An Interview With:
BILL HAAS

PETE KOWALSKI: Bill Haas, congratulations. You're into the quarterfinals for the second straight year.

BILL HAAS: Thank you.

PETE KOWALSKI: You are the guy who has finished highest last year in the current field. Give us a little synopsis of your two victories. The key holes in each of the matches during the day today.

BILL HAAS: I'll start with this afternoon, it's most fresh. He birdied the first hole. Which was an unbelievable birdie where that pin was; to make three there is pretty impressive. I won 2. And he won 3. I was one down. But then I made like a 10-footer for par on 4. About a 6-footer for par on 5. And then about a 12-footer for par on 6. All to half the holes  -- or maybe I won 6 with a par. So those three holes, those three solid par putts were huge for me.

To go from -- well, I squared it up there on number 6. Yes. 6. It says we made four and five on 6. That's wrong. We made three and four.

But those were key this afternoon to kind of switch it around. Because if you're two down, it kind of wears on you if you keep looking up there and you see his name's got something by it. It was nice to see an all square right in the middle. And then I won 10 and 11; those were pretty big.

This morning neither of us played very well. It was just kind of a battle of who could save a par here and there coming down to the end. And I don't know if it was experience from winning last year or what, but I seen the last two matches I won on 17, so maybe coming down the stretch that's good for me.

PETE KOWALSKI: How about this morning? Anything stick out there?

BILL HAAS: Trying to think. I made two really good 2-putts on 15 and 16 from about 60 feet. Unbelievable. Really good ones. Never better. Those were good 2-putts. I think he parred one of them but then 3-putted another hole. Those were key. I didn't do anything spectacular today. Didn't hole out any chips or knock it on in 2. I knocked it in on 2 today, on number 12 in the afternoon, and that was probably the best shot of the day. But besides that, that was it. Nothing special.

Q. What did you hit in?

BILL HAAS: 5-iron.

Q. What did you have?

BILL HAAS: 250 to the front but it's straight downhill, downwind, I probably carried it 215 and it rolled on the fairway.

Q. Was that one of the differences you see now from the beginning of the week?

BILL HAAS: Sure.

Q. They're starting to go.

BILL HAAS: Oh, yeah, you can land a pitching wedge on number 1, 20 yards short of the green it's going to roll to the middle of the green. So that's definitely the greens are getting firm. Number 17 is ridiculously hard. If you don't try to drive that -- if you lay up and the pin is tucked, you can't get it close.

Q. Did you hit driver there?

BILL HAAS: No, I laid up. I was two up, figured it wasn't very smart to do that.

Q. What does it mean to you or what does it do to you that you are the highest surviving guy from last year?

BILL HAAS: Not a whole lot. It's new this year. Obviously everybody left is different this year. So I have different opponents. They haven't seen me match play so they want to beat me just as bad tomorrow. I would really like to do a little better than I did last year. I got really close. It was kind of bittersweet. Everybody said, great playing, but you're kind of like, it really wasn't that great losing like that. But it would be great if I could win tomorrow and have another weekend here at the U.S. Amateur, but I'm definitely happy just to make it this far.

PETE KOWALSKI: You said yesterday you set some goals and made a couple. Are there any others, now that you're won two more matches that are in sight here or what?

BILL HAAS: I guess my point was my goal was to make the cut and my goal was to win my first match. So my goal today was to advance on to the next day. So these are my short-term goals. Obviously my long-term goal would be to win this week, win the Walker Cup in two weeks or whatever. Those are other goals. You got to set mini-goals each day, maybe. But I'm not setting myself up for failure; I'm trying to just give myself a challenge.

PETE KOWALSKI: Did you have a chat with dad by phone last night?

BILL HAAS: I did last night. He said go, if you get one up, get two up. That's his advice. So I'm sure he was watching today whenever he got done or if he -- I don't know what time he played this afternoon. I hope he played well.

Q. Does this do anything? Is there a family contingent? Do they have to commute from Akron here?

BILL HAAS: No, my mom's at home. She helped get my sister to college this previous couple days. She said if I win tomorrow she might come up for the weekend. And my dad, there's no cut at the NEC, so he'll be there all week.

Q. Don't give your mom any grief about coming to see him too?

BILL HAAS: No, I don't think so. No.

Q. Everybody kind of pointed to Trip as the guy who was the favorite coming in here.

BILL HAAS: Right. Why?

Q. I don't know.

BILL HAAS: I'm kidding. He's really good. He was definitely a favorite. I'm kidding.

Q. Does it change anything for you guys as players that he's out relatively early?

BILL HAAS: I think David Oh beat him four, no it went a few more holes. 3 and 1. So I saw he was four up at one point. I played with Trip Thursday and Friday in Pittsburgh. Played 54 holes with him. So I know how he's hitting it, he's hitting it really good. So obviously David Oh is hitting it a little better or maybe it was his day or whatever. So you kind of take that and say well now David Oh's the favorite because he beat the favorite. And I have him tomorrow morning, so I'm going to have to play well. I don't plan on shooting 73 and winning a quarter final match, so.

Q. Have you played David in match play before?

BILL HAAS: Never have, no.

Q. Sounds like he's on a pretty good roll?

BILL HAAS: Yeah, he must be playing really well.

PETE KOWALSKI: Thank you, sir.

BILL HAAS: Thank you.

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