An Interview With:

Lee Williams after the semifinal round on Aug. 23, 2003.

PETE KOWALSKI:   Lee, thank you for joining us and being patient in waiting for all of us to come off the golf course.

LEE WILLIAMS:   No problem.

PETE KOWALSKI:   Congratulations.   On your advancement to the semi-finals and if you could just give us a recap of the holes that you felt were critical.

LEE WILLIAMS:   I felt like after number 3 when I was one down going to number 4, I played number 4 well the whole week.   I just figured put it in the fairway and hit a good layup shot and I make birdie because I birdied it several times this week.   I ended up making par.   The next hole I hit a great drive, great second shot, ended up going over the green.   And I was really disappointed with that on number 5.   I hit a good bunker shot.   Didn't release like I thought it was going to and ended up making bogey.

7, we bogeyed, halved that.

8, I made a huge putt.   25-footer for par which got me back to one down.   I felt real good at that point.   Especially with all the hard holes that was left to play on the front side; 8 and 9 are tough.

Number 8, I just got a bad lie in the trap and we ended up halving that one with fours.  

Then 9, he went two up on me and I knew I was going to have to play good on the back nine at the turn being two down, especially to him because he's such a good player.   Didn't hit very many good shots on the few holes I played on the back nine.

Just wasn't a very good day from tee to green and that was the deciding factor.

Q.   Has the course changed a lot?

LEE WILLIAMS:   No, not really.   I think there's only a certain firmness that the greens can get.   The same with the fairways.   There's only so hard they can get before they're dead.   The last few days it's been the same as today, I think.   The pins are harder.   But the course is pretty much the same.

PETE KOWALSKI:   Yesterday you asked me a question who is the favorite by saying if there was one there.   I don't know who it is.   Now that there's two left, who in your mind is the favorite?

LEE WILLIAMS:    Casey because he's American.   I definitely think that.   I don't see a lot of people pulling against a guy from their own country.   So I would have to say Casey now.   In Australia I'm sure that Nick Flanagan's the favorite, but I think over here Casey is probably the favorite.

Q.   How difficult is match play against Casey, a guy that doesn't make a whole lot of mistakes?   You knew that going in it was going to be like that.   Just how difficult was it?

LEE WILLIAMS:   I played with Casey before and I play in a lot of the same tournaments that he plays in.   I know how good of a player he is.   I just expected -- Greg Jones, he hits a lot of fairways and he hits a lot of greens and there aren't a whole lot of people who hit the ball more consistent than Greg does.   And I expected the same from Casey as I did from Greg and the other guys that I played this week too.   I knew anybody I played, especially with the draws that I was getting, that I was going to have to play good.

Q.   You had to come in confident after the way you played the last three.

LEE WILLIAMS:   Right.

Q.   Did you just not play as well today?

LEE WILLIAMS:   I played exactly like I played the beginning of the week, exactly.   Missing fairways.   Normally I don't miss a lot of fairways.   I don't know what the deal was, especially today because the last couple days I've been hitting it really straight off the tee.   Today I just didn't have it; I don't know.

Q.   Do you feel heightened by this?

LEE WILLIAMS:    I feel like I got a good shot.   But I felt like I had a good shot earlier.   I'm just not going to get my hopes up and we'll see where it goes.   I've done all I could do up to now.   So we'll see if that was good enough.   Hopefully I will be able to make the Walker Cup team.   I would love to be on that team.

Q.   Is there a particular aspect of Casey's game that impresses you?

LEE WILLIAMS:    Not of his game.   He's mentally tough.   I would say if anything about him that impressed me is the mental part of his game.   Especially being as young as he is and not even in college yet.   I mean he's not a college student yet.   Definitely his mental approach.

Q.   Just the decisions he makes or what about it?

LEE WILLIAMS:    No, I think if you pay attention to his matches earlier in the week he was always down it seemed like.   He always came back.   He didn't make, I don't think he made a lot of birdies when he came back, he just was making par, par, par, which says that he was dedicated to his game plan and he was executing the shots that he had planned on executing whether he was four up or four down.   That's what I'm talking about.

Q.   You've known him awhile?

LEE WILLIAMS:   I've known him for I guess a year and a half now.   We played together last summer.   We have known each other since then.

Q.   Would you say you're friends?

LEE WILLIAMS:   Yeah, we're friends.   We hadn't spent a whole lot of time together.   But we're not rivals or anything.   I think everyone out here is pretty much friends with each other.   Everyone's a gentleman out here.   You meet them once and most people come up to you and talk to you and stuff like that after you have met someone ones.   So, yeah, we're friends.

PETE KOWALSKI:   What do you take away from this championship, Lee, in terms of experience and that.   What you might have learned.

LEE WILLIAMS:   I basically just learned that you can't ever give up.   I never gave up this week.   If you look at a lot of the other people's matches, it just proves that no matter how many you are down, if there are still holes to play, you can still win.   And I learned how to handle all the people around.   Some people had to really struggle.

I was talking to a friend that said that he had a hard time when he had the cameras flashing off and then the people with the TV; I mean that's a great experience.   I feel like I can play in front of 10,000 people now.   No problem.   But I love playing in front of people.   I think it's awesome.   I love hearing the galleries roar, especially on 7 today.   That gave me chills when I made my putt.   I heard everyone clapping.   That was awesome.

Q.   You had to be excited about your week but how disappointing is it when you get to this point?

LEE WILLIAMS:    I don't think it's a disappointment.   It's a disappointment to me, but I really don't think it is.   I got this far and I'm real happy.   If someone would have told me, you know, before I got here I was going to make it to the semi-finals but I was going to lose there, would you take it?   And I would say, yes, I would take it.   In a heartbeat.   But I'm not going to look at it as a disappointment, I'm going to look at it as a great experience and something that I feel like I did a good job at.   And it's not like I lost to a bad player either.   He's a very good player.   And to lose to him is -- I'm not disappointed with that at all.   I'm more disappointed that I didn't hit the ball as well as I would have wanted to.   I'm not disappointed with the tournament.

Q.   How much impact did 9 have on the match with the pitch out.   You had to take a drop after the hazard?

LEE WILLIAMS:   Right.

Q.   You made bogey and he made par?

LEE WILLIAMS:    Right.   I don't think it really had that big of an impact on the match just because I felt like I played the back nine better than I do the front nine by far.   I felt real comfortable, even though I was two down going to the back nine.   If I would have been four down going to the back nine I still wouldn't have been comfortable but I would have thought I still had a shot because I really do like the back nine so much better than the front nine.

PETE KOWALSKI:   Lee, great summer.

LEE WILLIAMS:   Thank you.