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SHELL HOUSTON OPENApril 3, 2014Bill HaasHUMBLE, TEXAS DAVE SENKO: Well, Bill, thanks for joining us. 7-under 65. It looks like you had six birdies, an eagle and just the one bogey at No. 16. Maybe just take us back through your day and then we'll get some questions. BILL HAAS: Yeah. I played solid most of the day. Obviously made some putts. In order to shoot that kind of number, you got to make some putts. So that was fun. And my only bogey on 16, I was just trying to kind of hook a 6-iron in there, use the wind and kind of over-hooked it a little bit and went in the bunker. Hit a decent bunker shot to 6 feet. Hit a nice putt. Lipped out. I would have liked to have that one gone down. Overall I made a 25-footer for eagle on No. 4. You could say that made up for that. Consistent. DAVE SENKO: Questions. Q. Greens are a little slower than most years. How did that affect Masters prep, if at all? BILL HAAS: I don't think it affects it. The greens are perfect out there. You don't want to try too hard maybe to get them too fast and then ruin them. You'd rather them be nice playing surfaces. We were talking there about how late in the day, we were one of the last groups to finish on 9, and the green looked perfect even with them being soft. Usually when you have soft greens, they're beat up. So the greens are absolutely perfect. So if you hit a nice putt, seeing them go in. I think the scores are reflective active on that. There were a little slower, but part of that, too, is the weather. You know, it's like a little dewy mist out there all day which played a part in the speed of the greens. Q. How would you characterize the way you've played so far this season? BILL HAAS: Okay. Somewhat consistent. I feel like I'm kind of hanging around, playing okay. Certainly haven't knocked on the door on Sunday quite yet. But I feel like I'm doing a lot of good things. It's not like I'm just lost out there. I feel like I'm close. I think you just have to stay positive, and hopefully one week it all clicks and you find yourself in the mix on Sunday and then try to take advantage of that. Q. It's a little rough here I would say for the Augusta looking. The greens are kind of soft. It's going to be a pretty low scoring week continuing four days of this? BILL HAAS: I don't know. I saw tomorrow it's supposed to blow the complete opposite way. You'll see some holes playing a lot more difficult tomorrow, especially No. 5, 6, 7, those holes will play different. 18 has been downwind. It will be into the wind. You'll see 5 and 6s all day. So, I think you could see the scoring get a little higher maybe but with the soft greens, not much rough, certainly people that play well have the ability to score pretty well. Q. Do you feel like you sort of owe yourself one after putting yourself in position to win last year? Is that on your mind? BILL HAAS: I do. I remember we were talking about it when I was in the last group last year, didn't have a great Sunday. It wasn't a terrible Sunday, but guys went low and, yeah, I mean, I think if you keep putting yourself in those positions, then you certainly -- you're giving yourself that opportunity. I don't know that I feel like I owe myself one. I think I shot 1-under or something on Sunday. Didn't play terrible. I just didn't get it done. That's what you have to do. So, obviously would love to be in that position again. Q. You doing up to stop off at Augusta at all this spring? BILL HAAS: I went Sunday. So a few days ago. Q. Did you miss the Eisenhower tree and a few others? BILL HAAS: Yeah, the Eisenhower is not there It's still a great hole. It's a great hole for a different reason now. It wasn't in bloom where I was there so everything looked a little different, everything looked thinner. I think once you start getting leaves, it's supposed to be 80 there all week. It could look totally different. Q. Few other trees lost some chunks, too? BILL HAAS: Yeah, but overall once everything fills out -- Q.They're not short of trees? BILL HAAS: They got plenty of trees out there. It played plenty tough. Q. Obviously a win would be good. What's a good week this week? BILL HAAS: Just getting yourself in the mix. Getting those juices flowing on Sunday. Certainly if you play decent next week, those juices hopefully will be flowing there and get nerves, feel those nerves, and I think that's just a good thing. If you can get it that week before, that can only help you. Overall just competing down the stretch in any golf course is good prep for the next one, I think. Q. Probably no simple answer to this, but winners in the past year haven't fared particularly well the following week at Augusta even though the conditions here are supposed to be similar. Any theories on why that might be? BILL HAAS: I think maybe you could boil it down to just the odds. The odds of winning two tournaments in a row is very small. Winning once on the PGA TOUR is very difficult, and then winning twice and the second one being a Major, the odds of that happening are very, very slim. But, I mean, if you're playing well enough to win, going into next week I certainly would think that that would up your chances. You know, if you're playing that well, then obviously you give yourself a chance there, as well. I don't know. I'd love to be that person, you know. There's a lot of golf left to be played, tomorrow, the weekend and certainly in the next week. I'm just happy to shoot a good round and try to feed off of this. Q. Run through the shots on the eagle today, what's the yardage and the clubs? BILL HAAS: Yeah, made a nice drive. I kind of pulled it on the tee, it went left to right and barely missed the bunker. If you can get it down that left side, it runs out so much further. I was in between a 3-wood and hybrid. Hit a nice one into the wind. It just got to the front of the green from about, I think I had 230, 229 to the front. So, the wind had kind of died down a little bit enough for me to be able to hit that club. So, a lot of things went in my favor there for all that to work out. I hit a nice shot. Q. The putt was 25 feet? BILL HAAS: Almost dead straight, maybe it broke a little left at the end. Very cool hole. That's a difficult hole. It's a difficult par-5. So to hit two nice shots and get on that green was a huge bonus for me. DAVE SENKO: Out of questions? Okay. Thanks, Bill. BILL HAAS: Thanks, guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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