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WGC AMERICAN EXPRESS CHAMPIONSHIP


October 5, 2005


David Toms


SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

Q. Make a couple comments on the course.

DAVID TOMS: I think it's a good mixture of holes. Obviously they have a couple holes out there where they turned them into par 4s that are normally par 5s, and you can tell. It seems like every time we do that you can tell the holes without even really knowing just because of the way the fairway bunkers are done and the greenside bunkers and the size of the greens.

Every hole seems to be playing extremely well. The only funky hole out there to me is the last hole, only because you're not real sure where to hit your tee shot. After that, it's okay. Plus the greens are a little more undulating than the rest of the golf course is, so it makes it a little bit different. All in all, I think it's a great mixture of holes and a great course.

Q. How are the greens?

DAVID TOMS: They're good, pretty receptive to the middle, but we're not going to see any more pins in the middles of the greens, so I think it's going to be a little bit more challenging than the first couple of days that we were here.

Q. Can you compare the greens here compared to some of the others you've seen on the West Coast, i.e., Pebble

DAVID TOMS: Well, these are much better than any of those just because you don't have any poa annua in them. See how a true putting surface is going to hold up when you're talking only 68 players or 71 players are playing. They should hold up nicely rather than having a full field of 150 players, so you're we'll probably have good green conditions the whole week.

Q. It's obviously something that every player wants to see.

DAVID TOMS: Oh, sure. Shoot, we'd love to play against 72 players all year long in a $7 and a half million purse. But that's not going to happen. So when we do get to do it, you need to take advantage of it and enjoy the week. It seems to go pretty smoothly when you have a short field like that, and it makes for a great tournament.

Q. Do you like traveling on the West Coast? Do you like playing out here?

DAVID TOMS: Yeah, I play on the West Coast during the normal year. I always play some on the West Coast early in the year, and it's a nice change of pace being from where I am. It's still 85 or 90 degrees where I live at home in Louisiana, so this is nice to be able to put on a sweater vest in the mornings here and enjoy the cool, crisp air.

Q. Do you have a lot of experience in northern California along the coast?

DAVID TOMS: No, other than just Pebble Beach area. I've never played a whole lot of golf out this way. It's a great place, nice city to visit, and I think they've done a good job picking this golf course and setting it up well. I think we'll have a really nice event. You can already see how many people have been out to watch the players this week and the tournament hasn't even started yet.

Q. Just a couple questions on the course itself. Which spots do you think you're going to have to defend on? I see like 6, 8 and 9 could be a tough little stretch.

DAVID TOMS: I was playing with Mickelson today and we were talking about the mixture of the holes. They're not short holes to where you can be aggressive going into the greens so that you have the holes that are difficult where you're hitting long shots where you can play to the middle of the green and try to play for par, rather than having to if you didn't have any short holes, I mean, if you just had all medium to long holes, you'd have to be very conservative playing this golf course. But I think you're going to have enough chances to make birdie where you can take the holes like you're talking about and just play them conservative, nice conservative golf. If you have to play short of the greens, chip up, play to the middle, just do whatever you can to get your par and get to the next hole.

Q. Do you see 15 through 17 as a good opportunity to get some scoring in?

DAVID TOMS: Absolutely.

Q. Is that a crucial spot to really get some scoring done?

DAVID TOMS: I think you really have that opportunity to have some short clubs in your hand where you can score, but still, those pins will be tucked pretty tough, so you have to be in the fairway, first of all, to have a chance. There's a lot of scoring opportunities. Sure, being able to finish your round with a couple scoring opportunities like that makes for a great setup of the golf course. You can get a couple back instead of just being trying to struggle to hang on like a lot of courses where you've got a pretty good round going but you have to try to hang in there to get through the last few holes. Here it still gives you an opportunity to score.

Q. Which would you rather start, the 1st or the 10th?

DAVID TOMS: I don't think it really matters. I think there's a good enough mixture on both sides to where it really shouldn't matter which hole you start on. Both holes are birdie opportunities right out of the box. You have a par 5, and if you have a good drive you can reach the green; and then 1 is a good driver, wedge hole, so a good opportunity to get off to a good start both sides.

Q. Yesterday on the 10th when you played a layup shot, what were you hitting in?

DAVID TOMS: I hit a 3 wood in, but I had a difficult lie to get it over that tree. So you need to be on the right side of that fairway, but if you get it too far right you'll be in the bunker and you definitely have to lay up from there. That's the way this golf course is. There's a lot of places where you have to play the angle to be able to attack. I think that makes for a good course.

Q. Winning score?

DAVID TOMS: Shoot, I guess it depends on what happens to the weather. If it gets a little breezy, I think if you can get it to double digits under par, you've got to feel pretty good about what you're doing out there.

Q. Do you like the recent push in renovating golf courses like these muni golf courses? Is there anything you don't like about what they're trying to do?

DAVID TOMS: I'd like to see more of that, rather than dumping millions of dollars into a virgin piece of property that you don't know what it's going to turn out like. At least you know when you redo a golf course, at least you know what you're dealing with as far as the trees are already there and established; you know what kind of conditions you'll get and what the growing conditions are like on the golf course; and you know the things that you don't like about the existing course, whether it's a bunker here or there or a slope in the green. You know the holes that don't play particularly well and the ones that need to be redone. I think that's a lot easier than going out and starting from scratch and you're not really sure how a course is going to play.

I'd love to be involved in the redo of a golf course. I think that's a really good way to do it, and to be able to come in and do places like here or even East Lake, for example, where we went in and kind of cleaned up the neighborhood and have a great golf course there now. I think every time they've done it has been a huge success, and why it's not done more, I don't know.

End of FastScripts.

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