Q.  Aaron Pike, you like this place and you made it your home today.

AARON PIKE:  Yeah, obviously being a Brisbane boy, I’m pretty fortunate to get to play out here a bit and in terms of golf courses, this is one that really does suit my game.  It’s quite sort of open off the tee and you’ve got to be a bit more precise with your irons and putting’s a real premium around here, so those factors, it does bode well for me, but you’ve also got to do it.  But yeah, I’m pretty chuffed at being able to play in my home city.

Q.  One bogey all day mate, that’s pretty tidy golf around a tough golf course.

AARON PIKE:  Yeah, I’m not going to lie, I made some good par putts and realistically the one hole that I made bogey, I had to get up and down for bogey, because as this place does to you, if you put it in the wrong spot, it’ll just bite you, and I did there.  Fortunately for the rest of the day, although I got up and down, I was getting up and down from spots that are just really simple.  Sometimes having a 30 foot putt here is worse than having a chip shot or a putt over a ridge and these kinds of things.

Again, the local knowledge of knowing this place so well, that sort of really helped.

Q.  Wedge game’s important around here, would you agree with wedge play, was that a big part of today?

AARON PIKE:  Absolutely.  I stuffed quite a few shots in there.  I took advantage of the par 5s, except the last, but I made a couple of birdies, and 10 we’re playing as a par 4, but still a par 5 in my mind, because I play here so much.  So effectively in my head, I made birdie there.

I took advantage of the par 5s.  I hit a couple of wedge shots nice and close early and then I made a nice putt on 18 and then I just sort of eased into the round.  I nearly jammed it in for two on the second and I just kept sort of playing along from there and birdied 7 and sort of just kept plugging away.

Q.  Added distance put on during the year as well?

AARON PIKE:  Sorry, what was that?

Q.  Do you think that extra distance that you’ve put on the last few months-

AARON PIKE:  Yeah, definitely.  It was noticeable, like I played with Matty Jager today and he’s been a guy that’s always been well past me and I’m certainly not the longest guy, but I’ve tried to make a concerted effort to hit it a bit further and we were level pegging the whole day.  Sometimes I was past him, sometimes he was past me.  So he probably didn’t have his best game today, but that shows to me that I’m probably inching up the metres, which is what you need to do in this day and age, and especially around this golf course.  I think that’s an advantage.

Q.  You made an interesting comment to the TV about your comfort level out there, being on top of the leaderboard, comfortable being uncomfortable.

AARON PIKE:  Yeah, that’s something that all of the boys and the girls that are out here playing this week, it’s something that we have to just get used to.  As I said, you want to be winning these.  You want to be at the top of the tree and you want the camera on you, you want the interviews, you want all these kind of things.  Being comfortable being uncomfortable is something that I’ve had to sort of basically just get over it and learn to do it and it’s something that sort of comes pretty easy, but as I said, I’m playing a golf course I know pretty well, so.

Q.  The changes to the Order of Merit with the top three now going to Europe, have you and others noticed that?

AARON PIKE:  Yeah, I obviously got the email yesterday and information.  I think it’s great.  Any more spots that we’ve got to get onto those bigger and more advanced tours and stuff like that, it’s an incentive that we want.  It’s an incentive that – all we want is an opportunity in this game.  We want the opportunity to show what we can do, and that’s just another opportunity, and whoever gets it, whether it’s me or Michael Sim or whoever it might be – Brad Kennedy gets it again, they deserve it.  If you finish top three, you deserve it, don’t you and it’s what you want, and those things, that’s what we’re aiming for.

Q.  Thanks Aaron.