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WACHOVIA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 8, 2004

Arron Oberholser

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: As the 54-hole leader, Arron Oberholser, is the winner of this week's Crestor Charity Challenge and in his name, a donation of $50,000 will be given to the healthcare charity of his choice. In addition, Levine Children's Hospital will receive $50,000 from Wachovia Championship and Crestor.

ARRON OBERHOLSER: That's very cool. I'm very happy to hear that. I think it's important that in our sport that we do give back to charity. I think the PGA TOUR is probably, out of all the major sports, donates the most, and I think that's very important, absolutely.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Back to today. Great round today. You played a solid round under some tough conditions, and you're going into the final round with the lead and you've been in that position this year once before, sharing the lead at the Pebble Beach with Vijay Singh. What is that experience going to do for you tomorrow.

ARRON OBERHOLSER: The one thing that I learned playing with Vijay is that you can hit bad shots and still be under par, which is what he did on the first three holes and made birdie and it rattled me a little bit. I think the one thing I'm going to do tomorrow, I'm just going to play the golf course. I'm not going to play the leaderboard, I'm not going to play anything. If someone comes out of the pack and grabs me, so be it. I can't do anything about that. All I can do is what I can do with my game. I can't control anyone else's. I've been working on that ever since I was in college and it's a level of comfort that you have to feel before you just stop caring about where you are in the tournament or what other guys are doing. You just have to put yourself in that position time and time again.

Q. Do you feel any more comfortable, A, having the lead by yourself and sharing it with a guy who also hasn't won on this Tour before, than it was sharing the lead at Pebble with the guy who is the hottest in golf?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Does it make a difference? I knew Vijay was going to give me his best game at Pebble, and I'm sure Jeff is going to give me his best game tomorrow. But like everybody else, we're not playing one another, we're playing the golf course. I'm going to play the golf course, and Jeff is going to play the golf course, because once you start playing the man, you're a dead man.

That's what I learned at Pebble Beach, once you start playing the man, you're a dead man. I started pressing and I started trying to hit shots that maybe I shouldn't have been hitting or shouldn't have attempted and paid for it, rather than just taking my medicine and playing the golf course how I know how to play it.

Q. I suspect the dynamics would be a little bit different tomorrow given there's 15, 20 guys that are --

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Bunched up?

Q. Yes.

ARRON OBERHOLSER: That's why I'm not really worried. If someone is going to come out of the pack and fire up a 66 or 65 tomorrow, nothing much I can do except keep playing and keep trying to hit quality shots. This is the highest level of golf there is, and everybody out here is capable of shooting a 65 tomorrow. If someone does it and beats me, more power to them, kudos.

Q. You have competed against Tiger for a long time, to see him actually retreat down the leaderboard, how shocking was that for you today, on a weekend?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: I was a little surprised. You're not used to seeing that out of Tiger. I don't know what else to say. We've all been there, we've all done that, we've all had leads at one level or another, after 36, after 54, and when it's not your day, it's not your day, for one reason or another.

Q. A lot of people are going to tune in tomorrow and they don't know much about you. What would you like the public to know about you that they may not know, out here and where you've been?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: That's a good question. One of the best ones I've heard yet. I don't know. They don't need to know much. (Laughter.) I'm not really that interesting.

Q. (Inaudible)?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: You know what, I was half in a fog because my blood sugar was so low I almost passed out. I felt really dizzy on 10, 11, and 12 and 13, all the way up -- I started feeling better about the 15th tee. Even living in Scottsdale, it's a dry heat, it's not this wet stuff, and there's something to be said for that. I'm not used to this humidity, especially growing up in San Francisco. This is brutal. I'm sure the folks around here are like, This is nothing, come back in August. It's tough on my body, not being used to it, not growing up in it. I was struggling on a few holes out there today.

Q. How did you fix it?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Well, I drank about a gallon of water today, which helped, and I had an apple, and that apple seemed to get my blood sugar level back up to where I needed it to give me a little bit of energy. I'm going to eat more tomorrow. I think that was the key. I had breakfast and I had lunch today in about 30 minutes, and I got out on the first hole and I felt hungry again. My metabolism is fast, but that's ridiculous, and in this heat you just -- you just burn the calories like crazy.

Q. You said you're not that interesting. How much more interesting will you be if you win tomorrow?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Hopefully not much more interesting. You know, I have -- I think a lot of us out here are pretty private people. Unlike some maybe other athletes in other sports, we don't like to hog the limelight. This is a very humbling game, and you can be chopped down just as fast as you're built up.

I learned last year that playing it low key is probably the best way to do it, and not making a big deal out of things.

Q. Where did that come from? Any particular instances or tournaments?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: I voiced a rather unpopular opinion about a certain female golfer playing at Colonial last year, so I've learned to bite my tongue. I'm a rather opinionated person, and it's hard for me to keep my mouth shut sometimes, but discretion is the better part of valor.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Let's go through your birdies and bogeys and eagle, starting with the 5th hole.

ARRON OBERHOLSER: 5th hole, I hit a good drive there and hit a decent 3-wood into the right trap and I kind of short-sided myself, but I hit a great bunker shot that I thought was going in and it just lipped out and tapped in for birdie.

6, my caddie and I were sitting there discussing -- I mean, I felt comfortable with the club that he gave me. I had 4-iron, it was like 229 to the hole or something like that, and downhill, and the wind was coming off the left, so I figured if I could just start it out to the right, the wind would bring it back to the flag, and I hit it dead person and the wind switched in mid flight and the ball just fell out of the sky. It was a great shot, it was exactly how I wanted to hit it. So a bit of bad luck, chipped it up, didn't make the putt.

7, I made a great par.

Eagle on 10, hit driver, 3-wood, cut it around the tree to about 20 feet and made it.

Then the birdie on 12, I hit driver and a little bump 7-iron up the hill and made about a 15-footer there.

14, I hit 3-iron and lob-wedge to three feet, and made that -- four feet, and made that.

15, driver, 5-wood, to just short of the left bunker over there, and chipped it up to about 5 feet, and that was a tough putt and I was happy to knock that one down.

And then 18, I hit a good drive and it just went through the fairway. It was not a very good lie. And I was fortunate enough to get it on the green. Then I just put it in the absolute worst spot for that pin placement to putt from and just left myself a really difficult putt. Anything within six feet there was a good putt, and I hit it to about six feet and then missed it, missed the second putt.

Q. (Inaudible)?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: I think I just hit that good of a chip. I hit it right where I wanted to. The last thing you want to do, I figured if I blew it by the hole up against the fringe, that's better than leaving it in that area. So I figured I was going to take the chance and throw it into the fringe, and if it spins the way I think it's going to spin, it's going to be perfect, and if it doesn't, well, then it's going to go down the hill to about 15 feet. It spun and I had 6, 8 feet up the hill and I was able to knock that one in.

Q. If you were to break through tomorrow and put a round together to win this thing, what would it mean to you?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: I haven't really thought about it. Get my dad a new car, but other than that, it would mean I guess, some respect. It is a respect factor out here with some of the bigger names and bigger guys. And I'm not really too concerned with that. I think that you prove your worth as a person in other deeds rather than playing good golf.

Q. Security?

ARRON OBERHOLSER: Yes, all the stuff that it gives me tomorrow is pretty material, and it really doesn't do much else for me. It's not going to fulfill my life any more. I just have got to approach it as another day of golf. I should say it's a goal of mine. It's always been a goal of mine to win, I'm not going to sit here and pretend like it's not important, but it's always been a goal of mine to win at this level. Is it the end of the world if I don't? No.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Arron, for joining us.

End of FastScripts.

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