JOHN BUSH: Okay. We've got our tournament leader at 7 under par, 65. John Mallinger. Thanks for coming by and spending a few minutes with us. Four birdies in the first five holes, got a great start out of the gate and pretty nice day for you. JOHN MALLINGER: Yeah, It was, the weather was cooperating at first. Started off at ten and made a real good putt coming in and then birdied 11 and 12 and got off to a great start. JOHN BUSH: Talk a little bit about the conditions. You said it was fairly calm at the beginning. Did it pick up there toward the end? JOHN MALLINGER: It was brutal coming in. I would probably say it was one of my better rounds coming in, just ball striking wise and just staying together with myself. JOHN BUSH: Right. And being able to go through without a bogey is obviously something you're proud of. JOHN MALLINGER: Yeah, bogey three rounds is good. My putting was what basically got together today. Ball striking has been good for the last month or so but my putting has been as good as season putts fall. JOHN BUSH: We'll go into questions. QUESTIONER: John, can you talk about what your experience is at Pebble Beach? Have you played here before. JOHN MALLINGER: I have played 10 to 12 times before. Played the state amateur, got in the semi finals I think. Maybe my sophomore junior course in college. I like the golf course, I like the greens. It fits me well. You don't have to hit it real well but you can place it here and there, but other than that I like it a lot up here. QUESTIONER: You talk about how brutal the weather was coming in, can you kind of expand on how tough it was out there? JOHN MALLINGER: Well, it was blowing 40 and the flags were sideways, but I'm just glad we didn't get any rain because it would have been really tough. When you're coming in, you're hitting 8 irons 105, 110 yards, it's a different style of golf. QUESTIONER: John, Arjun Atwal said earlier he hit a soft wedge on 7. What'd you hit up there? JOHN MALLINGER: I hit a 8 iron, so that can tell you how far the ball was going out there. Normally I think my practice round I hit a gap wedge QUESTIONER: Did you see rain coming? JOHN MALLINGER: I did. Basically it just came down to my putting, like I said earlier. I'd been hitting the ball really well, and I was looking forward to something like, I didn't know when it was going to come but I'm glad it started here. QUESTIONER: Yeah, because up until this point on tour again you missed a couple cuts. JOHN MALLINGER: I think I made one cut out of the first three, but like I said, I mean it's just a process. You never know. You go week to week and each course. That's different for everybody. And I think this is a really good week. My caddy's been up here for ten to 15 years. He knows the golf courses better than anybody and that was another thing that really helped me throughout the round QUESTIONER: John, do you remember who you played in the semifinals here? JOHN MALLINGER: Gary Veneer (phonetic.) Older guy. And he just took me down. QUESTIONER: How disappointing was that at that point in your life, given you got to the semifinals at that stage. JOHN MALLINGER: I'm glad I'm sitting here. QUESTIONER: Where is he now? JOHN MALLINGER: I don't know. I'm glad I'm sitting here. QUESTIONER: I would think that you kind of geared up for the west coast swing, got your card and I'm sure you were thinking about wow, okay, Buick Invitational at home and west coast swing events. JOHN MALLINGER: It was fun but I came little too quick. I got done with tour school and I only had two or three weeks preparing. When you've got a long season like that you've got to space yourself out. I wasn't expecting to play the Hope. I played three in a row but I got a week off last week went out there to Arizona, just hung out. Didn't play or anything. Got some workouts, got rested for the week. QUESTIONER: You said you went to Arizona, why Arizona? JOHN MALLINGER: I've got a buddy that lives out there. Just kind of got away from everything. I didn't really time the off season just to kind of have some time to myself, so I just decided to go out there. QUESTIONER: A buddy on the tour, or? JOHN MALLINGER: No, just a friend. QUESTIONER: Is this one of the situations where... it's obviously first year and you're just kind of learning as you go. Do you have anybody kind of feeding you advice as you go along? JOHN MALLINGER: John Cook is one of my big mentors, I play and practice a lot with him. Obviously he's won 11 times out here, he knows what he's doing, knows a lot of the guys, any time we have practice rounds or like that it's always nice to have someone like that because he's always introduced me to new people. I mean can't really get stuff like that when you're a rookie unless you know somebody QUESTIONER: I was going to ask. How difficult would it be if you didn't have somebody like John? JOHN MALLINGER: It'd be difficult, there's a lot of times I just go out by myself. I don't mind it too much. It's different out here. Some guys kind of have their own cliques. You get used to it, start meeting people and most of them are pretty nice QUESTIONER: You mentioned you played the Hope and playing out here obviously is a different style of golf with the Pro Am, how does that affect your game? How do you approach that part of the game? JOHN MALLINGER: The Hope's a lot harder. One you've got four days of amateurs. It's a different group. There's four other amateurs in the group. So you're meeting new people every day, trying to stay out of the way, you know. QUESTIONER: Format's a lot better. JOHN MALLINGER: I like it just because you've got one-on-one with the guy, you get personal you get them for three days. I don't mind it, we had a great time out there. We ham and egged it. Every time I didn't make a birdie, he did. JOHN BUSH: John I'll get you to go through your round. Starting with birdie on number 10. JOHN MALLINGER: Kind of miss-set my drive off the box, but had the 5 iron in there, front left and made about 40 footer started off JOHN BUSH: Number 11. JOHN MALLINGER: Drove it down the middle and then had about 135 and I hit chip 8 iron just about 15 feet short and made about a... just straight up the hill 15 footer, JOHN BUSH: Par 3, 12. JOHN MALLINGER: Hit a 3 iron there, just nice soft three iron to about 20 feet. JOHN BUSH: Okay. Number 14. JOHN MALLINGER: 14 I drove it just on the first cut, laid it up and again hit an 8 iron pretty much had a top in there couple feet. JOHN BUSH: Okay. 18? JOHN MALLINGER: 18 I drove it down the middle. I had a good look at going on it for 2 but I decided where that flag was just to laid it up. Laid it up with 3 iron, laid it up with pitch and pitched it couple feet JOHN BUSH: Number 2, four five. JOHN MALLINGER: Number 2 I drove down the middle hit three on the green, 2 putt. JOHN BUSH: Number 4. JOHN MALLINGER: 4 hit driver and had a good number. Just chipped a sand wedge in there about 7 feet and made that putt. JOHN BUSH: Any more questions? QUESTIONER: With the dramatic difference in the weather from morning to afternoon, did it matter playing back to front? JOHN MALLINGER: I thought I had a good start. I thought I had a good start on the back nine, it was beneficial. QUESTIONER: Even though you're finishing at 8 and 9 not exactly the greatest two holes to finish. JOHN MALLINGER: Yeah, but I got, what was it, 14 through 5 with good weather. Those are the scoring holes so that was basically what I was looking at. Those are where you make your birdies, so when you've got good weather you've got an advantage. QUESTIONER: What was your tap in putt when you 2 putted for birdie? JOHN MALLINGER: I had about 30 footer and it was probably about a foot or two. Yeah, just a foot. QUESTIONER: How dramatic was the weather? You mentioned it was blowing 40. Was it calm at the start? JOHN MALLINGER: It was perfect probably for at least nine holes. Wind started picking up probably right around 3, maybe, so probably was 13 holes I got that were pretty nice. QUESTIONER: Is that particularly relevant to get Pebble of the three-quarters of the one that would logically be most exposed -- JOHN MALLINGER: I would think -- QUESTIONER: Would get the most wind? JOHN MALLINGER: I hope so. QUESTIONER: Kind of nice to get that out of the way. JOHN MALLINGER: I haven't played too much in weather like that before. I don't mind it, but we don't get to see it too much. Coming off that ocean gets pretty nasty QUESTIONER: I take it out of the 12, 13 times you say you've played Pebble. JOHN MALLINGER: Nothing like today. No, the course is playing faster. The wind isn't... it's not a cold wind, so it's difference QUESTIONER: Would you say some of your birdie putts were some of the big putts of the round or maybe some of the putts you made for par. JOHN MALLINGER: I would probably say my birdie putts just because I got off to a good start when you get that confidence going at the beginning of the round you never doubt yourself most of the time throughout the day. So that's always something big for me getting off to a good start QUESTIONER: That par cut you had at 9 was pretty good. JOHN MALLINGER: That was nice. Yeah, that was probably the closest I had to making a bogey all day. I played pretty solid but that was one I really wanted. I decided to lay up on 9, I had about 235 and it was just wood, just get up in the air probably just take off. So I decided to let it pull a little bit, got up and down JOHN BUSH: How long was that putt? JOHN MALLINGER: Probably about 15 feet. QUESTIONER: Should the score hold up, Mickelson's right there, Furyk's right there. How do you keep yourself calm overnight thinking about tomorrow, what are you going to do? JOHN MALLINGER: I'm just going to try and keep doing the same thing I'm doing. So far it's working. Really just trying to do one shot at a time. Everyone tells you just stay in the moment but what you really do really when you're playing well is when you're in that moment and nothing else is there. You're just focused on that one shot. So as far as the other guys, I really can't control what they do. Just keep playing well and play what's out. QUESTIONER: Does it matter at all when the guys on the board are Furyk and Mickelson as opposed to names that are less. ... JOHN MALLINGER: I'd probably say yeah, I'm not going to lie about that you're playing against world class players. Hopefully on Sunday I'll get fair with them. It's just a learning experience. You get to watch something like that and you learn from it. Yeah, whatever happens is what happens QUESTIONER: I guess it's good to have Cook as a mentor if the wind was here. JOHN MALLINGER: Absolutely. We talked about that a lot. QUESTIONER: How did you get to know him? JOHN BUSH: Through our coaches. Dave Malone is the golf coach. They worked together a lot he's always at the club practicing QUESTIONER: (Inaudible.) JOHN MALLINGER: Yeah, makes us feel pretty comfortable QUESTIONER: He's the perfect type of guy, isn't he? JOHN MALLINGER: Oh, definitely. He's just an all American guy, can't ask for a better guy JOHN BUSH: All right. That's it. John, keep it going the next three days. THE WITNESS: Thanks.