DORAL-RYDER OPEN

March 6, 1997

Tommy Tolles

TOMMY TOLLES: Well, just got off of taking four weeks off and didn't really do much while I was home. I was up in North Carolina for two weeks and down in Fort Meyers taking lessons for two weeks. This last weekend I played in a little two-day event to more or less prepare myself for this week. And, I didn't really play that well there. And, I didn't really play that well today. I made some key putts for par, and capitalized on the few good tee shots coming down the stretch. It was a good start to the tournament. And, the course is in excellent shape.

TOMMY TOLLES: Jeff Heilman. Actually, I took lessons Sunday and Wednesday of last week. He watched me play Sunday in the two-day tournament and came over Tuesday of this week. And, we've got a lot of things to work on. I lost a lot of important parts of my swing in the four weeks off. I played very sparingly, every three or four days. And even when I did play, I didn't concentrate on what I was doing. It was more or less a social round of golf. So, it's going to take me at least a couple more days to get back in the rhythm of things.

TOMMY TOLLES: Yes, I am playing next week.

TOMMY TOLLES: No. I struck the ball very well for the first ten holes and then something went awry the next -- until 16, and I had an incredible tee shot on 16 with 11, 12, 13 and 14, I didn't hit very many good shots. A lot of tee shots weren't what I imagined before I struck them; especially at 13, the par 3, I tried to hit a hard looking 4-iron and basically hit a block cut on the far right part of the right bunker. It's a 4-iron that's 25 to 30 yards off line, which is a pretty poor shot. And, then the hole before that, I hit a 6-iron from 170 yards and I was 10 yards right of the green. So, it's a couple of shots back-to-back that were pretty poor. And, I hit a few other shots on 12 that were pretty bad and the previous hole, 11, I just wasn't making solid contact for a while. And, 15, I hit a fairly good iron shot, but I missed the putt. 16, I hit a tee shot that found one of the bunkers. And, I got it up-and-down. And everything just seemed to get back together. I'm always concerned about the four or five holes that I played bad; not the 12 or 13 that I played good.

TOMMY TOLLES: I would say I probably had 28. A lot of them were putts from the fringe. When the pin is on the left side of the green, the right fringe, I had.

TOMMY TOLLES: It says 280 to fly the bunkers, and we had probably 5- to 10-mile-an-hour wind behind us, you get it up in the jet stream and that's about as hard as I can hit one. But, I wasn't trying to hit it there. But, fortunately, it turned out to be a good spot.

TOMMY TOLLES: I used to think that perfectionists were a bunch of idiots, but now I actually see what they're grasping at. If you're going to play the perfect round of golf, you have to hit every shot with positive attitude and with aggressive motion. And, there was a lot of times, a couple of times today in the middle part of the round, that I would back off, right at impact. And, the result would be a weak shot, whether it was left or right, short or long. I kind of lose the aggressive attitude in the middle of my swing. It's not before I hit the shot. I'm fine and ready to hit it when I'm there, but it's on the way down, some place, I'm losing it. That's more or less what I've got to work on.

TOMMY TOLLES: That's not going to help it, that's for sure. But it gives me something to work on. I just can't be satisfied with shooting 4-under. Today mentally I was very strong. And, I think if I wasn't on top of my game mentally, I probably would have shot 72 to 75 again.

TOMMY TOLLES: When I was there we had an ice storm. I like to get out and play the social rounds of golf. Go a few days, just go to the gym, you know, go see all my friends, just anything to pass the time. And, it just seemed like I got trapped inside the house for 7 out of the 12 or 14 days that we were there. So not much get accomplished from inside the house, except I won The Masters twice while I was in there, putting on the carpet, and imagining my swing.

TOMMY TOLLES: I've got a fast carpet downstairs and I've got my pool table there, too.

TOMMY TOLLES: Actually it was a little downwind. Most of the guys can cut off a generous part of an enormous bunker on the left. Actually it's going to be -- it's not near as frightening of a golf hole as it normally is. It was very tame today. I, myself, hit an 8-iron in there. Keith Clearwater, was behind me, I'm sure hit it with a 7-iron. Joe Ozaki was behind me and hit it with an 8 or 9. I hit it in the left bunker. I got really greedy. I didn't hit a very good tee shot. I was going for it all.

TOMMY TOLLES: It's extremely soft. I had to walk all the way across it. My tee shot just barely flew the lake by three or four feet. And, it ended up where all the seagulls are nesting over there. It's really powdery sand.

TOMMY TOLLES: If I hit that shot in practice round it would have splashed.

TOMMY TOLLES: If the TOUR puts the tees where they were today, you can't say it's borderline unfair, because everybody has to play the golf hole. In my opinion, or whatever, it's almost too demanding in one aspect of the hole. If you hit the tee shot in the fairway, fine, at least half the hole is over with. If you don't hit it in the fairway, you've basically got to lay-up. The way they've redesigned the green that, if you hit it in the right bunker and you have a downwind bunker shot, you're going to have to have something spectacular to keep it out of the water. There's no where to bail out to. The greens slope pretty severe with the grain and the wind being able to push it up, I guess 75 percent of the time.