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FUNAI GOLF CLASSIC AT WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT

October 21, 2004

J.L. Lewis

LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLORIDA

NELSON SILVERIO: Welcome, J.L. Lewis, to the media center. Thanks for talking to us for a couple minutes. Brilliant 62, pretty much an ideal start.

J.L. LEWIS: Yeah, I played well and I putted fairly well, really well until -- I missed a couple there, but I made most of them, so I'm pretty happy with it.

Q. (Inaudible).

J.L. LEWIS: I think I drove the ball in the fairway, hit a lot of greens. I haven't seen any stats, but I only missed -- I think I missed two fairways. I don't know if I missed a green. I might have hit every green, I don't know.

Q. You missed one.

J.L. LEWIS: I missed 15, okay. Well, it was on the fringe, though.

Putting was okay. It was pretty good. It was much better than it has been. You know, I've just been trying to get better. I'm just trying to get better. This year has been kind of an off year, and I've just been working on executing shots and trying to just get more proficient, and hopefully it's paying off.

Q. (Inaudible).

J.L. LEWIS: Yeah, I three-putted it actually. I knocked it by, missed it coming back. Some of these greens, the grain gets going a certain direction, and some of these putts are a lot faster than what you think.

Q. In the past week, did you think that there was a 62 in that bag when you walked out here?

A. Well, I shot 63 the first round in Vegas and 63 in the last round of the Texas Open and I shot 63 at home one day, so I've been playing very well. Nobody can explain golf, so I'm not going to try. I just try to hit each shot the best I can and get myself in a situation where hopefully I'll have a chance to do something good on Sunday, and then I'm just going to keep trying to hit the best shots that I can. That's all you can do.

Q. (Inaudible).

J.L. LEWIS: My children are 17 and 20, so they're in college, a freshman and a sophomore in college, so it's just me and my wife.

Q. (Inaudible).

J.L. LEWIS: He did a couple years ago when he was about 15 or 16 for part of a year.

Q. (Inaudible).

J.L. LEWIS: Yeah, that was his college fund, so that's worked out good.

Q. Where do they go to school?

J.L. LEWIS: Texas State in San Marcus and Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.

Q. (Inaudible).

J.L. LEWIS: Yeah, I think so. It's a funny thing. When things go well, things kind of slow down. You just have a lot better view. I don't know whether it's subconscious or what, but things just seem to work better, and you get some flow going. I wasn't even thinking about the score, I was just trying to hit good shots and pick out spots on the greens and roll the ball over the spot, and if it went in, great, and if it didn't, that's all right, too. That's kind of how I did it.

Q. Is it bad for your game to get charged up or are you better off when you're calm?

J.L. LEWIS: Well, the adrenaline is nice if you need to hit it farther. I don't mind the adrenaline on par 5s and long par 4s, but I don't think you need to be real charged up when you're trying to make a 20-footer downhill. That's the thing about golf. You need strength, but you also need touch. So on a scale of 1 to 10, you want your -- when you're striking the ball, you want your pump level to be about an 8, and when you're putting you want it to be about a 4.

That's the thing about golf. You kind of have to go up and down as you play, I think.

Q. (Inaudible).

J.L. LEWIS: Not much. I mean, it's just salt, mom and dad.

Q. (Inaudible).

J.L. LEWIS: Not too much. I've been working with the same instructor, Bill Moretti, for a long time, and I have a mental coach, a guy named Alan Walters, at the Advanced Coaching Leadership Center, and I work on things, but mostly I work on trying to eliminate distractions, you know, and trying to be more aware and more focused and try to get the most out of whatever ability level that I have because there's a lot of talent out here.

Q. (Inaudible).

J.L. LEWIS: I'd shoot 62 every day. I mean, I should have shot lower today. Everybody in the tournament is capable of that, though, that's the thing. I don't think people realize really what they are capable of sometimes.

Q. (Inaudible).

J.L. LEWIS: Well, Vijay, I think, is probably the best example. Tiger Woods was for a while and Ernie Els and guys like that, they're very gifted players to start off with, and then they've mastered the mental side of the game to where they -- they're at the mastery level where they're that good and there's no fear. They know they're that good.

Q. (Inaudible).

J.L. LEWIS: No, not unless you let it be, but they just -- guys like that who win a lot obviously are mentally very strong.

Q. (Inaudible).

J.L. LEWIS: Well, it can be anything. I mean, if it's -- it can be anything, you name it. It doesn't matter what it is. Whether you're playing with a -- if you've got a caddie that you're not happy with -- my caddie is great, but that would be a distraction. Or if you've got a problem, a health problem, that's a distraction. That's something I've had to really work on is to get my body to where I'm pain-free and I can play four days in a row, so that's been sort of a problem.

It's getting better and better. I've got trainers. That would be a distraction, that sort of thing.

This week, for a lot of these guys, the Money List is a distraction.

Q. (Inaudible).

J.L. LEWIS: Well, I'm exempt, but I'm not exempt to all the invitationals yet, so I'd like to get that done if I could. I'd have to finish really high to do that because really if you're not in the Top 70 you don't get to play in all the tournaments, and I'd like to be able to get to play all the tournaments.

Q. (Inaudible).

J.L. LEWIS: No, not really because there's 40 tournaments anyway, so if you miss three or four, that's all right.

Q. (Inaudible). Did you enjoy that by and large or could you not wait to get back out and start playing? Was it a positive experience? Anything you bring from that with you out here that made you a more well-rounded person?

J.L. LEWIS: I think it made me hungrier because we were broke and I was working about 80 hours a week and making no money. I was making more money playing in mini-Tour events and club pro stuff than I was as a head pro at a club, so I didn't have a really prestigious-type job. Let's put it that way.

Q. When and where was that?

J.L. LEWIS: Forest Creek Golf Course in Round Rock, and I was 29 to 32.

Q. Do you mind if we go through your card? You started out with four birdies on your first nine, which was the back.

J.L. LEWIS: 10, I hit a driver, 3-wood on the front of the green and two-putted it.

Then on 11, hit it about a foot with a sand wedge. 12, I hit it about 25 feet and made it with a 6-iron.

Next hole, I hit a pitching wedge in there about six feet, made that.

Then I bogeyed 15 and then I hit it about six feet on 16, made that.

Then 1, I hit a 9-iron about maybe four feet, made that.

Hit, I think, a wedge on the next hole, I'm not sure. I can't remember what club, but it was about a ten-footer, made that.

Then I tried to hit No. 13 in two, pulled it off to the left, chipped it up there about eight feet or ten feet, made that.

The next hole I hit it five feet with an 8-iron, made that.

Next hole I hit it 18 feet with a 5-iron, made that.

Then on -- I can't remember the hole, the second to last hole, hit a sand wedge long about 25 feet and made that.

Q. (Inaudible).

J.L. LEWIS: The short putt on the last hole and then the three-putt, but I had a lot of putts that lipped in, too, so that's kind of the difference in -- the ball starts going in the hole, it helps.

Q. (Inaudible).

J.L. LEWIS: I was leading after two rounds at Southern Hills, and then the third round I think I shot a 76 or something in the U.S. Open, but I played well there. I love the golf course, just missed some fairways in the third round, and in the U.S. Open if you miss fairways you ain't got a chance. So hopefully I can play well the rest of this week and get up in there.

Q. Do you go by J.L. or do you go by your first name?

J.L. LEWIS: My dad is John, and there's a long line of Johns.

Q. What's the L?

J.L. LEWIS: Lee, John Lee.

End of FastScripts.

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