GREATER GREENSBORO CHRYSLER CLASSIC

April 22, 1999

Dudley Hart

DUDLEY HART: Obviously, I feel pretty good about the round. Any time you get off to a good start the first day, it hopefully can set you up for a good week but obviously doesn't guarantee you anything. To start off the round, I got off to a little shaky start ball strikingwise. A couple bad tee shots on 1 and 2, some funny shots. But my putter saved me on those holes. I was able to hang in there until I warmed up a little bit this morning.

DUDLEY HART: First birdie, No. 2, hit my tee shot into the left trees and had to punch out, lay up on a par 5. Punched it out and hit a 60-degree sand wedge about 10 feet and made that for birdie. Next one was No. 4, par 3. I hit a 7-iron that ran down the slope about -- about 30 feet and made that for birdie. 6, yeah, I hit 3-wood off the tee, around the corner and had sand wedge to about 12 feet. Made that for birdie. 9, hit a good drive. Hit driver going for the green and drove it -- hit the driver up in the front, green-side bunker, then blasted out of there about eight feet and made it for a birdie. And I bogeyed 10. Hit an okay drive, just in the first cut of rough and had a pitching wedge in, and hit a bad pitching wedge. Pulled it. Bounced it into the bunker. Had a tough bunker shot. Hit it about 10 feet and missed that for par; so, I made bogey there. On 11, I hit a 3-wood down the middle of the fairway and hit a pitching wedge to about eight feet. Made that for birdie. No. 13, I hit a good 3-wood down. That's kind of a goofy par 5. Hit 3-wood going for the green and kind of pulled it off the downhill lie there and just left of the green. Had an easy chip-and-run, but it was about a 30-yard shot or something. Chipped it about six feet and made that for birdie. Next hole, I hit a driver and a sand wedge to about -- about 20 feet short of the hole. Made that for birdie. Four boring pars coming in.

DUDLEY HART: I think maybe the greens, they may have been a little bit slower today than they were yesterday in the Pro-Am. I'm not sure about that. But at times, I had a couple putts uphill that, you know, I hit pretty solid putts that I thought would be decent speed, and, you know, they didn't run out as much as I would -- as I thought. I think they may have made a conscious effort to water the greens a little more last night, because the greens were getting pretty hard in the Pro-Am. They were still pretty firm, but they knew it was going to be hot and windy today, and that can tend to stress greens out sometimes, and they were a little worried about that.

DUDLEY HART: Yeah, other than the one on No. 10, I hit a pretty bad wedge there, but kind of had a funny lie, but still wasn't a very good shot. That's one of the things you definitely need to do -- well, it helps in order to play well. You're going to have a lot of wedges on the par 5s and the couple shorter par 4s. And if you're at least getting them in there pretty close where you're giving yourself a reasonable birdie chance, that obviously helps a lot.

DUDLEY HART: Well, it's the best start of the year as far as first round goes. I've played solid all year round. I haven't really got any low scores going, just because mainly I haven't felt like I've been putting really well. Not awful, but just not making enough consistently to shoot some lower rounds. But I've kind of been grinding it out each week and played reasonably well, but nothing is protected.

DUDLEY HART: I got shingles about four months ago, believe it or not. I was one of the lucky people that didn't get it -- I guess you usually get it on your ribs or your back. Right before the year started, I got it, and it hasn't gone away. I try to wear the hat everywhere I go. I pull it down as far as I can.

DUDLEY HART: They say you get it from stress. I had not even played a tournament yet. I was at home. I hope that's not a reflection of my wife.

DUDLEY HART: Yeah, I don't remember the exact -- it was the Buick Open out in San Diego. And it's the third time I've done it over the last nine years. Just a chronic problem that I've had. I tore the intercostal muscle, which is the muscle in between your ribs. The doctors say it's just something I might have to battle it. I have scoliosis in my back. I have a curve in my back, and the problems I have from pounding the balls or whatever, sometimes I think I wear that area out or whatever. I think it's something that at least this time I caught it a little early. It's really a bad spot to hurt for golf because of all the twisting you're doing. It's not something that heals quickly, either. .

DUDLEY HART: No. It feels fine now. When you first hurt it, they say you're better off almost breaking a rib than you're tearing it. I didn't do it as bad this time because I was smart enough this time to know it's coming. It's gradual. You can keep playing and it feels worse, and you keep tearing it more. And this time I caught it and said, Well, let's just go rest and make sure I don't make it real bad.

DUDLEY HART: A couple guys have. I don't think it's my fault. I hope I don't start the epidemic.

DUDLEY HART: I was at home when it was at it's worst. And thank God, because it didn't look very good. It would have been better if it was on my ribs or my back because nobody can see it. On your head, it's kind of hard to conceal.

DUDLEY HART: Brandel Chamblee. Billy (Andrade) had it last year. And I guess in a way I'm pretty lucky I didn't get it on my ribs, and it can be pretty painful. It didn't hurt or itch. It's a form of chicken pox.

DUDLEY HART: I grew up in Buffalo, New York. I played hockey for about eight years when I was a kid. When I was in high school, we moved down to Florida; so I lived down there for a while. But that's why I kind of -- I felt in love with hockey up in Buffalo. Not a whole lot to do in the winter time there.

DUDLEY HART: Yeah. I've got a friend, Dean Jordan, who I think -- he's the president, if I'm not mistaken. He's a good friend of mine -- he was with the Panthers, and I met them down there. And he was nice enough to give us a bunch of tickets for guys. He gave us I think 150 tickets for the players. He put a sign-up sheet in there, and I said, Well, I know how sign-up sheets go with guys out here. They will jump all over it. But he didn't bat an eye. It was really generous of him.

DUDLEY HART: With their wives or girlfriends or friend or whatever.

DUDLEY HART: No. I shot last fall at the Sarazen World Open I shot 62. It was in November sometime.

DUDLEY HART: At the Sarazen on Saturday's round, I birdied 1 and 2. I parred 3 and 4, and I made eagle on five, and I birdied 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11. I had a pretty good stretch there for a while.

DUDLEY HART: Jerry played college hockey, I think. If I'm not mistaken.

DUDLEY HART: The winds did pick up probably the last 9 or 10 holes for us. It blew a little bit but not too bad. It seemed like it picked up the last three hours that we were out there. I'm sure it won't lay down too much until maybe later on this evening, the last few holes for the afternoon guys.

DUDLEY HART: They were firm. But you could tell that they had at least -- it sure seemed like they had a little more water on them than they did yesterday. I played yesterday in the Pro-Am pretty early, and they were pretty firm, but you could tell they were a little damp. It looked like they had a little more water than they did yesterday.

DUDLEY HART: I pulled it into -- just into the left bunker on 1. It ran up into the grass lip of it about, but it wasn't way off the fairway; it was only five yards off the fairway. But two I hooked it over in the left. And if you hook it in the left rough it goes over and bounces. But as far as missing the fairway by a little bit here or there, and that was the only one that got me into some trouble.

DUDLEY HART: No. I had one on No. 5. Hit it through the fairway into the rough, and I think that might have been -- you know, out of -- hit it in the rough on 1, technically. I was up standing like this; so, there wasn't that much grass on that be knob that I was on.

DUDLEY HART: Yeah, you don't want to play out of that stuff because you're going to be scrambling for pars. You're not going to get many birdie chances from the rough unless you get pretty lucky with lies.

DUDLEY HART: It can help. I try not to pay too much attention to what everybody else is doing. It's hard enough out there worrying about yourself sometimes. Sometimes you can feed off each other, and seeing putts going in is always a good thing. It doesn't hurt even if somebody else is making it. That can get you going sometimes, even if you're not making putts.

DUDLEY HART: I think a lot of guys do. I had surgery a couple years ago, three years ago now. I think it's pretty common. I've been hitting so many balls and playing, as everybody else has, since I was 12 years old. I've been playing darned near every day. Over the course of the years you're hitting the balls. You're bound to have little in this cases here or there and you just try to rest them and get them fixed as best you can and kind of go from there.

DUDLEY HART: Got a little war wound.

DUDLEY HART: I hit a tree root and tore one ligament and I kept playing. The one that I tore, I weakened this whole area and just tried to ignore it for a few months, and I ended up tearing two other ligaments, too.