U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 20, 1999

Hunter Haas

HUNTER HAAS: Right. Charlie is a good player. I saw him pull out driver on the 1st tee and I was like: He's pretty confident in what he's doing. He had me 1-down, and there's a few times on the front that I thought I was going to get a hole or two or something like that, and he'd throw a putt right at me. Made a great par on 1. Good up-and-down on 2. I kind of struggled a little bit, but I kept in there. A great birdie on 6, that got me going a little bit. And 8 was an ugly hole for both of us, but I think it was kind of key. I played -- I thought he was in the hay off the tee; so I played it conservatively and hit a 2-iron, and I pushed it right and actually got up there, and I was the one in the hay, and he wasn't. But we both ended up making double. But you look back, and how hard is it to make bogey on that hole or whatever. I took a little break on 10. Had to use the rest room. Took a while to catch my ball, and got kind of relaxed. Calmed down a little bit, and hit a great shot in there. Played that hole good; hit a 3-wood, 8-iron. I haven't hit a 3-wood on that hole all week, and knocked it in there about 6 feet and made it for birdie. And started rolling again, I pumped it right of the hay. But I think the putt I made on 12 for par started it -- started pressing him, making him press. And obviously, what he did on 13 wasn't a sign of collapse, but he recovered well, as you may have noticed on the next hole. He made a par with a 5-wood in his hand. And the putt I made on 16 was the best putt I made all day, basically. Straightforward. I trusted it and had to bang it in. If I knew I missed it, I'd just have given him an advantage.

HUNTER HAAS: Might have been longer than that. I'm not sure. You could sit out there and hit ten putts from there and not get anything inside five feet. I was fortunate to hit it the right speed. And John gave me a good line. All of a sudden, a big, dark green spot right on the crest of the hill, he told me to take it right over it, and that was -- you almost had to take it over the collar of the fringe. But I put a good pace on it. And I thought it was off the green after it was going over the crest, and it started slowing down, and it was a pretty good putt.

HUNTER HAAS: No, it didn't. It was just missed it by a couple of inches, probably.

HUNTER HAAS: That's what I was trying to do. I wasn't even trying to land on the green. You've got 10 or 15 feet or yards of fairway, and you're just trying to land it there and let it bounce; bounce to the right and have an uphill putt.

HUNTER HAAS: On 9?

HUNTER HAAS: No, I hit -- 9, I hit a 9-iron over the green. That pin on 9, I don't know who put that there. You've got a downhill fairway -- or you can lay it back with an iron and have a flat shot, but you're looking at 220. There's no way you can stop it on the green. It's downwind, downhill, and you're hitting 9-iron. I don't know, I need someone to teach me that shot, I guess, because I don't know it.

HUNTER HAAS: I know he's 16. I know he doesn't speak English very well. Obviously, a good player. Good enough to get to this point in the tournament. Hopefully, I'll have an advantage over him by him not having the experience that I have.

HUNTER HAAS: Bryce is a good player. Coming from him, that's a compliment I really appreciate. But just the same, if I was playing Bryce, I wouldn't have any doubt in my mind that he had the confidence that he could beat me at the same time.

HUNTER HAAS: I heard about it just a few minutes ago. But that's nice to know. Bryce is a pretty good friend of mine, and I really like his game, the way he plays.

HUNTER HAAS: Well, what do you want, a level from 1 to 10?

HUNTER HAAS: Sure, sure. When you get out there, you've got to trust what you're doing. You've got to be able to hold that club, grip it, and just hit it and know where it's going. If you don't and you start spraying them left, right, you're out. You've got to really trust what you're doing, more so than you do in stroke-play, I think, that's what I believe.

HUNTER HAAS: Walker Cup? I haven't --

HUNTER HAAS: Porter, yeah. I can smile now, I've got two new teeth. Going into APL, I was confident. That's a little different field than it is here, but in the same it was still the same format. You still had to play good players, and you had to play good. But I was playing so good, and I was hitting it well. I was totally confident where I was hitting it. And my swing, and I was making so many birdies, it was just like: Nobody is going to beat me, because nobody is -- I was having 6 or 7 birdies a round, and I wasn't making any bogeys. Nobody can beat that. Not out here. And I pretty much went through my matches pretty handily, unlike I have here, been dragging them out. But it did carry over to the Porter Cup. But the Porter Cup was -- that's a different -- it's stroke-play, and everything counts there. But I still played very well there, even though I didn't shoot 15- or 20-under or whatever. I played well enough to put myself in the position to win, and that's all that matters.

HUNTER HAAS: A little of both. 16, I mean if you think about it, when you think about what shots I have to hit coming down those last holes: 16, I'm hitting 2-iron, I'm hitting my 2-iron well, 2-iron to the middle of the fairway. And then you've got some kind of hold shot into the wind. 8- or 7-iron into the green. It's not like you have to step up and rip a driver down the fairway and have a 4-iron into the green. 15 is giving me a little problem. I might not hit a driver there the rest of the week or tomorrow. Maybe that might get me through tomorrow. But I would say coming down the last few holes, 18 or 17 -- 17, you just have to hit a good iron shot there. Even in that case, you can hit a good iron shot there and be in the hay. 18 is just a 2-iron or 3-wood right at the tree. But then again, I've been in the position where I haven't had to be real aggressive on 18 in my matches to do that. But I'm just hitting basic shots, just fairway, fairway, fairway, green, fairway, green, that's all I'm doing is just hitting the basic shot and keep it in play.

HUNTER HAAS: Right.

HUNTER HAAS: He did, yes. Well, I felt it after the 2nd hole when he made a great up-and-down for two. I thought this guy is not going to quit. I was 1-down after 2. He made a good putt on 7, too, for birdie from off the fringe. He was right there, and he didn't have to make it. I'm sitting there on the collar. A lot of guys would have lagged it up there, take their 3. He rammed it right in the hole. He was confident in what he was doing, but it was just a matter of who was going to crack first, coming down to the last holes. And I wouldn't say we cracked, but I'm just saying I was fortunate to get 2-up on him with four or five or six holes of play.

HUNTER HAAS: I would say in both it helps. What you're trying to do is play the course, fairway, green, fairway, green. If you think about it, what are the pros going to be doing next year when they're out here? The only difference is they're not going to have the pressure of losing a hole and getting down to a guy. Whereas, they're going to have the pressure of making a big number. If you look at it that way, you're still trying to hit the same shot. You're not trying to do anything different. In stroke-play, it might be a little easier to hit the shots. I'd say my game is suited for both, but neither one -- I wouldn't say either one is better. It's just I have to change your mental aspect or the way you focus or what you focus on when you're playing.

HUNTER HAAS: Right. Don't let it get to you.

HUNTER HAAS: Probably not.

HUNTER HAAS: There's some good players out there and they might look past me. I've been looked over before, and I just hope I would have a good shot at it; that's all I can say. They look over the past two years record, I guess. I don't know.

HUNTER HAAS: A little bit. I've had other things that motivate me coming here, in golf and out of golf. But a few things, I'll be honest, a few things -- concerning the Walker Cup, yeah, they might have itched me a little bit with a feather; put a little tickle on my ear.

HUNTER HAAS: Well, you think about it, the guys I've played -- yeah, he's good. He's good. John knows what he's doing. He hangs in there. He reminds me of what I'm doing and makes sure I'm focusing on what I need to do.

HUNTER HAAS: Yeah, it is. If I had my dad out here caddying, no, it wouldn't happen.

HUNTER HAAS: Trittipo, T-r-i-t-t-i-p-o.

HUNTER HAAS: He made some good shots. It was really close. It went back and forth, 1-up, even. He was 1-up, back to even. I don't know how many times the holes changed, but he was right there every time. He was keeping it in play most of the day and forcing me to do the same.

HUNTER HAAS: That's another thing. Guys in the middle of the fairway, you might want to play back of them a little bit; so you're hitting first into the green. That's another aspect of match play, who's out. A lot of times, the guy is out and makes a mistake. You've got an advantage. You still have to step up and hit the shot. It doesn't change anything. If you look at it that way, it's -- length doesn't matter.

HUNTER HAAS: Yeah. Mom, dad, brother-in-law, sister, two sisters -- let me start that over. Two sisters, girlfriend, brother-in-law, mom and dad.

HUNTER HAAS: Yeah, it's one of them. I've played some tough courses, but the way this one is set up, it's pretty tough. It's an Open course, U.S. Open style course.

HUNTER HAAS: That's a tough question. I really don't know how to say it, but it's just like the snowball effect. You play good and you're confident in what you're doing. I can't remember the last time I really have practiced hard. And I'm just playing well. I'm confident where I'm hitting it and how I'm hitting it. It might not be the prettiest shot, but I always think I can salvage a good round out of how I'm playing. I was playing good before -- at the qualifying, before the Pub Links, I was playing well. I did play in the Monroe Invitational, up in Rochester, New York, and I shot a first round 80. And I haven't shot 80 -- I haven't had an 8 in front of my score in, gosh, I know at least over a year. I think maybe it was at the Northeast the year before in '97 when I shot like an 83. But I couldn't remember, and I just -- I sat there and thought about it that night and thought: You're either going to have to go out the next day and change it or do something about it. It was right in my face. A lot of people are like,: Hunter, 80 -- (laughter.) He's going to have a good summer. I had a run-in with one of the guys the next day. I came back and shot a 69; found the fairways. And I was joking around with one of the guys, and I said -- I think he shot 70 or 71, second round. I said, "I got you today Landry." And he said, "What about that 80?" So I was like: Yeah, I missed the cut, see you. See you at the APL qualifying. There was some good players on our qualifying, too. I was playing at my home course in Norman, but you had Ed Loar was there, which a whole lot of people might not know, which I beat by 17 shots. I want to make that public. And Landry Mayham was there. We had a few guys on our team that was there. A guy from Wake Forest, Jay Morgan qualified and I qualified. No one else was even close to playing our two scores.

HUNTER HAAS: Uh-huh.

HUNTER HAAS: Right. With a bogey. I had one bogey for 36 holes. And that's another thing. You're out there playing, and the confidence level is -- I'm playing and I'm playing well, and I can't make bogeys, I feel that, there's no way. If I'm in the fairway, I'm not going to make a bogey. Obviously, out here, it's a different story. But this rough is six inches, you're going to break a wrist or something. But I'm playing back at school, I go out there and not expect to make a bogey. It's just -- my mental approach is it's making it that easy on my game. Course management is the key. You've got to have a good caddy for that, too.