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EDS BYRON NELSON CHAMPIONSHIP

May 13, 2005

Ted Purdy

IRVING, TEXAS

TODD BUDNICK: We thank Ted Purdy for stopping in after a 67 on the Tournament Players course here at Las Colinas. Ted, followed up a round of 65, you're at 8-under for the tournament. Talk about today's round.

TED PURDY: Well, got off to a great start right at the first hole, made a birdie, and just really felt comfortable. I was hitting good iron shots and hitting the driver in the fairway. If not, I was just in the first cut, so I had a lot of good opportunities to make birdie, and I happened to make a few of them and got 3-under.

TODD BUDNICK: Last year was your first trip and you finished 27th and I guess you probably were higher than that going into Sunday, but 72 on Sunday. Is there something about -- do you like these two courses?

TED PURDY: Well, just the way the Red Pants guys treat us; just the hospitality, it's just a great tournament. I just feel comfortable here. The Dallas crowds have been very welcoming. I played with Brandt Jobe today who's a local, so he had quite a few followers, but they were rooting for me, as well.

It feels like a hometown, but it's really not. But it feels like a hometown coming here.

TODD BUDNICK: Talk a little bit about your season. No Top 10s yet, but I believe you've made 11 of 15 or 14 cuts or something like that, so the consistency is there, you just haven't finished it off the way you'd like to.

TED PURDY: Yeah, I've made a lot of cuts this year but really haven't played well at all -- I've played well enough to make the cuts but I just really haven't springboarded myself into contention. I think every week I've been right on the number or close to the number, and that's kind of an uncomfortable place to be.

You know, this game is crazy. If you just stay positive and -- I've been wanting to win, and I came close twice last year and I've been wanting it so bad and I've been playing a lot trying to get in the hunt, and it hasn't happened, and this week I kind of went into the week with a mental mind frame just to let it go and relax and have fun, and I gave the reins to my caddie. I said, "Just steer me around." It's been really helpful.

In fact, on the first day, the first hole, I hit a tee shot left and it was right next to a tree and the only thing I could do was hit a pitch back out to the fairway, and had it been earlier in the year or even last week, I would have been real frustrated right away and kind of got upset with a bad break. But yesterday I just handled it real calmly and said, "Oh, well, that's part of golf." I didn't really worry about it and made my bogey and went to the next hole.

It's really just been a change in attitude that's propelled me to the top of the -- close to the top of the leaderboard today.

Q. Have you fought that from time to time? Have you kept reminding yourself of that?

TED PURDY: Yeah, I think every golfer, really anybody in business or competitive people, they want to -- I want to win so badly that I'm making it real difficult on myself just because of the amount of pressure I put on myself. You really need to let go of any expectation to win or kind of need to let go to let it happen and just trust in the process.

That's what I've been doing. Hopefully I can remember that the next couple days.

Q. Was it also like a strategic thing, too, where you've just got to be more aggressive and not really care?

TED PURDY: Yeah. I mean, golf is just a game where -- I think everybody is always aggressive, but the difference is when I hit it under a tree and have to chip out, it didn't affect me like it has in the past. I just let it go and try to hit the next one close. Just letting go and staying in the present, you know, it's the same thing that everybody in this chair always says. People that are not in this chair are frustrated.

Q. Anything that happened that kind of, I don't know, drove you back to maybe letting go a little bit?

TED PURDY: Well, yeah. That's a good -- my wife actually wrote on a card, and I've got it in my wallet, and it says, "You can do it and we love you," and she had my two-year-old son scribble on it. I folded it up and put it in my wallet, so it's with me all the time. It's nice having that support.

Q. When did she do that?

TED PURDY: She did that Wednesday morning, I think.

Q. Did you ask her where she was three months ago with that?

TED PURDY: Yeah. Well, she's got a good handle on -- she's been out here. She's got a good handle on where I am mentally. We've been on the road a long time, and that just adds to me pressing a little bit.

Q. Could you talk about the process you went through in kind of coming close twice, so close last year? I would assume that Hilton Head was particularly kind of heartbreaking, just where your head was?

TED PURDY: Yeah, I went into last year with a lot of confidence coming off the Nationwide Tour and really thinking that I'm going to be one of the premier players on the Tour, and I honestly believed that last year. I think I won at Harbour Town, but I ended up losing on a rules -- a questionable ruling and a 5-0 playoff and a great round from Stewart, and I went from being really positive and really excited, and even that -- at Harbour Town I made a lot of good putts coming down the stretch. I played with guts, and because of that negative ruling and that negative -- the connotation from that tournament, it went from a real high to a real low, and it went from me being asked about it constantly.

You know, I had USGA officials coming up to me, "Has the Tour explained to you that ruling," and things like that, but it went from a real positive situation to a real negative situation for me, and it kind of has been tough to get past that.

And then this year we went back to Harbour Town, and they didn't even address it. The only people that addressed it, the Tour didn't change it to a bunker, they didn't clarify the ruling, they didn't -- the Tour just kind of ignored it. The only people that brought it up again was the media, which was disappointing.

And then I had a chance at -- so it went from a real positive experience to a negative experience.

Hopefully I've gotten past that and can let that go and start playing better.

Q. How important was it getting married, settling down, in reviving your career from a party tent guy to a guy who's a good player?

TED PURDY: Yeah. I mean, my wife and child have been the key to my success. Obviously I've got the ability, I've got the swing, I've got all the shots that I need to compete on the PGA TOUR. What I was lacking was discipline and structure. I'm not sure I'm any different than most 25-year-olds that get their PGA TOUR card. I mean, some guys are really disciplined like Howell, but Howell has never had a beer in his life, and Tiger, you know, those guys are a little different than -- I came from a more social family, more social atmosphere at the club and things like that.

Yeah, getting married was huge because I -- and then my wife got pregnant, and I was like, "Ooh, I'd better figure out what I'm going to do with myself." That's been the motivation. It is more fun playing -- I still play golf for myself, but playing with a goal in mind, like this is actually helping pay for my son's college and take care of -- we just found out my wife is pregnant again, so we found that out last week, so I've got another one on the way. It's just been great motivation for me.

Q. When are you expecting or she expecting?

TED PURDY: January 1st I think is the due date for next year.

Q. Did you write a few years ago in a column in the Arizona Republic about your first go-around on Tour where you would miss the cut and you would end up on Friday night in a party tent, got of kind in a bad habit?

TED PURDY: Yeah, '99 when I had my card out here, you know, each one of these events is a big party. I mean, the only people really here are -- even the people running the tournament, it's a party for them. I mean, these Red Pants guys are having more fun than anybody (laughter). The golfers and the caddies are the only ones working, and the caddies tend to have a good time, too. Each week is a big party.

D.A. Weibring put it one time, it's a big circus. Each week they follow around, they put up the tents, we do our show and that local community has a good time and then we leave and we go to the next local community and they have a good time. I was single, and there are a lot of beautiful women in Dallas and these other cities, too, so I was just having a good time.

Q. What is your yearly allotment of being able to wake up with a lampshade on your head now?

TED PURDY: To let go? You'll have to ask my wife that. Not very often anymore (laughing).

TODD BUDNICK: If we could go through your birdies and bogeys. You birdied No. 1.

TED PURDY: Birdied 1, and then I birdied --

TODD BUDNICK: If you could just --

TED PURDY: I had a 3-wood off the tee, and 1 is a birdie hole but you have to hit the fairway. I hit a 3-wood in the fairway and a wedge to about four feet, made the putt.

7, par 5, I hit a drive and 3-iron to about six feet for eagle and missed the six-footer. I made just a two-putt birdie there.

9 was a 3-wood off the tee in the fairway and then an 8-iron to about ten feet short of the hole and made the putt.

Bogey on 10, I hit what I thought was a great drive and it ended up in the right bunker, and I had kind of an awkward lie in the bunker and couldn't get it on the green. And then didn't get it up-and-down, so I made a bogey. I hit it in the trap twice. Made bogey on 10.

12, hit a beautiful drive right in the middle of the fairway and a 9-iron to about a foot, made the putt.

14, I hit -- 14 is just a real awkward hole for most players, and the wind was starting to pick up. I hit a fairway wood a little right behind the tree in the rough and just had to pitch out and then didn't hit a -- hit a poor third shot, didn't have really a chance to save par and just two-putted for bogey.

Birdie on 17 was just one of those putts -- I hit it on the front of the green and had about a 45-footer and snaked it in. It was kind of redemption because the hole before I had about four feet straight uphill under the hole and missed that. But I made about a 45-footer on 17.

Q. What did you hit in there?

TED PURDY: I hit a 5-iron.

Q. You were talking about it being nice to play for a goal like you're playing for your kids. Do you ever have to fight, "Damn, that putt just cost us a swimming pool"?

TED PURDY: Yeah, here it is swimming pools. Yeah, I don't think too many guys out here worry about the money. I mean, most of them are making $300,000, $400,000 before they even tee it up with endorsements and their ball contract and their hat contract. I think you worry more about the money on the Nationwide Tour and the lower tours when the difference there is a few thousand dollars means a lot. On the PGA TOUR I don't think the guys worry too much about the money. The money will come. Where you do worry about it is on the Nationwide Tour when you're fighting for your card or fighting for making enough money to get to next week or whatever it takes.

Q. You mean you get paid to wear that (laughter)?

TED PURDY: Yeah, I do.

TODD BUDNICK: Thank you, Ted.

End of FastScripts.

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