U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 21, 1996

J.D. Manning

J. D. MANNING: 7, I don't feel like I played too bad a hole. I didn't hit a very good shot in, but it's hard. I'm at a disadvantage with his length. It's a different hole for him. And he made a lot of birdies. I can't be too disappointed when you lose to a birdie. And then 8, the guy hits a great shot. There's nothing you can do there either. It's a little does disheartening. It took the wind out of my sails, and that kind of affected me. I think going to 9, but I don't think it carried over into any of my shots. Momentum-wise I think it may have a little, but I just didn't execute on 9.

J. D. MANNING: You play a different golf course. Obviously it's easier. On 9 I'm hitting a 2-iron, and he's hitting 7, 8 or 9. I don't know what he did. And 14, too, he hit a 3-wood and 9-iron, just hard to compete with that. So he has a tremendous advantage there because of his length. I know I don't hit it very far, so I just -- I've become accustomed to that and having people hit it by me, and it doesn't really bother me. You've still got to get to the hole.

J. D. MANNING: Not really. I played with Tiger once before. There was only about 200 people that followed us then, but that helped a lot. Today I really wasn't nervous about playing in front of the crowd.

J. D. MANNING: We played together at BYU's tournament, the Cougar Classic in Provo.

J. D. MANNING: Yeah, it was late April or early May.

J. D. MANNING: I had a sand wedge -- second shot? I just punched out with a 9.

J. D. MANNING: I was probably 230 to the green.

J. D. MANNING: With that pin, for me I almost wouldn't go with that green, if I hadn't hit the fairway. I might have gone to the right side of the green, but I wouldn't have gone at the pin, not with a 3 or 4-iron. It just wouldn't happen.

J. D. MANNING: Like everybody says, he's got as much game as anybody has ever seen. He's the best player I've ever played with.

J. D. MANNING: I think so. I was lucky that he hit it really close to the start today and didn't get it to go. I think that was one of the reasons the match was close. He could have jumped all over me to begin with, but that was my goal was just to try to hang around. But I think if somebody plays well and starts making putts they can give him a run for his money. It's not going to be a cake walk, and I don't think he expects it to be.

J. D. MANNING: I think so. It had a large part to do with it. Anytime you're starting to bogey in the face and coming away with birdie, that's big.

J. D. MANNING: Maybe a few. I think I lost the tempo in my swing for a couple of holes and that resulted in the bad second shot on 9, and then the tee shot on 10, but it may have affected me a little on 9. I was mad but I knew what I was going to do on 9. If I had -- I planned to go down the right side on 9. Probably a year ago after that, I would have said, "Well, now I've got to go down the left side," so I stuck to my game plan. I don't know how much it affected me.

J. D. MANNING: Well, it was kind of a tricky putt to read. It's pretty obvious what it's going to do, but I just didn't hit a very good putt. It was makable.

J. D. MANNING: That's a hole I should have had, and that's obvious. Anytime you've got a guy, especially when he hit before I did on that hole, and he hits it in the junk. He hit a great shot to get to where he did, we both had, and I just was too aggressive for that putt. The greens started to get real fast. It was more noticeable around 7, 8 and 9, from then on.

J. D. MANNING: We just kind of laughed at it. That's all you can do. For me, I can't change the way I play to try and hit it with him. So that's the approach you have to take is let him go out there and hit it hard and maybe get lucky and he'll hit it hard into the junk. You've got to stick to your own game and let him play his game and do your best.

J. D. MANNING: Well, the playoff was definitely interesting. I would have liked to just have made that par on the first hole, so I wouldn't have had to sweat it out. But I think by going on and having to play those extra holes, I think I learned more from playing Tiger and maybe losing the first round than I would have maybe playing somebody else, winning in the first match and moving on. I think anytime you can play against Tiger, it's a great opportunity. I had the chance today to make history. The guy is trying to become the first to win three U.S. Ams in a row, and I took my shot at knocking him off, so I was happy to play Tiger.

J. D. MANNING: Just playing in front of people I think is the main part. And playing with somebody who's obviously another level, their game is at a higher level than my own, so it gives me a chance to see where I stack up. And I can look at my game and determine what it is I need to do to become better and see what I have to do to get to his level, which is ultimately what I'd like to do, and I think every golfer would.

J. D. MANNING: Sure. It would have been nice to play somebody else and maybe -- not necessarily easier match, but somebody that's -- Tiger is the best player in this field. I'm not saying that I would have played somebody else I would have won, but I liked the hand I was dealt for the tournament.

J. D. MANNING: It was about a 6-footer. I had a putt that was above the hole, probably about 20 feet, just about 3 inches in the rough and I putted it and it just trickled on past. I also had a penalty shot on my first round that would have kept me out of the playoff, but I don't know if I need to go into that again. I don't know if the USGA would like me to.

J. D. MANNING: I was crouching down to replace my ball, I feel that I was about 6 to 8 inches or less away from my ball, ball mark, and the ball slipped out of my hand, hit my coin and rolled off, but my coin moved about a quarter of an inch and they determined I wasn't in the process of replacing my ball. I understand that you have to draw the line, you have to be specific.

J. D. MANNING: That's what I wanted to know. So you've got to accept what happens. I moved on from that and I played good yesterday and got in and here I am.

J. D. MANNING: That was on 17 at Ghost creek it bugged me because I was penalized for being human. The ball slips out of my hand, what can I do?