An interview with:
GRAHAM MARSH

RAND JERRIS: We're now joined by Graham Marsh. Graham had a final even par round of 71 today, under so increasingly more difficult conditions as the afternoon went on. Could you talk a little bit about how the playing conditions were out there this afternoon.

GRAHAM MARSH: Well, I think the conditions varied a lot throughout the course of the day. When we started it was, which was a 1:20 tee time, it was quite breezy when we started. In the middle of the round it sort of eased off just enough to not be difficult. As the day wore on, as the storm started to come on, it started to get breezy again so that made conditions, I think, tougher. Because every time you get to the greens as hard as this when you are playing downwind you are always aiming at the front of the green trying to keep the ball under the hole all the time. It makes a target pretty small.

And between us, even in our group we bogeyed quite a number of holes coming in, not only bogey, double bogeyed, Gary I played with, he double bogeyed the last; I double bogeyed 14 back into the breeze. So I never thought it was an easy golf course at any stage.

In my own mind I felt like the key to this golf course were holes 3 through 7. That's mainly because of the severity of the greens and the fact that the third is a difficult 3. And I got past all of that trouble and then got on then made a bit of a mess of it at the end. It was somewhat disappointing because I did what I had to do earlier on and what I planned to do but just didn't get the job done towards the finish.

RAND JERRIS: Could you walk us through the birdies and bogeys on your card.

GRAHAM MARSH: The bogey at the second, missed the green with an 8-iron, got it under the lip of a bunker, couldn't get it to the hole so I 2-putted.

Third I hit a 5-iron about ten feet and made that.

8, I hit my the best shot all day. I drove it way down and hit a 3-wood on to the green and 2-putted.

12, I hit a 7-iron about two foot from the hole.

13, I had it right up in front of the green in the fringe rough; chipped it to about four feet.

14, drove it in the right rough, chipped it out sacrificing a bogey but hit a bad 6-iron with my next and had an awkward lie in the bunker; came out and made double from about ten feet.

17, I may have taken the wrong club from the tee, hit a 5-wood instead of a 3-wood, had a blind second shot, left it in the bunker, over the green, chipped it back and made about a 20-footer for a bogey. It was in regulation. When you look stat, 60 percent of the fairways for U.S. Open is probably not disgusting. 55 for the same green is probably a little low. The putts look okay 1.5; I'll settle for that for three rounds.

RAND JERRIS: Let's take some questions out here.

Q. You were saying you were somewhat disappointed but still you are -- there are only a couple of guys under par and you are at even par; do you like the position at all?

GRAHAM MARSH: Sure, I have always felt like from the start of the week that we're probably going to be -- now, of course, it could change because of this rain. But at the start of the week I was always feeling that level par could probably get the job done around here mainly because of the severity of the greens, the course; they were very, very firm. Small targets. Enough rough to be a problem. And just windy enough to cause some problems. So I would have been happy with even par at the start of the day, very happy.

Q. (Inaudible)?

GRAHAM MARSH: Any time you shoot  -- any time you shoot a score four or five under par in a U.S. Open when the golf course is a testing golf course, and I think we would categorize this one as being testing  -- not necessarily for it's length but certainly for the difficulty of the greens  -- any time you shoot four or five under par you definitely played a good round of golf. How good is it? It was good enough to have a lead by four or five or whatever it is right now. So you'd have to put it up there. He is also leading the U.S. Open. So you can expect that from a quality player such as Tom Watson.

Q. So does the way you finished in relation to the rest of the leaders, does that change the way that you are going to go about your round tomorrow; are you going to be more on the attack or just try to match what you did today?

GRAHAM MARSH: I think after this rain tonight and the weather conditions when we come out tomorrow provided we're not -- this junk still isn't going on, I think everybody is going to change their game plan and everybody will started attacking this golf course.

It's the kind of golf course, if you got soft conditions, it's one that you want to attack because you have a considerable number of holes where you are hitting 9-irons, pitching wedges. It's amazing how difficult a pitching wedge can be in your hand when you are just trying to get on the right side of the hole to give yourself a chance for the birdie.

For example, a like hole like 18, you are trying to get it somewhere on that green that gives and you putt for birdie. Anything above the hole you are trying to 2-putt. So even with a wedge in your hand, the small targets as hard as they are, everybody after today, once these greens get a little receptive will change there game plan. I will be included in that. You will start to fire at the pins and that makes sense if you want to make birdies.

Q. Graham, do you think the greens were fair today and also there was talk about the course playing where if you shot level par you would be right there; are you surprised there are so few players at level par at this time?

GRAHAM MARSH: Not necessarily, I thought just from the practice rounds the greens were probably a little -- I don't know if they were slower today or they weren't. It would have been interesting to say what they stimped this morning. Some players said they were slower today than what they were in the practice rounds. You have to remember in the practice round they had the pins all around the ridge lines. Everywhere we were putting they were on top of these ridges so they were ridiculously fast. Today they had them in the pinable areas in the greens. That may give the appearance they were slower today than they were in the practice round.

I'm not sure if they were stimping any slower; the green superintendent will be able to tell you that.

The other part of the question, given the wind and the way it got up in the afternoon and given the fact that it is our Open championship, it doesn't really surprise me that we were struggling around the par figure or over par. That really doesn't surprise me. As I said I would look for a lot lower scores tomorrow once this rain gets out of the way.

And, to answer your other question, I don't know that we play very many U.S. Senior Opens where the greens are easy. I certainly haven't played one. It seems like the older the golf course we play, the harder the greens are to putt. And that makes sense because they were designed for 8 or 9 or 10 on the stimp meter. Well, they didn't have the stimp meter when they were designed. At that speed when you get on greens like these they have tremendously big bars and a lot of undulation. It's hard work. Of course, with the speed you get a little of wind combined with that. It's hard to get the ball on line. If you don't get it on line right from the start it's never to go in the hole.

Q. I think they were around 13?

GRAHAM MARSH: That's fast by any standard. 13 is a high speed.

Q. Graham, you won the Senior Open, I believe at Olympia Fields six years ago?

GRAHAM MARSH: Right.

Q. So you know what the feeling is and what the competition is and you played both courses; how do you compare these two golf courses for a Senior U.S. Open?

GRAHAM MARSH: Well, as I said we predicted that even at Olympia Fields I thought even par was the possible winning score and the same thing around here. The weather in Chicago that year stayed dry and windy the whole week. And that's what defended the golf course, I believe, in the end.

Now that we have this different set of conditions coming up for the next three days, under par will win this golf tournament; it won't be around par. So you can never control it. The golf courses themselves, both pretty good tests of golf. Both difficult sets of greens.

RAND JERRIS: Well, Graham, thank you very much for your time. We wish you luck.

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