the way I've played.

BRINY BAIRD: Obviously, none, because I've never been here before.

BRINY BAIRD: Oh, I think it has a tremendous amount, I really do. The greens, you can see certain spots where you know where to miss it not to miss it. I hit some putts, it's kind of tricky as to what's uphill and what's downhill. I saw some of the guys in our group had trouble with some of the speed of some of the putts. I heard Rocco doing an interview earlier this week and he talked nice things about the golf course; it was about time there was a Tour evennt or event coming back here. So, obviously, he likes the golf course. You could see early in the week that he was going to play well.

BRINY BAIRD: Because of the way the greens were holding. Any time you get greens that hold, guys out here just go really, really low. And we're holding the ball in the fairway. I forgot about that, too. We are getting a perfect lie in the fairway, and when you miss a green, when the greens are soft, it's easy to get up-and-down. Guys out here can hit a flop shot. They can almost hit it with the rim of their hat sometimes. You get soft greens, you throw it around the pin and it stops and you tap-in for your par or birdie on the par 5. So the conditions are there. The wind blew a little bit, and that's probably the only thing that kept the scores not quite so low, but then again, you have that other half of the field still to play. So there will be some lower scores.

BRINY BAIRD: It could be Rocco. It could be someone else to shoot and get it to 10- or 12-under. Somewhere probably around 7- or 8-under. Maybe 9 (-under). Some of these guys like Nick Price is probably not going to get done. I would imagine he's not going to get done, he's going to come out here tomorrow morning and the greens will still be soft in the morning. There might be no wind. If he can get it to 7 or 8 before tomorrow morning and he comes out tomorrow morning with six or seven holes to play, things like that happen.

BRINY BAIRD: I'm going to look at my stats on the computer tonight. I would be shocked if I hit more than 50 percent of the fairways. Really, really shocked. And it's not even the amount of fairways. It's how they feel coming off the club. I hit two drives, both on 9, that were really good, and that was it for the day. I hit some other drives that were acceptable, and it's shocking. I'm a little amazed that I'm mis-hitting my driver with the consistency that I am. It can turn around quick. I really am. That's why I told my caddy, "Bear with me." He goes, "Hey, you're doing fine.

BRINY BAIRD: When you're aiming left and you're trying to play a cut and the ball turns right-to-left, that's trouble. The old double-cross is not good. The rough out here is deep enough to where it does penalize you. I got away with a few breaks today. Hopefully, I'll get it going and talk to you guys tomorrow and Sunday.

BRINY BAIRD: Some weeks are more. Some weeks are less. It's probably your run-of-the-mill four- or five-inch rough.

BRINY BAIRD: Close. Probably not quite as many greens as fairways, but the irons -- the irons seemed to get better later in the day -- and then I don't know where I hit it, 6-iron left of left on a hole.

BRINY BAIRD: Yeah, there's a little bit. The bunkers are tough. The bunkers are firm. It's hard to -- you can bounce one out of the bunkers pretty good. It bounces off the firm sand. The golf course is in fantastic shape.