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SHELL HOUSTON OPEN

April 22, 2005

Jeff Maggert

HOUSTON, TEXAS

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Jeff Maggert, thanks for joining us, followed up a great round yesterday of 67 with a 68 today. Looks like you're in great position heading into the weekend. If you could start with some opening comments about the day.

JEFF MAGGERT: I just played really well today. The first nine holes my game was at a very high level. I was hitting the ball well, making a lot of birdies. The last nine I would say I struggled a little bit ball-striking, but just managed my game pretty well. The only bogey was on 7, and I had some opportunities to make some birdies here and there, just didn't get the putts to go in.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Scores are a little bit higher today in general. Is the course getting firmer out there?

JEFF MAGGERT: The golf course did play a little bit firmer definitely. The balls got a pretty good jump in the fairways. The balls were rolling 30, 40 yards and made the golf course play a little bit shorter but also a little bit harder to keep the ball in the fairway.

The greens are firming up a little bit. I thought the pin placements were quite a bit tougher than they were yesterday and probably the combination of all those, a little bit higher scores.

Q. Yesterday was such a comfortable round for you, and today you kind of really had to battle that last nine. I'm just wondering if you walk away feeling any different today.

JEFF MAGGERT: I really felt like I let one get away on 9 there. I felt like I should have made birdie there. But that's kind of -- kind of executed the chip poorly and just misread the putt a little bit. I'm hitting the ball well. I hit a couple drives a little sideways for me. Just struggled with the driver a little bit on three or four holes, and other than that I hit the ball really well.

Q. You seemed like you were making the same miss. Was that making it a little bit easier for you?

JEFF MAGGERT: Yeah, just kind of maybe a little bit of lack of concentration at the right time probably on a couple of those tee shots. It was a long afternoon. The pace of play was pretty slow on the last nine holes and I probably just lost a little bit of my concentration.

When you're first off out here you play the first nine holes at such a good pace and you get into a little rhythm, and then all of a sudden the back nine takes long, 40 minutes longer than the front nine to play and your rhythm gets off. I noticed that a little bit yesterday, but I struggled a little bit more today with it.

Q. Is that one of the perils of being in the hunt on the weekend?

JEFF MAGGERT: Well, our Tour is getting to be very slow on Thursday and Friday rounds. If you're not first off, you're looking at five hours or over, and on the weekend, you start out at that pace and you just kind of play that same pace all day, which is a little bit easier. I just find being the first tee time of the day, the morning, and then the first tee time in the afternoon, the first nine holes is nice because you don't have anybody in front of you, but when you catch that -- the groups on the turn, it just gets a little bit slow.

If the weather holds, I assume we'll be playing twosomes on the weekend. I haven't checked with the officials on that. When you play twosomes, the pace of play is fine. We move around pretty good in twosomes.

Q. What was your take on the Levet thing on No. 8?

JEFF MAGGERT: I thought it was a good birdie. You know, he got to the hole and he was counting really fast with his fingers. I could see him, one, two, three, four, five. I just thought that -- I don't know if they replayed it in the television truck, but the rule is you actually get to the hole before you can start counting ten seconds. I thought it was probably close. I think the benefit of the doubt went the right way in this case. I'd hate to see him in there replaying that thing time after time after time, nine and a half or ten and a half seconds. You know, the rule is that a reasonable amount of time, and I thought it was definitely reasonable.

Q. Surprised at all that Vijay has kind of come back to the pack a little bit?

JEFF MAGGERT: Well, yes and no. Vijay is obviously playing well. He comes out and shoots 8-under the first day and people kind of expect him just to keep doing that, but the golf course plays a little bit harder in the afternoons. This is a tough golf course to shoot four rounds 6, 7-under every time. If you can put four rounds in the 60s on this course and hopefully a couple of them can be 6 or 7-under, that's usually what it takes to win here.

Q. Do you pay attention to the leaderboard? Are you watching; do you know where you are?

JEFF MAGGERT: Only if you're struggling to make the cut. When you're playing well it's funny how that works. You don't even care really, you're just concentrating on how you're playing.

You know, I look at the leaderboard probably two or three times in a round and maybe I look at it a little bit more than I should, maybe I don't. Some players say they never look at it and other players tell you they're staring at it all day long. It's hard to miss a scoreboard now on our Tour because you've got them on every hole and they're electronically updated instantaneously, so you pretty much know how you stand wherever you are in your round.

Q. So when you see your name on the top, does that influence you at all?

JEFF MAGGERT: Not really. To be honest, finishing on the front side today, there's not as many score boards at the end. I didn't know where I stood at that point. I knew I was on the first page of the leaderboard. I didn't know where Vijay stood or anybody else. Especially when I started to struggle a little bit, I was probably focusing more on my game than the leaderboard.

Q. The front usually plays easier than the back. You kind of score up the back today. Did you kind of make the turn thinking, here's really a special round going?

JEFF MAGGERT: The front has got some tricky holes you've got to be careful with. It's got some birdie holes. Statistically it may be a little bit easier than the back nine. I feel like the first six holes on the back nine are definitely a part of the course where you can attack. Obviously 16, 17 and 18 are difficult and you can crash and burn there if you're not careful, and I played those holes very well today, birdied 17 and 18, so that was kind of the turning point of my round there. I did feel like I had a good shot to shoot 6, 7, 8-under, but I played well on the other nine, and like I said, didn't have the opportunity to make as many birdies on the last nine as I did on the front.

Q. Are you familiar with Gavin Coles?

JEFF MAGGERT: I do know Gavin a little bit. I've met him a couple times. I didn't realize that he was in the field this week. I don't know if he's got his Tour card from the Nationwide or the Tour School or whatever. I think he's had his Tour card out here before, but I can remember seeing his name in some of the Australian Tour events.

Q. Is it a surprise at all to you that he's doing as well as he is here?

JEFF MAGGERT: No. You know, this tournament seems to have a history of some young guys playing well and breaking out and winning for the first time. Gavin is probably in his mid-30s and he's played a lot of golf all over the world and has good experience. We went through a stretch on the Tour the last four or five weeks where a lot of those guys weren't getting to play because you've got THE PLAYERS Championship and The Masters and a lot of invitational events, last week in Hilton Head and the week before THE PLAYERS Championship was Bay Hill, so those guys have about a six-week period there where they don't get to play, and they get here to Houston and they've been working on their game and they're anxious to get out and start playing some good golf.

Q. Other than saying "that's golf," what do you think the explanation is for the way -- go from being on the top of your game today, 5-under, cruising, going into fighting mode the rest of the round?

JEFF MAGGERT: Well, that's just the nature of our Tour. I mean, we have so many good players out here. I mean, you have to play the top of your game for four days to have opportunities to win. You know, if you struggle a little bit with any part of your game, it's going to be a tough go, and certainly this golf course with its length, and you can hit the ball in some places where it's difficult to make par. You know, this is a drivers' golf course. Obviously if you have length you can take advantage of the par 5s, but certainly being in the fairway and having opportunities to shoot at the pin is a big plus here.

The greens have been very receptive, and other than a few missed drives today, I've driven the ball very well and had a lot of opportunities to make birdies.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Jeff, if we could touch on your round. Started on the back side, birdie on the first hole, No. 10.

JEFF MAGGERT: Yeah, the 10th hole played very short today. I think I only had about 100 yards to the pin there and hit my 60-degree lob wedge in there about eight, ten feet, made the putt.

15 was the par 5, went for the green in two and missed it in the right bunker there, hit a nice bunker shot up to about three feet and tapped in.

17, again, was playing very short because of the wind conditions, driver and a pitching wedge to about 10, 12 feet.

18 was an 8-iron to ten feet.

Then birdied No. 2 from just in the fringe, 15, 18 feet.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Did you putt that?

JEFF MAGGERT: I putted it, yeah.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Only bogey of the day, No. 7.

JEFF MAGGERT: Drove the ball left in the rough. I had a good enough lie where I probably could have had an opportunity to run it into the left side of the green possibly, but with the pin placement where it was, it would have been a tough two-putt, so I just tried to lay it up short of the water there and had about an 80-yard shot left and just didn't convert the up-and-down.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Jeff, thanks.

End of FastScripts.

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