U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 22, 2002

John Klauk

BETH MURRISON: Tell us a little bit about your day today.

JOHN KLAUK: I feel relieved, definitely, to be done. It was an up-and-down day. Started out playing pretty solid. Hit a couple great shots into one. Birdied two, and then three and four. Just good solid holes and then all of a sudden it kind of just disappeared on me. I just couldn't find it. Normally in a round you have a couple bad holes you can usually see a pattern and try to figure it out. But today, I just struggled for a good majority of the day. And then just relieved to get up-and-down on the last two holes with a couple sand saves.

BETH MURRISON: What do you do when you start to struggle like that?

JOHN KLAUK: Usually I just try to block it out. Maybe -- I never really struggled that much with the driver usually. But then today that's what really hit me. I struggled in all aspects of my game, but when you hit it in the rough it's kind of hard to really tell where you're going to go from there because most of the time you're just trying to hack it out and get a wedge on. But just really just tried to forget about it. Just tried to block it out of my head and go on with each shot. But I was having trouble doing that today.

Q. Do you feel kind of like you survived today? Is that the feeling?

JOHN KLAUK: Pretty much, yeah. Just to squeak by. Kevin, we, you know, we were just all over the place today. Both of us, we just hit a lot of shots that were just really loose shots. I'm just glad it's done with and just looking forward to tomorrow.

Q. Did it help at all to have your dad out there with you?

JOHN KLAUK: I think so. It helps me a little bit with my comfort level. He's always caddied for me in the Amateur. And he always does the qualifier with me. So then he's watched me my whole life play, so he knows a lot about my game. He can help me out with clubs, and reading greens and stuff like that.

Q. When you were struggling was there anything he could say or is it just not the time?

JOHN KLAUK: It really wasn't the time. And usually I usually can figure it out on my own. Today it was just, I don't know where it was. That's the worst I've hit it in a long time. I can't remember the last time I hit it like that.

Q. That's the same thing that Kevin said. That he couldn't remember the last time he played that poorly and he said go ask John too?

JOHN KLAUK: Yeah. It's been, I don't know what I would have shot.

(Laughter.) If I had to add it up. Since I had a pretty good consistent year in college, I think, the last time I played that bad was maybe like in October. Like, around where I shot like 81. It was just dreadful. That's what it felt like today.

Q. How will this affect you going into tomorrow?

JOHN KLAUK: I'm just going to forget about it. I'm just glad it's done with. And just try to forget about the shots I hit. And try to have a good mindset for tomorrow.

Q. And you did seem to lose it there especially, like, I think, 12 through 14, 15, you weren't hitting good shots but then you hit a good drive on 16, a really good iron shot into 16. He makes the pitch?

JOHN KLAUK: And then he goes completely from --

Q. What are you thinking?

JOHN KLAUK: My advantage to -- it really didn't bother me that much because those are things you have to expect. When your playing a player like, Kevin especially the way we had played, something is good, something is, something good is bound to happen. So then, but then I felt really comfortable over the putt and I thought I was going to make it. And then just ended up making it but went one down at that point.

Q. How long was that, about 20 feet?

JOHN KLAUK: Yeah, it was about 20 feet.

Q. Did you have a match at all at the Western that you had to survive?

JOHN KLAUK: Not really I don't think I was ever down in one match and it seems like every match I play here I've been down. Just battling back at the end.

Q. 15, he tries to -- it seemed to me that he tried to clear the trees on the left. He hits a tree. Your play then was to just play safe to the right?

JOHN KLAUK: I was going to hit 3-iron there no matter what. Because I hit a driver there this morning and hit it through the fairway. The way I had been hitting the driver, there was just no chance it was coming out of the bag there. So I was just -- after I saw where his ball kicked I was just trying to play for the fairway and hit it onto the center of the green and luckily it was one of the better holes that I played today.

Q. 18, was that a similar line that Kevin had? Or did that help you at all?

JOHN KLAUK: A little bit but I really wasn't watching him. I was just trying to keep that out of my head. If he had made it especially. But then the thing -- I watched after it passed the hole, just to see how far it really kept going. So I knew that was going to be fast. I knew that I didn't want to give it a rip and try to take a little bit of the break out. Because then I would probably like eight feet coming back.

Q. Was there much break to that putt at all on yours, it was about five feet, wasn't it?

JOHN KLAUK: Yeah, it was about five, six feet or. So I played it about three inches outside the hole.

Q. Left-to-right?

JOHN KLAUK: Left. Outside the left.

Q. How was your lie on your second shot and were you trying to get on the green or were you just trying to play for the --

JOHN KLAUK: I was trying to get on the green. I had an all right lie. It looked like it was going to fly a little bit. I had a clump of grass behind the ball, but I thought I could get it on the putting surface. And I just, really just was trying to hit an easy 5-iron. But it just didn't jump as much as I thought it would.

Q. And you caught a pretty good lie in the bunker?

JOHN KLAUK: Yeah, I did. And I was just, from the bunker shot I was just trying to leave it below the hole. Because the last thing I wanted was to have a downhill left-to-right putt.

BETH MURRISON: What are your thoughts on the match tomorrow?

JOHN KLAUK: First of all I'm going to need to figure something out on the range to get a little bit more confidence for tomorrow's round. But Bill's a great player. Hits it a long way, makes a lot of birdies. So I know it's going to take a good score tomorrow to have a chance to be in there toward the end.

BETH MURRISON: Everybody all set. Okay. Thank you.

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