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CIALIS WESTERN OPEN

June 30, 2004

Jeff Sluman

LEMONT, ILLINOIS

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Hinsdale resident Jeff Sluman, thanks for joining us. You've been a long time supporter of the Cialis Western Open. I think you've played every year since 1988. Talk about playing in your adopted home state.

JEFF SLUMAN: Well, it's obviously great to come home and sleep in your own house and go to the golf course and all your friends are here while you're playing, so it's kind of a wonderful experience that you don't get very often out here.

I got in late last night, played the golf course today, and the golf course is in fantastic shape, and I expect our beautiful month of May will have it for the golf course out there with the lengthier rough. It's pretty severe out there. I think the scores, with the changes in the golf course and the change in par, are going to be a little bit different than normal this year.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Talk about your season so far. You had a T11 last week, and you put four good rounds together.

JEFF SLUMAN: I'm starting to play well. I took my wonderful agent's advice back there who's been after me for about a year and a half because I haven't really putted very well to at least experiment with either the big putter or the belly putter, so I went to the belly putter because they didn't really have to make it too much longer for me (laughter).

It's really paid a lot of dividends. I started at Memorial, I played Memorial, I played two rounds at Westchester this year, if you know that story, which was a little strange, and then I didn't qualify for the Open and went last week and probably had one of the better finishes I've had in a while, the Booz Allen.

Q. How do you like the changes?

JEFF SLUMAN: Well, I think they're good. I played them today. Going back to old No. 2 is a much more difficult hole than the new No. 2 that was out there. Certainly there's going to be more -- the hole is going to play over par, new No. 5, so that will make the golf course harder.

And I think there will be very little difference on No. 9, maybe two, three tenths of a shot, but I don't think anybody is going to get home where maybe some guys could before. 9 is basically a non-factor. But it's still much more difficult.

Q. Playing with the amateurs, do you go out of your way to try and make them feel comfortable playing with pros and enjoying the experience?

JEFF SLUMAN: To me, Wednesday is their day, it's not my day. It's a little different if you're playing in the Bob Hope where your score actually counts or Las Vegas or Disneyworld, where we're actually playing at that time. But besides that, really, I'm out there to entertain them, make sure they have a good time, make sure they enjoy the experience, and really that's the way I've always considered a Wednesday Pro-Am. I'm working on maybe certain aspects of my game, but I'm not out there grinding away and not talking to them.

Without their support, I'm not living the way I'm living. I wish a few more of the guys on Tour would kind of understand that.

Q. Jerry Kelly was just in here and we were talking to him about the PGA. You had obviously a big year last year with majors in your adopted hometown. What can the guys from Wisconsin expect as far as extra distractions that week or more internal pressure to perform in front of the home folks?

JEFF SLUMAN: I don't know if there's too many more distractions. I think you've kind of got that taken care of well beforehand. It's probably a little different than other sports because you might not know if you're going to make playoffs or how far along you're going to get starting the year, but Jerry has known it's going to be at Whistling Straits for three years, so he kind of understands what's going on. It's not going to be a surprise. He knows who he needs to get tickets to and who he doesn't. You kind of just finally say, I only get X number of tickets. I can't take care of everybody, like at the Western Open. They're very, very kind to me and basically give me a tremendous amount of tickets to take care of my friends and family. But everybody understands that in a major it's a little different.

You've got to kind that out of the way. But then your ability to put aside how well you want to play in front of your home folks is probably one of the most difficult things to do, especially during a major. That's a territory that you really haven't been to before that takes some work.

I don't know if there's any words of advice. You've just got to go out and play, and I think Claude Harmon said it best, or Ben Hogan said it to Claude Harmon when he was the pro at Winged Foot in '59, and he said just look at your shoes walking towards the first tee because if you start making eye contact with all your friends, you're going to get all emotional and your mind is going to be off the game. That's the only advice I've ever heard.

Q. Tiger was in here earlier siting in that chair and he was dissecting, people asking him to analyze his game, analyze this. Can you imagine what that must be like, and how would you feel if someone analyzed every aspect of your game, your swing, outside of the course, on the course?

JEFF SLUMAN: I think Tiger handles it better than just about anybody. We have some friends that we just were actually talking about that. He's under a microscope, and in a lot of respects, anonymity is very, very good because you don't have anybody breathing down your back wondering why your wedge game or putter is not going well or you're not driving it great or what's going on. I think he handles it tremendously. I don't know if I could handle it as well as he does. I'm kind of glad that I just kind of go about my business and just kind of go home.

Q. You talked about looking at your shoes. Is that something you practice yourself, and how do you approach this week with, on one hand, pressure from family and friends maybe to perform in front of them, and on the other hand --

JEFF SLUMAN: Well, I've lived here since 92, so it gets easier. The more you do something on the golf course, the better you feel about it, the more at ease you are. This is my 12th year since I've moved here and a couple of majors and that, so it gets a little easier as it goes on. I like seeing friendly faces there, people that are pulling for you and that, so it's a great experience and I'm not going to sit down there and try to tune them all out.

Q. As long as you're siting in that chair, how would you analyze your season, and what exactly did happen at Westchester?

JEFF SLUMAN: Westchester? Kind of a freak deal with a golf ball that, quite candidly, you find out people and machines can make some mistakes, and the side seam on the golf ball was not stamped.

Now, I've got to take personal responsibility for it because ultimately if my daughter throws a two-foot club in my bag, I'm responsible for what I bring to the first tee. I mean, there's no other way about it, and I'm the last person to check all that stuff along with my caddie.

I mean, it's never happened in 25 years since I've been out here. He threw me a golf ball and I had already marked it and teed it up and hit it on the green, and he cleaned it and I looked at it, and I was like, something is different about this golf ball. It didn't have a side stamp on it, so I called for an official.

My first thought to him was I've got to play this ball all 18 holes because I know you have to play the same ball with the same markings, and he said, yeah, you do. Then he also said, well, I've got to go check the conforming ball list, and once he said that, I knew I only had about one or two holes to go because once he got back with the conforming ball list I knew it wasn't going to be on there, so I was disqualified.

Q. It was just the side stamp?

JEFF SLUMAN: Just the side stamp. That is how the USGA identifies a golf ball, not through any other way.

Q. How often do you check to see if that side stamp is there?

JEFF SLUMAN: I check every time now (laughter). It was kind of a freaky deal. It slipped through all of that, slipped through my caddie, slipped through myself. I could have played it in a practice round, and it had to be a tournament round, and how I tee the ball up, I tee it up with the side stamp down, so I know if I've got the Titleist on both sides, I put it like this, but ultimately it's my responsibility.

Q. I know no one probably would have noticed that side stamp being there, but obviously you knew. There was never a doubt in your mind not to --

JEFF SLUMAN: Never a doubt. I mean, that's what separates our game from other games, the honesty, integrity, following the rules. I couldn't look anybody in the eye after that if I would have just thrown the ball to a kid and walked off. That's just not me.

Q. So you knew you only had one or two holes to go. Is that why you went ahead and holed out for eagle before you got taken out?

JEFF SLUMAN: That was on the press release, but that wasn't the case. I'm sure I would have made that wedge, though.

Q. What is it about the PGA Championship that separates it from say the U.S. Open or The Masters?

JEFF SLUMAN: Well, there's a couple of differences. There's no amateurs allowed, first of all. It's probably got the deepest field of any of the four majors. And being the last major, it's sometimes taken a little bit of the brunt for that because we're getting into football and the baseball playoffs and stuff like that.

But it rotates venues like the U.S. Open, and like I said, it's a major, it's got the toughest field going, and I think it's just a wonderful championship. They host it well. I think they understand and set the golf course up very well. They're not as concerned about protecting par there as rewarding excellently struck shots.

How's that for PC?

Q. And that's a positive?

JEFF SLUMAN: Yeah, I think that's great. You don't see 20-under win a PGA. You rarely see double figures. But you see well-struck shots rewarded, and I think that's fine in our day and age. They're tucking pins, making greens firmer, narrowing fairways, the roughs are high, so I don't see anything wrong with a guy driving it down the middle and hitting a good iron shot. He doesn't have to hit it five feet, but he should be able to get rewarded at 15, 20 feet.

Q. Talk about your season to this point.

JEFF SLUMAN: My season so far has kind of gotten off slow. I haven't really played poorly, but I haven't played great. Really it all boils down to what I mentioned earlier, poor putting, and that kind of leads into a lot of other bad things happening in your game because you cannot putt poorly and strike the ball well enough to really compete out here. That's really the issue, that now that I feel like I've got a chance to make putts, everything is a lot easier in the game.

Q. Last week was your first week with the belly putter?

JEFF SLUMAN: No, belly putter I started at Muirfield Village, two rounds at Westchester and then last week.

Q. Who are your house guests this year?

JEFF SLUMAN: My house guest is my dog now. We're in a rental house, so we don't really have a whole lot of room, but we'll have some people over for dinner, but it'll be a little quieter until we move into our new house I'd like to hope before the Western Open next year, but it probably won't happen.

Q. Are you building in Hinsdale?

JEFF SLUMAN: It'll probably be next year we'll move into our house.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: If you'd like to make an announcement.

JEFF SLUMAN: I'd also like to say, part of the reason I asked to come in here is I've got this very exciting, for me personally, news. Last year -- I'll give you a little history.

After The Presidents Cup they give us -- as the co-captain, they give the players and the captain and co-captain some money to donate to charity, and I never realized how much of an impact it can have and how happy it makes non-profits when you call them up and give them some money. It's very difficult to raise it with today's economic times, so I had this idea, floated it around, and I was just sitting there and talking to some people, and we got a hold of Office Max, and basically, I don't know if you read the press release, but it's $500 Office Max is going to donate to charity, $500 a birdie, $1,000 per eagle for this year and the next two. We can go to a maximum of $750,000 for the next three years, which to me is really what it's all about.

I've been very, very fortunate in my 20-something years on Tour to make on extremely large amount of money in my opinion. I never thought I'd make the kind of money that I've made. I just feel so, so lucky. After The Presidents Cup and seeing that, I said, you know, maybe it's time to try and get a sponsorship like this, where it's pure. I'm getting nothing from Office Max. This is purely, 100 percent goes to charity, and I just think it's a great, great thing.

I'm going to give my money to local Chicago and local Rochester charities where I grew up. Office Max is in with City of Hope, which is an unbelievable charity in and of itself, and we're hoping to continue to raise even more money.

It's been a wonderful experience, it took us a couple months to put it together, and they were kind enough to retroactively go back to this year. Like I said, I'm very, very excited about it and I'd like to introduce Scott Williams, and if he can say a word or two to you guys, kind of how this came about. This is important stuff and I'd like maybe my peers out here on Tour to see this and understand this so maybe we can make this a template for other guys to ingratiate themselves and their communities with other corporations.

SCOTT WILLIAMS: I'm Scott Williams and I'm responsible for marketing at Office Max. If you sit here for a minute and just watch how Jeff interacts, I think this goes a long way to tell you why we would be interested in a deal like this. We feel like his heart is just in the right place, the way he approaches all aspects of things, including his story from Westchester, really speaks that he does things the right way.

When he first approached us and said he had this idea and he wanted to do this, the natural first inclination we would have is I wonder what's in it for Jeff. What we found is his intentions are pure. This is not a sponsorship deal. It's completely about the charities. It aligns beautifully with what Office Max has done.

We've been involved with City of Hope, which is a cans he research and treatment facility in Los Angeles that does a lot of advanced research, helps a lot of children with cancer, and our CEO is the honoree of it this year, and we have a year-long campaign.

We feel like this agreement with Jeff goes beyond that. It's going to be three years. It can approach up to $750,000. It's all for charity on both of our behalves and we can support City of Hope and some charities that Jeff is interested in. We thought it was a fun way to put it together, and as we do it, hopefully as you mentioned a little bit earlier, we won't put any extra pressure on you, but when he's thinking of an eagle putt, he's maybe thinking that maybe that has a little bit in it for cancer and children and charities. So we're very excited about this.

What I'd like to do if I can is let you know the totals to date. He mentioned $500 for a birdie, $1,000 for eagles, and we've gone back to the beginning of this year, so we did a little leaderboard, and this would be done at the end of the year, so this is the status to date.

So far this year Jeff has had 205 total, actually 201 birdies, 4 eagles, so so far this year, we're at $104,500.

We're very excited and think this will be something that, as Jeff has said, will be a model for what others would do on Tour, as well. We think it fits really well for Office Max.

Q. The John Deere Classic has that Birdies For Charity thing. Have you guys considered the notion that people would pledge a dollar or a penny or however for how many birdies or eagles Jeff might make?

JEFF SLUMAN: Absolutely. There are a few business friends of mine here in Chicago that I told them this was going to happen, and they're going to pledge some money. I talked to some of my corporate sponsors, I'm sure they'll come in on it. Hopefully we're going to raise a big amount of money more besides the pledges from Office Max. You know, I feel we can really have a great impact. Just where I was the last two days with Billy Andrade and Brad Faxon's charity, they've got a two-day tournament you probably saw on television, and in six years they've raised I think over $5 million. That's really what it's about. We're doing so well out here that I think it's kind of time to redirect some of our energies towards helping the people on your own local basis.

Thanks for coming. I sure appreciate it. Hopefully now with that belly putter, I can take Office Max to the bank here.

End of FastScripts.

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