U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 28, 1998

Hank Kuehne

HANK KUEHNE: I'd say the day went pretty well. I hit the ball pretty good, putted well again. I got off to a good start, I was 3 up after 5. So that's the first time, other than that, this week, actually. Overall I think I played pretty well. I made a couple of bad bogeys, but then I made some good putts, some good saves, and finished it off with a couple of birdies, so I was pretty happy about that.

HANK KUEHNE: Yeah, it was a pretty bad lip out, too. It came -- I thought -- he missed it like -- like a 12 or 15-footer and I had like ten feet. And I had it just inside right. And I hit it and I was actually kind of starting to walk to pick it up and it hit -- I thought it was the left center, and it kind of came back towards me a good 18 inches.

HANK KUEHNE: Yeah, I made about a -- I hit a 2-iron off the tee, just into the left -- he hit it first, and he hit it in the right rough, and I was saying: Yeah, I'll go to the left. And I hit it in the left rough. And then I hit a wedge to about 18, 20 feet, sort of, just past and right of the hole, and I had kind of a downhill, right to left putt. And just knocked it right in.

HANK KUEHNE: 4, I hit driver off the tee, and didn't really cut it as much as I would have liked. I had like 260 -- 270, 265, I don't know, didn't really even look, and hit a 2-iron into the left bunker, left green-side bunker, blasted it out to 3 feet and knocked it in.

HANK KUEHNE: Hit driver down the middle, he hit it left. I had 107 yards, I think, to the pin. He hit it right, in the fringe, so I thought that I should -- I mean 111 yards, a little into the wind, the green was kind of firm, I didn't want to knock 2 it over, so I hit it to the center of the green and about pin-high is what I did. He hit a great lag putt to get it six feet away from the hole. And then I actually had a perfect angle just to lag it up there, almost made it and he gave me the putt. And then he missed his.

HANK KUEHNE: Yeah, fanned an 8-iron into the crowd. That was a good shot (laughter.) Yeah, I was just trying to hit like -- the last thing I was hitting is that you've got a lot of room to the right of the pin, you can hit it 15 feet right of the pin and use that slope. So I kind of tried to turn it in, and I just got way in front of it, and hit it off in the people over there.

HANK KUEHNE: Yeah, I was happy about that one. He hits 6 to go two down. And hits it in the water at 7. And I hit a 2-iron down the middle of the fairway. I had like 170 or something like that. It was the perfect little 8-iron, and I hit about -- the only thing that hit the ball was dirt. I hit that far behind it. I had like 40 yards to the green, and I hit it so bad. And then he ended up -- it was weird because I had to play first, because of where his ball went into the hazard. And even though he dropped it 30 yards behind where I was -- so he watched me just lay the sod on it. And then he knocked it up. He hit a good shot right to the front of the green, and actually I hit a really good wedge shot to about 8 feet past the hole. And he chipped it up there, I gave it to him, and I missed it from 8 feet.

HANK KUEHNE: Oh, yeah, then I was feeling real good about it. Then I hit it in the left trees on 8, and had some limb problems and everything else. And then I hit a shot that I think went through about 12 trees, and got into the left bunker somehow, I don't know how it ended up over there. But I had sort of a shot to hit it a big hook. But then I couldn't hit a big hook because I couldn't get my swing flat enough, because I would have hit the branches, and if I did that I would have missed the ball. So I was kind lifting it and hoping pretty much. And it went into the bunker, had a good bunker shot to ten feet, made the putt for a half. So that was pretty good.

HANK KUEHNE: No. 9 I hit it down the middle of the fairway, he hit it in the -- actually he hit first, he hit it kind of left in the rough. I kind of hit a 3-wood -- 3-wood right down the middle and 8-iron from like 165, right at it. I thought it was really close, but it just went onto that hill, 20 feet past the pin. He hit it into the front bunker, blasted it out to 2 feet, and then I lagged it down there a foot and he gave that to me. 10, he hits first, and hits it left, and then I hit it about three yards to the right of him, but I was still left. We were both in the rough. He hit it to the back fringe. I hit it to about, I don't know, 30 feet. Putted up there and he gave it to me. He putted down there and had like a 3-footer and made that. 11, he hit it probably 35 or 40 feet right of the pin. And I was aiming pretty much at the middle of the green, being two up. And I hit it about 30 feet. I hit it just inside of his ball. He was a little bit further up than me, so he kind of had to putt it more up the slope, and it was going to be faster as it was coming down. He hit a great putt, it hit the high lip and still went about six feet by. Then I lagged it up there a foot away, he gave it to me again -- no, he didn't give it to me. I lagged it up there about two feet away. He missed then made his bogey putt then I made the putt to go three up. Then we went to 11. I hit it down the middle, he hit it down the right center. Then I hit it right about 12 feet. He hit it right at it, but it was just short, and he actually lipped his chip out. It hit the edge of the hole, and I didn't believe my brother that was the way the putt was going to break, and it broke the way he said it was going to, so I didn't make it. So I halved that hole, we both halved that hole with par. 13 I finally hit the fairway for the first time all week, I'm pretty happy about that. I knocked it right down the middle. I was trying to just punch a 4-iron up there where I could get it right at a hundred yards. He hit it in the left rough and then down the middle, and he actually hit first from the fairway, he hit it about 18 feet, short of the pin, and I had like 109 yards to the pin, and I hit it about four feet. He missed and I made it so I went to 4 up there. Five to go. And then we got to 14 and I pull out a driver and hit it a little thin, right up short of the bunker. He hit it down the middle of the fairway. Then he hit it about 25 feet short and I had a really bad lie, in the rough right short of the bunker, pitched it up there, I think it was as close as about 10 to 12 feet, and rolled back to just inside of Bryce. He putted it up there about two feet by, and then I knocked it in to win 5 and 4.

HANK KUEHNE: Just pretty much to go out there and try to hit it in the fairways, knock it on the green, pretty much play the same way I've played all week, using the same gameplan, I putted really well all week aside from three holes in a row I missed it from three feet yesterday. But today and the first 27 holes yesterday I played unbelievable, putted great today, and putted great in the qualifying.

HANK KUEHNE: I hit driver in every match on 14.

HANK KUEHNE: Not exactly. I think it's the best play for me. It's not an easy shot for a hundred yards going up a 30 foot hill. You can't see the pin, you can't see the green. I can hit -- I hit driver past all the trouble. I've got to hit a good tee shot, but you've also got to hit a good 4-iron and wedge to knock it on the green. Plus if I hit it a little bit right or left I can chip it somewhere on the green, unless I'm stymied. I know something would happen where I can't chip it on the green, but I feel like wherever I hit it I can get it somewhere on the green or hit it somewhere where I can make par. Actually that hole has been pretty good to me. I've missed a 3-footer yesterday, but other than that I've birdied it every time hitting driver off the team.

HANK KUEHNE: Right. I think it was just the day. Bryce is a great player. Bryce has proved that all year. He was college Player-of-the-Year. He's a true professional. One of the different deals for me today was, when I needed to make putts or I needed to get it up-and-down or needed to make a good shot I did. When Bryce kind of struggled a little bit, when he tried to hit it to the center of the green, he caught a flier and knocked it over or he didn't quite catch enough, hit it thin and went in the bunker short of the green. He'd have six footers to half holes. And he really didn't make any of those putts. That pretty much was the biggest difference. I seemed to pretty much always be in the hole making par. I made one putt to half a hole. And that was the 8th hole. Every other time he's having to make putts to half me or I've got to putt to win from 10, 12, 15, 20 feet. So the pressure was pretty much on him all day, and he just didn't -- for whatever reason it is, it's not because he doesn't have the ability or not because he hasn't proved he can't play, it just didn't happen today.

HANK KUEHNE: Not really. This is what I love to do, this is what I want my career to be. And if I'm feeling a lot of pressure and everything else, I think I've made a bad career choice.

HANK KUEHNE: I don't know. I hadn't really thought about it.

HANK KUEHNE: Obviously there's something to our name in golf. We've done extremely well in golf. My sister is on the Tour, my brother is an All-American finalist, Walker Cupper, and I've been a three time All-American. Things have been good for us. We've all seemed to -- we've all been extremely successful, and it just happened to be in the same game. So as far as being pressure or anything else, I don't think there's any pressure to uphold the family name. I think I do pretty well with that, myself, and off the golf course, it doesn't have anything to do with golf. Staying sober, doing the things I need to do to make myself a better person. So if I'd lost in the first round, it wouldn't have been like an embarrassment to the family or anything.

HANK KUEHNE: Yeah, my college season I played decent, I never really broke through and played really well, but I played extremely solid. I finished out the top-10 three times all year. I didn't win my tournaments, but I was there pretty much every week. I just wasn't on top of my game as far as I couldn't put it all together in the same week. I'd hit it good one week and putt bad. I'd hit it bad the next week, putt great. Things would just work and never really got together. Early in the summer it was pretty much the same deal, I'd hit the ball really good, just wasn't quite getting in the hole, something was going on. And then I started to put it together over at the Palmer cup in Scotland and then came home, shot 134 in qualifying at one of the hardest courses in Texas and things just kind of started to fall into place, and I was playing extremely well leading up to the tournament and I've played well since I've been here.

HANK KUEHNE: Bill is a very good player, he hits the ball really well, has a great short game. I don't know exactly -- he's a good friend of mine. Obviously he's a good player, look at his college record, he's played great summer, and won the Monday row up here. As far as assessing, I think I'm going to have to play good, and he's going to have to play good, too. There's no really saying it's going to be this way or it's going to be that way. We have to tee it up and see how it goes.

HANK KUEHNE: Yes, I have not played -- I haven't played well at all in the U.S. Amateur at all prior to this. This is my third trip. This is my first time to make it to matchplay. I missed it by one at pumpkin ridge, and shot 152 last year at Oak Hill, and then came here.

HANK KUEHNE: I've been extremely tired after my college seasons, and taking some time off to -- took like five weeks off. It's hard to get your game back together after taking five weeks off, at the beginning of the last two summers. And then I could play well one day, and the next day I'd come out and not play good, so I really wasn't in tournament -- I wasn't tournament ready. I'd play good in the qualifier, and have a little bit of time to get here, and I'd be at an in between stage, where I'm working on it, it's getting better, but I need more time. I never really --

HANK KUEHNE: I played well all summer. I didn't take -- I took a couple of days off, I figured out the best way for me to do it is to play at the most take three days off at a time. So if I go home, take a couple of days off to rest my body, get my stuff taken care of that I need to get taken care of, since I've been out of town for X amount of days -- I kind of lost my train of thought there for a minute. Ask me that question again.

HANK KUEHNE: Well, when I went over there things were going extremely good, I was swinging good, I was hitting the ball solid. The wind really started to blow hard and so it put a lot of pressure on your short games. And I had to work on my short game over there for the entire time I was there. And I came home, continued working on my short game. The short game got a lot better, and just kind of fell into place, like I kept hitting the ball like I always had.

HANK KUEHNE: We played pretty much every practice round. He was any partner in our best ball matches. We lost one down. We made 8 birdies, and got beat. We had a good time. We stayed together, J.J. Henry was my roommate, actually. We eight together, practiced together, we played together every day. I got to know him extremely well, he's a great kid and a good friend of mine.

HANK KUEHNE: No, I was more excited kind of just over anxious, wanting to go play, ready to tee it up and get on with it, pretty much. I was extremely relaxed today. I didn't really have a worry in the world. Actually it's harder playing your friends, but it's good in another sense. It's somebody you're used to being around, it's somebody you're comfortable being around. Having my brother on the bag plus playing the an opponents I've had has really been kind of beneficial. I got off to a really good start yesterday. I got off to a slow start my first match, and a slow start in -- semi slow start in my second match. But yesterday afternoon I made four birdies on the front nine and turned at even, so I actually got off to a. Start there. Then today I got off to a decent start, birdied 1, birdied 2 and 4, bogeyed 6 and 7, and birdied 13 and 14.