Q. Talk about your first time here, and how this course suits your game.
HEATH SLOCUM: Well, it's different because I think I've only played in altitude one or two other time, and it has been a while.
But the course, it's laid out to where you need to hit fairways. The par 5s are relatively short with the altitude. I don't think I can get to maybe all of them, but I can get really close. Other than that, I feel like I'm a really good putter and a really good chipper. I think if you just make some putts around this golf course, you can definitely score.
Q. If you don't mind going back to '98, could you walk us through the diagnosis and what it did to you, how did you pull through that?
HEATH SLOCUM: Well, it was like '97, Thanksgiving '97, I had gotten sick and I was feeling sick. I didn't really know what it was. I never really -- I saw a family doctor and he gave me some antibiotics.
Four months later, they diagnosed me with colitis and once I learned what it was, information with the colon, we started dealing with it. It took me about a year and a half to get over it, to be able to play golf on a daily basis. It really messes up your stomach, and the side effects from that, also, it gives you arthritis, which I had pretty badly. I just couldn't play.
It just took about a year and a half for the real bad part of the disease to leave, or to go in remission, and finally, slowly and slowly, I started to play a little more and a little more. And from there, I just -- I think I just came out with a better attitude and just looked forward to practicing and playing every day.
Q. And it's gone away now?
HEATH SLOCUM: No, I still have it. I've been healthy for two years, knock on wood, not had any problems whatsoever. They say sometimes the disease does that, it just comes and goes just like that. So I'm hoping to keep myself in real good shape, eat healthy and hope that I stay like this.
Q. Was it part of the recovery problem with that -- is that kind of how you got your short game, focused more on your short game?
HEATH SLOCUM: I think that I never even really got to work on any part of my game until afterwards. I have just always been a fairly short player, even without this. So I've had to rely on my short game pretty much. I had access to a golf club, my dad was a golf professional, so I played a lot of rounds, pitching and putting. And him knowing golf, he said this is the best way to get really good is to work on this. So I had a good teacher and mentor. So I've always definitely always had a pretty decent short game.
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