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CHRYSLER CHAMPIONSHIP

October 28, 2004

Jeff Sluman

PALM HARBOR, FLORIDA

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Jeff, congratulations, first round 62. You set the course record that was originally said by K.J. Choi back in 2002 on a day that the scoring average is over par. Great day for you. Maybe just start with some opening comments.

JEFF SLUMAN: Well, yeah. I didn't know the scoring average was over par, but certainly the golf course, you've got to take your hats off to them. They have put it in unbelievable condition for us. I've been coming here since the Mixed Team days, and when we played the Mixed Team it wasn't as good a shape because they were overseeding at the time, but this is really the best time of year to be here.

I hear it on the range from everybody, they just can't believe how great the golf course is and the condition of it, so hats off to the superintendent and the people who put the money in the course.

This is just kind of one of those days that -- Doug was out following me a little bit on the back, and it was one of those days that because you're playing so well, it just seems easy and you kind of wonder to yourself why in the world you can't do that more often because it seems so easy.

As I said earlier, other days, making one or two birdies seems like it's going to be impossible.

The golf course is kind of an old-time golf course. There's a lot of thought in there. You can't just get up and bash driver everywhere. You can hit some irons off tees, 3-woods, certain layups on 5s you've got to get the right angle. To a player, we say this is almost one of the best golf courses we play on Tour and probably the best golf course we play in Florida.

Q. Why in the world don't you do this more often?

JEFF SLUMAN: (Laughing). That is a question that if you had the answer you'd have a little more wealth than you do right now.

Like I said, I got it going. I got a new driver; Taylor Made guys finally got me in that R7, and I think I'm going to stick with it because I drove it pretty darn good with that today.

Q. Is there ever any indication that a day like this is coming until you look up and you're 4- or 5-under?

JEFF SLUMAN: Well, yesterday in the Pro-Am I made seven birdies, so it kind of felt like everything was setting up with my eye for the holes. I was hitting a lot of shots close.

Last week wasn't a very good barometer. I basically threw my back out on Wednesday and probably shouldn't have played, but I was down there and my daughter was coming down, so I said, "What the heck, I'll play." I didn't play very well. It was the first cut I had missed since Dallas in May, so it was frustrating that I missed the cut, even though I probably shouldn't have played.

But I got here Sunday and got some work done on my back all week and just kept playing, and I like the golf course. I've played it enough now that it kind of fits my eye -- my eye fits it. It's kind of hard to describe really, but I feel like I know what I have to do on every hole and what kind of shot I've got to hit, regardless of the wind condition.

Q. Did you see that bunker shot on 18, hit it in the bunker --

JEFF SLUMAN: Absolutely. I was kind of hoping it would be in a footprint and have a tougher lie. That was probably the only bad drive I hit all day.

Q. Did you say you were in a footprint or could have been?

JEFF SLUMAN: No, I was being facetious. But I got in there and it was one of those days that was kind of fortunate. If the pin was anywhere else on 18 but what it was, I would have had a very difficult time getting it close because I had a tree limb there and I had to hit about a 20-yard hook out of there with a 7-iron, and I ended up about a foot. Those are the kind of things that are intangibles that you can never pinpoint why it happens some days and why it doesn't other days.

Q. I see you're 79, so what are you thinking about this week, trying to get down to?

JEFF SLUMAN: Make as much money as I can. I'd like to get back to the Mercedes. That's why you start the week out trying to win. Absent that, it would be nice to finish in the Top 40, but I don't know what I would have to do to do that at this point, but I'm not coming in here goal-oriented in that respect. I think if I just go out and just keep playing solid golf, maybe something good will happen.

I played very solid all year, I just haven't put any great tournaments together. Maybe this is the last one that can be a great one for me.

Q. When K.J. set the old record he went wire to wire.

JEFF SLUMAN: Well, that would be all right by me.

You know, you look at the field here, you look at the quality of the golf course, and guys, as you say, fighting for Top 30, Top 40, other guys 125, and the guys that are kind of mystery guys that nobody ever writes about, the guys that probably have more on the line that anything, are getting in the Top 150. I mean, if you finish 151 that's a lot worse than 126.

Q. You were grinding hard last year for Top 40. Is it more fun this year even though you're lower down the Money List than you were last year? Is it a different atmosphere than why you're not having to live and die on every shot?

JEFF SLUMAN: Last year I was putting on a lot of heat. I think Coceres doubled the last hole to get me into Augusta by $1,000 if I remember correctly. I was in here and talking to you and down and out because I thought I played 17 and 18 okay because I ended up making bogeys, then ended up turning around at the very end.

It is probably a little easier, go out and kind of free-wheel it a little bit more and not really be overly concerned if you're on the bubble of any of those areas I just talked about.

Q. Was there a particular shot or particular moment where you felt that today was going to be this type of a round?

JEFF SLUMAN: Not really. I mean, I just started out solid. I birdied all the odd holes on the front, so it was just bam, bam, bam, and I made a couple of putts, which I haven't done that as much as I'd like this year. I don't think any pro will ever admit that they're putting great, but I don't think I putted very well this year.

But the round just kind of kept going. It wasn't a string of birdies that got me there. It was just almost every other hole it seemed like, at least that was the way on the front. Then the back nine I birdied 10, 14, 16 and 18. I never made -- 9 and 10 were the only birdies I made in a row.

Q. Talk about Vijay, how he shot 66. Is it almost you guys expect him just to be Top 5 every week?

JEFF SLUMAN: For a guy who played with him on Saturday last week, I was out, and I said -- maybe it was Jose Maria. He said he shot 65 and just made it look so easy, it was just ridiculous. It's very reminiscent of how Tiger played in 2000 and 2001, just every round -- not only was it a low score, but it was made to look very easy. That was extremely hard to do. But he's doing it on a weekly basis out here, which is -- you've got to take your hat off to him. He's playing unbelievable golf right now.

Q. Do you see a change in his personality at all?

JEFF SLUMAN: I don't see it so much. I mean, he's always been very friendly with me. He likes to crack a joke with me, and I do the same with him and that. Maybe you guys do a little bit, but he's always been the same with me, very good.

Q. All those things you were mentioning that are at stake this week for various people, do you think this is a good golf course to have for all those things going on?

JEFF SLUMAN: This is perfect. I mean, it's a traditional golf course that really doesn't favor any type of player. Not saying anything bad about other tournaments, but you really don't want to end your year on a Pro-Am format where guys are putting out for those 7s and 8s while you're trying to finish 125 or 130th. So all those things combined, this is probably the best place in the world to finish the year out for everybody involved. I mean, like I said, you look at the field, and word gets around very quickly on Tour when a golf course is in great shape and it's a great golf course, so I think the field reflects that.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: If we could go through your nine birdies and we'll take one final question. You started out with a birdie on the 1st hole, par 5.

JEFF SLUMAN: Driver, 3-wood just short of the green. I actually hit it -- it was in the rough but I pitched it to about three feet.

3, an aggressive line off the tee with a driver and hit 8-iron to probably 20 feet, and that was some kind of slippery putt.

5, we had a long wait for Zinger. He found his ball in the tree actually, but it was already lost because it was over five minutes. So I had a long time to look at my third shot after driver, 5-wood, and I had about 88 yards and I hit that to about three inches.

7, 3-wood off the tee, hit a little 8-iron in there about 12 feet short.

9, nice drive, I hit 7-iron, kind of pulled it pin high, but it was 25 feet with a huge amount of break. That was probably the time I said this day has got a chance to be pretty special because you're not expecting to make a downhill, left-to-right kind of down-grain putt, and it went in just perfect.

10, driver, 9-iron, just leaked into the right rough to about three feet.

Then 14, driver, 3-iron, laid it up and had a gap wedge right over the pin to about six, eight feet, but that was another extremely difficult putt. It was very fast. You could three-putt that in a second if you had a little twitch at the wrong time.

16, driver, 7-iron to two feet.

18, hit it in the bunker and hit 7-iron out of there to a foot.

Q. What was the yardage on 18?

JEFF SLUMAN: 154.

Q. Do you recall a round as good in your career or anything better?

JEFF SLUMAN: I shot 62 on Sunday this year at Hartford. Without sounding like a bozo, I mean, you can ask Pat Bates, but it probably could have been 58 pretty easy. I hit it in the water, made a bogey besides on another hole. It was a pretty good round.

Q. I'm just curious, Jeff, your thoughts on the debate Ernie has going on right now with the Tour as far as number of tournaments he has to play over here.

JEFF SLUMAN: Well, I don't honestly know the total issue. I was at the PAC meeting the other night. That's one of those things that I don't know exactly what Tim is asking of him, so it's kind of hard for me to answer it unless you told me exactly what correspondence was between them. I know it obviously made the papers and that, but I don't really know -- does anybody know what Tim is asking Ernie?

Q. In order to play 20 events -- he has to play 20 to get more releases to play European events.

JEFF SLUMAN: Okay.

Q. And Ernie doesn't think it's fair.

JEFF SLUMAN: Well, you know, you sign your name on our Tour membership. I haven't read what it is (laughter), and I don't think anybody ever has. Whatever the regs are in there, they're in there.

I don't know if this is one of those things that is arbitrary where you can grant more releases or less. I don't know because I haven't read them. I haven't read the regs. I don't know if it's a set policy or whatever. I'm not trying to dodge the question, but I don't know all the answers of the regulations. If I did, I could give you an answer, but I really don't know.

Q. You said you were hitting the ball good last week, and then you hurt your back doing what on Wednesday?

JEFF SLUMAN: Just warming up to go out and play. I just kind of went, "Oh, boy, this isn't good," and I went right to the trailer and didn't hit a ball the rest of the day on Wednesday.

Q. Was that frustrating, thinking if you were hitting it good, to think, "Well, there it goes. I'm hitting it good and now I've got this back to deal with." Was there any feeling that once you got the back healed you would be back to hitting it the way you were?

JEFF SLUMAN: Yeah. In LA this year I hurt it working out and I hurt it pretty bad and played the following week in the Match Play, and I really shouldn't have played. I didn't really get better until five, six weeks later.

This time I was smart enough, I kind of felt it just go out a little bit, and I said, well, I'm not going to force it on Wednesday, just kind of rest it and do the ice, Advil, stretching, heat, the whole thing. I had one of those Therma-Care things, a sponsor of the Tour, I should know that. I had one of those things on my back.

I guess the answer to your answer is yeah, you get pretty frustrated because you think, this is the end of the year, I don't have six more months of playing this year. I wanted to continue to play and I felt like I was playing well. That's just the way it goes. I finally did the right thing. I didn't hurt it worse on Wednesday. By Sunday by the time I got here, it was basically gone.

Q. But the swing was still there?

JEFF SLUMAN: It didn't leave me, thank God.

Q. Not entirely, but I wondered if you felt like you were in a good groove.

JEFF SLUMAN: Pretty good groove. Back when I was in my 20s I would have thought that I would have had to play because my swing would have gone forever. You know, I used to think that. Now I realize it's probably going to be all right for a while.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Jeff, thank you very much.

End of FastScripts.

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