GREATER GREENSBORO CHRYSLER CLASSIC

April 26, 2001

Dudley Hart

DUDLEY HART: Overall I am happy with the score. I felt like kind of g it around a little bit to extent. I didn't hit a lot of real solid shots out there and fortunately when I did hit some bad ones I usually ended up in a pretty good spot. Obviously very happy to shoot 5-under. I don't want to sit up here and cry and sound like I hit it terrible. I didn't. But I definitely hit some shots that I didn't like, but -- that is the key to playing well sometimes. You get away with some of your misses and you take advantage of some of your opportunities and that is what I did today.

DUDLEY HART: It is pretty similar. I think the rough might be a little bit shorter than I remember from last year. The rough is at a certain length now where you can get a decent enough lie occasionally to think you can hit a pretty good shot out of it. I think the rough, the length that it is now is pretty good actually because I think it is a little bit more dangerous when you hit it in there. In the past here the rough would be so long that you get such a nasty lie that you are just trying to hack something out of there and run it up close to the green and bounce it up on the green or into a bunker and try to make par from there. Now you get a decent enough lie where you think you might be able to pull off a certain shot, you may catch a flier now. You catch a flier it flies 15, 20 yards too far. You can fly it over a green or you know, it brings in more trouble, I think, with the rough at the length it is now. I think you can make bigger numbers out of it than when it is that U.S. Open-type rough where it is just -- you either hack a wedge out or maybe a seven or eight iron and just try to get it up by the green.

DUDLEY HART: I think so, yeah. I was surprised not that the greens were hard but they weren't quite as soft as I thought they would be today with the rain we had. I thought, especially downwind the ball would, you know, you had to -- you couldn't just throw it right at the pin and count on it stoppin. The ball was releasing a little bit and which just goes to show me as the weather improving and it gets drier, the greens are going to -- I expect them to get pretty firm by this weekend.

DUDLEY HART: I don't know what it is. I don't want to jinx myself or anything, but I think -- I don't know why I seem to play pretty well here. I do like old style golf courses and this is an old style course where it is trees and rough and it is not real tricked up. I tend not to like the golf courses where you go out there and you just see all these manufactured hills and all these goofy mounds everywhere. The golf course here, they basically used the land and built a golf course and I just for some reason I seem to enjoy playing here. I can see a lot of shots. Obviously doesn't guarantee playing well the next few days, but in the past I have just -- I have had some success.

DUDLEY HART: Yeah, maybe I'd just narrow the tournaments sponsored by a car company (laughs).

DUDLEY HART: I try not to dwell on that too much to be honest because sometimes you can get a little bit complacent and say: Well, played well here, I don't have to practice as much. You may not work or prepare as hard as you would normally do for a tournament. I know just because I have played well last year and I have played well in the past a few years that doesn't guarantee you anything this week. You have got go out work hard and hit good shots and you have got to make putts. And just there is lots of other golf courses that I really like on Tour. There is some that I really liked and I have never played real well at. It is hard to you know, to put a finger on it sometimes. But it's just, you know, a golf course like this, it is just, like I said, I think it suits my eye a little bit better than most.

DUDLEY HART: Yeah, pretty much. I don't know how many people would back up in the -- since I have been on Tour. Generally speaking, you know, you shoot a good round you have got to shoot another good round, you have got to keep going. Occasionally I think a few tournaments every year you see where guys, you know, Hilton Head where guys kind of backed up there, that is pretty rare.

DUDLEY HART: Guys blow leads, but you may go in with a couple of shot lead and somebody else may win but usually somebody else is firing a pretty low number. There is no -- there is not really a safe lead out here. You have to -- anybody out here is capable of shooting 8, 9-under any day, and it is just -- there is so many good players and guys with so much ability that even a lot of guys that aren't household names that can go out there on a given day and they get it going, get your putter rolling and you they can fire a low number any day.

DUDLEY HART: I think to be honest, but I think it is potentially harder the way the rough is now. I was saying you bring in that factor of being -- of the possibility of a flier out of the rough. In the past it is almost impossible to -- because it is so long you can't get enough -- catch enough ball. There is so much grass getting in there it just comes out dead most of the time. Now you catch one where it is marginal you can catch a flier. I think it plays harder even though it gives you a chance sometimes to get it on the green when in the past you might not have a chance, but I think the potential for a big number is there more with the rough at this length than it is when it is really long.

DUDLEY HART: I think if you miss a lot of fairways -- it is pretty difficult to shoot low numbers consistently. It is hard to get the ball close even with the rough at the length it is now. Might be able to get it on the green but getting it 30, 40 feet, you know, you are not going to make a lot of those very often. I hit ball three times, hit it a foot or two for pretty much tap-in birdies and it was just one of those things when I hit a good shot it ended up like a foot.

DUDLEY HART: Chris and I played all four years together.

DUDLEY HART: I think it is fashionable with X -Gators who are having a hard time putting normal. I haven't gotten to that point yet. Hopefully I won't. If I do -- it obviously works pretty well for those guys. And you know, I would putt with anything if it worked. If I was struggling I would try anything. People give him a hard time but you look at how Calc and Chris have played since they went to that grip, it just takes their right-hand out of it and they are such good ball strikers that that was the only thing that was holding them back. Just being a good enough putter and they both have played incredibly well since they switched to that.

DUDLEY HART: Who am I to kid them because they are beating the crap out of me lately so I can't give them a hard time. I have actually messed around -- Chris showed me how to do it, and I don't know if any of you all have tried it, it actually feels pretty good. Not that I am going to switch to it but you can hit some pretty solid putts and I usually feel pretty good with two hands on it, but if I ever got desperate enough and you start getting the flinches a little bit with your putter, I mean, I won't think twice about going to it other than catching a little grief from some guys.

DUDLEY HART: I did make -- the only really exciting one was on No. 14, I hit a good drive, I hit a terrible 5-iron right of the green and I had a tough, real tough chip. Tried to hit a flip shot. It ran through just through the green, I had to chip it again. Hit a little 9-iron chip-and-run from about 25 feet, made it for par. Other than that, I mean, it -- I missed some other greens but it was nothing outside of three or four feet nearly for par.

DUDLEY HART: My pleasure.