CIALIS WESTERN OPEN MEDIA DAY

May 23, 2005

Stephen Ames

STEPHEN AMES: Thank you.

STEPHEN AMES: Thank you. I guess I have to make more pars than birdies then. It's nice to be back here at the Western Open at Cog Hill. It was my first (victory), so it's my first experience (with a media day), so I'll start with questions. Be easy now.

STEPHEN AMES: It's changed a few things. One, my schedule, obviously. This year I've played less events than I really would have liked to, but overall in the whole package of the year, it's working out to the same numbers as I've played last year or the years before. And being more recognized, not so much in Canada, but also here in the United States. Walking through the airports and everything else, people have started coming to me and going, "Stephen Ames, Western Open," you know. Those kind of things have changed for me. I'm playing in certain events that in the past have never been looked at, and now I'm going to be entering them or playing in them now. So it's been a lot of fun for me.

STEPHEN AMES: The good thing about it for me is the fact that in the past I've always been a believer that I had to have this perfect golf swing to win, and playing the Western Open, it wasn't -- the main thing for me was that mentally I was relaxed and very focused that week, and, obviously, the short game, the putting was very good, so that kept me in. So that basically has given me the belief that this belief of having a great golf swing doesn't really happen and I think the fact that believing in yourself, believing in the ability of what you have that particular day, that that's what wins events. I think Tiger shows that the most, especially the way he's been playing these days. That would be compared to 2000, as well as he did back then, as well as he's hitting the golf ball right now, he's still winning golf tournaments. It's just phenomenal.

STEPHEN AMES: Yes.

STEPHEN AMES: Yeah. It fits my eye more than anything else. I have never been a big poa annua putter. I think it's because we've been playing on the West Coast rather than out here. When they're a bit dryer, they putt a little truer, and it's not as bumpy, obviously. But this golf course has a very old traditional look, and you've got to shape the ball off the tee, which I've always enjoyed playing in my past. That's always been a big thing for me, seeing the shot that I want to hit beforehand, this golf course helps me do that. I think that most of the golf courses that I do play my schedule around are golf courses that tend to suit my eye more than anything else.

STEPHEN AMES: No, I haven't. Luke told me about it and also his brother said it was very good and well done. But my first impression was as if I was looking through one of those child kaleidoscope things. That was my first impression looking at it. There's a lot of colors in there. Excellent job. Very good job of it.

STEPHEN AMES: No, actually, I'm not. This year, I've been home so much this year that we've had a lot of time off and very much my priority in life has always been family first then golf. As time has gone on from that particular moment of that time last year, it was an opportunity that we've always talked about. They spend a lot of time with me during the year. And at the Western Open that particular week, that was a question, I think the question came up because there was another person, another dad that had won and they had seen their friends running out there, and that question had popped up: "Dad, when are you going to go win like "I don't know, it was Steve Flesch" Steve Flesch's dad "What is his son's name. I can't remember his son's name off the top of my head. They were there and ran out and they had seen them running out to their dad. So obviously, that question had popped up to my sons, "Well, dad, they just won, how come you're not going to win?" So I had to make that promise.

STEPHEN AMES: Some of our TPCs are getting better. I've got to back them up a bit, being a member. The traditional TPCs, the old ones, yeah, they're pretty horrible. But some of the better ones are becoming better and as time has gone on this week with Memphis, that fits my eye very well, the shape, very nicely. They've changed a lot of the greens and the grass and things. It does make it different for us this year. That's the reason why I'm going back. But in the past year, you're right. I tend to play the traditional golf courses. And I do warm up to the weather, yes. Being originally from the Caribbean, yes, I tend to love playing in the heat. I'm not a West Coast fan, not at all, except besides Hawaii, that's about it.

STEPHEN AMES: Who did? I'm sorry.

STEPHEN AMES: Oh, okay.

STEPHEN AMES: Not really, no. I think it's got the length. A lot of the holes have got the shape that they need to hit it. Probably the only thing that they might want to think about changing is maybe shaping some of the greens, redoing the greens over again. That would probably be it. But, traditionally, no. I think it's a fair golf course that's right in front of you. It plays tough, according to the weather, which is the same with any golf course. You can make these greens as firm and as fast as we want them, it would be almost impossible to attack the pin. Pretty much U.S. Open style.

STEPHEN AMES: I think the grasses with Bermuda, which I grew up on, those would have more grain, so you're going to get bigger breaks, more of the ball falling in. In the case of bent, they're a lot quicker. You're going to miss if you, like Augusta this year, that was an experience for me, being my first -- playing in my first event there at Augusta. The toughest things about those greens was not as much learning how to read them, more or less learning how to putt them. You had to die your putts from four and five feet. It was unbelievable, a dead flat putt has break, you couldn't see it, because of the slope of the green itself is so subtle as it was, everything was rolling towards Ray's Creek. It was a very difficult putt for me. Obviously, it's the same for everybody else who played it in the past. For these greens, the poa, depending on the speed that they get at, the only thing that I realize about poa over the years playing on the TOUR is that the later as the day goes on, the seed tends to come out, they get a little bumpier. I have not changed my putting stroke. I don't change my equipment. I'm not a big believer of that. I've always been a believer that it's always the Indian, never the arrow.

STEPHEN AMES: You know what, I think it's the sponsor's decision, the sponsor's decision. In the case of Cialis, if they wanted to bring Michelle out here, I'd say, "Yeah, go right ahead." Whatever is going to help promote their name to make it a bigger event where more people come and watch, I'd say, "Go right. Ahead. Give her that spot." Giving her a spot in the sense of taking one of our spots away, well, if they've earned their right to be there in the event and she's coming to play in it and begin in one of the spots, that's different. In the case of a sponsor's invite, no, I have nothing against that at all. Go right ahead.

STEPHEN AMES: I think we have had that plan in for about five years now. I don't think it's going to stand. We're individual contractors. We're not contracted to the TOUR. And I don't think -- I think the only way that they can actually make that work is actually by taking money out of our retirement fund. I don't think that's going to hurt Tiger or Vijay. I don't think that will ever happen in a sense. At this stage it's difficult because the John Deere is before one of our majors, the British Open. Playing the John Deere and then flying over to go play the British Open is not really getting yourself prepared for winning a major, which is what us golfers all try to do, win majors and play in those events.

STEPHEN AMES: I think in the case of the women who come to play, with them, I think it's more of a personal battle more than anything else. In the case of Annika playing at Colonial which kind of suited her game, I think it was perfect to show her, and only her, what she needed to work on to be a better player and dominate the way she's dominating right now. Obviously, I think she realized that she needed to work on her short game more and her putting, and, obviously, the little tips and lessons that she's getting from Tiger is helping. What, did she win six, seven in a row already this year, something like that. I mean, she's playing phenomenal. In the case of Michelle, she's probably going to show how much farther she's been hitting it past everybody else on the ladies TOUR, playing in the men's event. I give all right to them for personal reasons as in the case you're always striving to be a better person or a better player, and if it means playing against the men to be a better player to show yourself that you need to be a better player, in that sense, I think yes, go ahead and do it, without a doubt.

STEPHEN AMES: I think on every hole, you've got to get your drive in the fairway, the second shot close to the hole, and you make your putt. You tend to look at the ones that can bite you more than the ones that you're going to birdie, that you can birdie, because I think the focus part of it itself changes in a person when they're playing. If you tend to go out there the night before and you say, "Well, the second and third holes are easy holes and I should birdie those holes," you might go in with a bit of a relaxed atmosphere rather than being focused on what you're trying to achieve is to hit the particular shot at the time. It's not a good thing to go in with that kind of attitude, I think, going in and, "This hole I should birdie every day," and you don't birdie, walk out of there and you go, "I'm pissed off, because I didn't birdie it." That wasn't my game plan. I think the idea when playing golf is to have a game plan what you're going to do when there's a particular pin in a certain place on the green or there's a particular tee ball that you don't like, so you're going to hit 3 off the tee. More than anything else, that's game plan we try to play at. Predicting where the birdies are going to come, if I was that good, I'd being making 10 million bucks every year, winning 10 events. I don't think anybody does that. You go out and play golf according to what the golf course has got to offer that particular day.

STEPHEN AMES: Yes.

STEPHEN AMES: A lot.

STEPHEN AMES: To practice?

STEPHEN AMES: It does. This year, as an example, I finished playing Target Challenge, Tiger's event at Sherwood and from there I went home for 10 days and then I went and spent three weeks in Hawaii prior to playing the Kapalua event. And most of those -- Mercedes got in the way of my vacation. I didn't pick a club up -- I think I picked a club up once, which was the round before the week itself started. I played once with my brother and my son. I played 15 holes that particular day and I had fun. It was relaxing. And from there I went two more weeks off. As the year turned out, my past has always been to use the West Coast as a rev up to get ready for where I usually start myself usually Florida start playing from there. This year with the weather the way it has been or has been in the past as the year has gone on, I didn't get much done, to be truthful. I felt exceptionally lost a little bit this year in the way things have started. And I've just come off of three weeks off prior to playing Colonial. I hit balls twice there, because the weather wasn't good there either those particular three weeks. So it's been difficult for me this year to get kick-started and get ready, should I say, and I think the way things have gone in the past and the way things have gone this year, I'm probably going to change a bit next year where I go down to Florida, even Palm Springs and prepare myself better for next year.

STEPHEN AMES: You have -- I need to have a break, yes. I think everybody does in a sense, wants to get away from the game itself. My living in Calgary gives me that opportunity. I get a complete break because there's no excuse for me to look out the window and go, "What a beautiful day, I should go hit balls," you know. It's 30 below and two feet of snow. So that way I get away, and I've got other interests at home, too, in Calgary, so those keep my busy. Thank you very much. Enjoy your day.

MS. GARRETT: Good. Now we get to talk about erectile dysfunction. Are you ready? Seriously, with a crowd this big, that's really what I want to talk about. John thinks that you'd rather hear about what's going on with the golf tournament, so let's talk about that. If you were here last year, you'll remember that the entrance tent was the Cialis Western Open history walk, and so as every fan entered to come into the tournament, what they saw was a tribute to the Western Golf Association, the Western Open, and the Evans Scholars Foundation. We're going to continue that this year, but we're moving it to the spectator pavilion so it will be in the parking lot outside of the media center, so that as fans go from 18 to 1 and travel around the course, they'll have more time in to come in and really appreciate the rich tradition of Western golf. So we're very excited about that. Also in the history walk will be a special tribute to the 75th anniversary of the Evans Scholar Foundation, we're delighted to have that. And that will feature some of the dedicated alumni that you'll be able to see there. In addition to the history walk, we'll also be featuring this great painting from Luke Donald that highlights Stephen's approach to 18 on championship Sunday. Luke is actually going to dedicate this painting to the Western Golf Association on Wednesday of tournament week, and we invite all of you to come to that presentation. That will be in the media center on Wednesday afternoon, June 29th, so we look forward to having you there for that. Related to this art, we have partnered with the Art Institute of Chicago, and we have eight artists who are alums of the institute who will be painting on site in the spectator pavilion bringing to life some of the great moments from Western Open week. So we're delighted to have that happen as well. And then of course, we're very excited to have the Cialis fan tent which features the golf channel swing experience. And so what will happen there is fans can come into the tent. They can have their swing analyzed by golf teaching professionals. They can then go to the web site and view their swing and get personalized lessons and tips for how go about and relax and improve their game on the course. And, of course, in the tent as well, if they're interested, they can pick up some literature on Cialis, learn a little bit more about erectile dysfunction and how to treat that. Finally, what we'll be doing on the course again, as we did last year, we have the Cialis relaxation center. So any fan who comes out can come to the tent, they can relax, they can get something to drink, they can have a little popcorn, watch the tournament on TV and just really enjoy the tournament from that perspective. So those are the key things that we're doing outside of the ropes to help bring the tournament to life for the fans and make it a better experience. Thank you very much.