JOHN DEERE CLASSIC

September 11, 2003

J.L. Lewis

TODD BUDNICK: We want to thank J.L. Lewis, no stranger to this pressroom. Thanks for stopping by today, 6-under 65, of course the winner in 1999 and you finished T8 last year, so you've had some success on both courses here in the Quad Cities. Talk about today's round.

J.L. LEWIS: I struck the ball well. I haven't seen the stats for the day, but I think I hit every fairway except the last one and every green except one or two. I'm trying to think of the greens I missed. I didn't miss very many, so it was a good ball-striking day. I missed a few putts on the front but on the back nine I kind of made up for it. I made several, several makeable putts, and that's what I haven't been doing, so I'm excited about that. Hopefully I can keep it going. I love this golf course. It's a great layout, you have to strike the ball, you have to be able to work the ball both ways, you have to be able to hit it. When the wind is up, you have to hit it low and work it, so this golf course adds some dimensions that other golf courses don't. They did a great job with the layout, D.A. and Peter I think it was, so they should be proud.

TODD BUDNICK: J.L., you're 60th on the money list, having a very good year. Talk a little bit about what you have left and the success you've had so far.

J.L. LEWIS: I think I've got six tournaments left, and I'm healthy, which is good, and I'm feeling good. I've been working on that a lot, and I've been inconsistent this year, but some of that has been due to injury and some of it has been due to I've been inconsistent. The tournaments where I've done well, I seem to play well all four days, which has been nice, and hopefully I can do that this week.

Q. J.L., will you talk about what it means to you to come back here? Obviously it was your first win, and not only that, but the heat that day, the playoff battle. It seems like you've gone on and moved forward and upward since then. You look at Mike and he's on a lower tour and things like that. Can you talk about what that win meant and how it's maybe springboarded your career a little bit?

J.L. LEWIS: I think it's kind of marked my career. There have been some other things that have happened that have marked it, too, things not that positive, but as far as good things happening to me, that was definitely one of the best, if not the best, so I have a lot of good memories here.

My wife's family is here, and my family comes over from Kansas, so it's nice. We get to see a lot of people that we know. It's just a great area of the world. I like it here. I like the golf course, too.

Q. It sounded like you started and left a lot of shots out on the front side.

J.L. LEWIS: I left a few. I missed a ten-footer on 13 and I missed a five-footer on 14; and then after that, I made most all of them that I should have made. I didn't really miss any putts that I should have made, so that was nice. You know, I've been working hard. I've been working out hard and working hard the last ten days on my game. During the year, some of the times I've had to go home and not do anything and kind of heal up, so I've finally just decided, well, I'm just going to do everything I can for my golf game, and not worry about the other stuff. I think that helped me, spending the last ten days at home pretty intensely working on my game, so it kind of pays off.

Q. Do you feel the back nine is tougher?

J.L. LEWIS: No, not really.

Q. Were you pointing for this tournament in particular or do you have a stretch of tournaments you like to play?

J.L. LEWIS: Well, I like this golf course, so this golf course, and I seem to do fairly well at the Texas Open, and that's coming up in a few weeks, and that's close to home. And then there's Vegas and then there's Greensboro is a good course, too. Vegas is a great tournament because there's so much money there, and if you play well you can really do well there. Hopefully I can make a run and do something here at the end of the year. I've showed signs of playing at a very high level, and I know that I'm capable of that, but for one reason or another, I haven't done it yet. Today I did. Today I played like I'm capable of playing, and so that felt good.

Q. Is there much of a difference in the golf course at this time of the year versus when you played it earlier?

J.L. LEWIS: You know, I like it better now because the weather has changed a little bit. There's going to be a breeze probably every day, and they haven't had any rain so it makes it kind of hard and fast, which makes some holes easier and some holes harder. Overall I think the hard and fast if the greens hold makes it easier, but if the wind blows 40 miles an hour, it's not going to matter whether it's hard or soft.

Q. You've referred to your injuries. What have you been fighting?

J.L. LEWIS: Oh, just nagging stuff. It's all getting better, ribs and shoulders and just whatever, just repetitive use injuries. I've really done a lot of things working out, and I've got a trainer down there. He lives across the street, so he comes over and we go hard about four days a week, and then on the road here I try to work out two or three times a week to get myself -- just get to where I can take the 30 tournaments that I play, which is a lot. I seem to do better when I play about that many. I guess the ideal situation would be to play 18 or 22 or something like that, but I never felt like I was in a position to do that, so I haven't.

Q. A standard question, what was clicking for you today? Today you went out there with a lot of confidence.

J.L. LEWIS: I think my mind was clicking for me today more than anything. I never got rattled. I just said, well, I'm going to go out there and I'm going to hit the shots that I know I'm capable of hitting and just take responsibility for them and not worry about the rest of them. So I think mentally I was strong, and it just kind of showed up on the course.

Q. Is that because you like the course so much?

J.L. LEWIS: Yeah, and I think I was ready to play today.

Q. Do you think that players who have seen this course are at any kind of particular advantage?

J.L. LEWIS: I think you have to see the course, yes. It's a great golf course. There are certain holes where you can hit different clubs off the tee. You can't come out here blind and play as well as you can if you've seen it. There's certain holes where you can hit 4-iron off the tee if you want to, and you don't know that until you've played it a few times. I don't play it that way, but you can if you wanted to.

TODD BUDNICK: We will just go through your birdies. Start with No. 10.

J.L. LEWIS: I hit a 3-iron up short of the green and chipped it up there about eight feet, made it.

17, I hit it in the right trees, chopped it out to about 105 yards, hit sand wedge about six feet, made that. Maybe not six feet, five feet, I guess.

No. 1, driver, pitching wedge into the wind there, about a 15-footer.

2, driver to the right, short of the green, lob wedge up about 12 feet, made that.

6, 3-iron, about 109, big wind, 107, big wind behind me, hit a lob wedge about 12 feet short, made that.

8, driver, I had about an 85-yard shot, lob wedge about eight feet, made that.

TODD BUDNICK: Thank you, J.L.

End of FastScripts.