MCI HERITAGE

April 19, 2003

Jeff Sluman

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you, Jeff, for joining us. Great round today of 64, leader in the clubhouse right now at 11-under. Why don't you talk about how your day went out there and why don't you talk about how the wind has picked up.

JEFF SLUMAN: I don't know if the wind has picked up anymore but it was blowing pretty good when we were out there all day, I thought. Coming from a different direction than we are used to, I've been coming here since -- Jim Nantz just said it, like '86 or something. 18 years, oh my God. I should know all the wind directions by heart by now. But it was a little different than we are used to. Certainly in the last eight, ten years, I can rarely remember playing 18 kinds of right-to-left and almost a little in. It's usually down and left-to-right.

It just gets swirling in those trees and it's really hard to pick the golf club out there and hit the greens, but what I obviously did today well was not miss any fairways. Yesterday I only missed one fairway. To do that here, you're swinging well, you should have an opportunity with your irons to hit the greens, you're not going to survive out here driving it real wild because the greens are so small and so well-guarded that you're going to be scrambling all day just trying to make par and really not have many birdie opportunities. So really that was the key to, so far, actually my whole week, the way I've been driving the ball.

Q. You talk about you have been coming here a long time but the last couple of years I think you had a 66 and a 65 here last year; 68, 64. I mean, what is it the last couple of years that's gotten you lower than most other times.

JEFF SLUMAN: Really, just a matter of making a few putts. I've had a lot of low scores even early on in my career here. You've just got to make those one or two extra putts. I got done with yesterday's round and I was playing with Jesper and I asked Jesper's caddie, Lance, I said, we were just kind of going over what Jesper needs to do to play a little better and I asked Lance, what do I need to do. He said, nothing, just got to hit the ball. You've just got to make one extra putt here and there and really that's about the whole secret to golf, you've just got to make that extra one putt every nine holes or something.

Q. How comfortable are you playing from ahead, leader in the clubhouse now. I know the last couple of years here somebody has come from way out of the pack and you were in a playoff.

JEFF SLUMAN: I'm at 11-under and that's all I'm really worried about. I don't expect to certainly be in the lead and I would expect probably to play in maybe the second-to-last group tomorrow. I might not, but, you know, there's an unbelievable leaderboard when you look down there with Davis and Ernie and Nick Price; Davis winning a bunch of times here; Nick has won twice; Stewart Cink has won here before. Just got a wonderful leaderboard. So I expect to see those guys making a few birdies on the back nine. That will put me in a second or maybe third-to-last group. I could be in the last group but I'm not really going to worry about that too much.

Q. You get to the course today, I'm assuming you're not thinking about getting the lead by the time you're finished; you just want to get in position by that point?

JEFF SLUMAN: Historically, every week, somebody makes a big run on Saturday and I felt as if I was playing well enough I could make a few putts that maybe I could be the guy to shoot a good number here and I've done it in the past. I went out and stayed, obviously, pretty patient and made a few putts. I didn't putt it certainly bad; you can't putt it bad when you shoot 64 but I made the ones I'm supposed to make and then I made the one, a little nice bomb from about 40 feet on 14. ShotLink will tell you how long it really is.

When we play good, we can't lie anymore. That's the one bad thing about ShotLink. (Laughter.)

Q. Why is that easier to on Saturday and from a little further back in the pack?

JEFF SLUMAN: If I had an answer to that, I would sell it to all the golfers and take a percentage off of everybody and probably never play the game.

Just some days, everything seems to work and the next day you can play just as well. Maybe you lip it out a few times, you make one 3-putt and all of a sudden the scores are much different. Yesterday, like I said I hit every fairway but one and thought I played almost as well as did I today and I shot 1-under yesterday and 7-under today. I really looked at it and I didn't think it was much difference in the rounds.

Q. They were mentioning it on TV about how maybe you weren't very comfortable at the top of that tower and then they showed you walking down.

JEFF SLUMAN: Did they really? (Laughter.)

Q. Have heights never been your thing?

JEFF SLUMAN: They have never been my thing, I can tell that you. I don't mind being on an airplane looking out but open air like that -- I was on the Eiffel Tower a number of years ago. You get up to the first level and you have to go another elevator to get to the second one and another to get to the third one. I got to the first one and looked out and that was it, I had to walk down. I found stairs on the Eiffel Tower. I could not get on the elevator to go back down. (Laughter.) It wasn't a pretty sight.

Yeah, I was being very careful. I didn't know they had the camera on me. Oh, yeah, I was just kind of looking straightforward, death grip on both sides.

Q. What do you remember from the playoff here?

JEFF SLUMAN: I lost. (Laughter.) I certainly remember that.

Just Glenn made an unbelievable 35, 40-footer swinging right-to-left. You always expect your opponent on a playoff to do that and it's happened to me a bunch of times. Every time, except once I've been in a playoff, the other guy has done it to me.

Q. When that happens, do you dismiss it immediately and forget about it or every time you come back to the tournament do you think "this place owes me one"?

JEFF SLUMAN: You can't think "this place owes me one" or you're probably going to end up missing the cut.

I think it's just fond memories. I played a wonderful last round with great shots coming down the stretch. Payne and Glenn and I went into the playoff and he swooshed that 45-footer and we shook hands. He's got a better parking spot than us now.

Q. With as many people on the leaderboard, do you think somebody is going to shoot a really low number and blow the field away or are we looking at a playoff?

JEFF SLUMAN: Well, that's a hard one to even imagine. If Ernie stays at 8-, 9-under, he could get out early and do some real damage and make you kind of look. Ernie might birdie four of the last five and be in the lead, also.

There are so many capable guys, there are so many great players, every week, and if you look at this leaderboard, it's just fantastic, with the history of guys playing well here and other great players, it's going to be, it should be a heck of a shootout tomorrow.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Can we go through your bogies and birdies?

JEFF SLUMAN: Birdied 2. Although I drove it in the fairway, I was kind of stuck behind the trees on the right and had to lay it up and hit a sand wedge to -- I really have to think about how far did I hit it. Maybe 14 feet.

Good drive on 6 and hit a 9-iron from about 130 to maybe about six feet.

7 was kind of playing straight downwind and maybe a little left-to-right. Pin was back on the -- not way back on the left shelf but back left and hit a 6-iron and I think that hole played 200 yards. Hit it up about pin-high about 15 feet.

From there I missed a few opportunities. Then, you know, you're not thinking this is going to be an unbelievable day at that time because I missed a few. Then I hit a good putt on 11 that just missed and I drove it perfect on 12 and hit a gap wedge behind the hole about 12 feet and made that. That one really kind of got the momentum going. It was a tough putt, a little left-to-right downhiller.

13, I'm watching on TV, it's very difficult to get it close, I have perfect yardage and I hit a smooth wedge and just landed over the edge on the green to about four feet there.

14 is really where guys are having a tremendous amount of problems, as they should, but I hit a nice tee shot from about 180 yards and cut a little 5-iron pin-high left about 30, 35 feet. It's just one of those ones that just goes in and you have no explanation for it.

15, drove it good and laid it up right where I wanted and hit a gap wedge from about 115 yards and that stopped, oh gosh, six feet short, eight feet short. That was it. I missed about a 6-footer straight uphill on 16 for birdie. Then I thought I made birdie on 17. Hit a nice putt from about 15 feet.

All in all, there's no complaints.

Q. Go back to 14. Is that hole playing harder because of the wind today or because they have got the tee back?

JEFF SLUMAN: Really, because of the wind today. We rarely see that as an into the wind shot. So now you've got the tee back and into the wind and pin looks like it's on a little island over there to the right. I would venture to say anybody who went at it made a mistake and pushed it over there. It's just really a very difficult golf hole today.

Q. What about your game lends to you playing well here?

JEFF SLUMAN: I just get excited coming here. Places like this, Riviera, Colonial, you've got to work the ball and get rewarded for working the ball. You get rewarded for driving it well. I certainly hit it long enough but it's not a golf course that is full-throttle all the time. Like I said, you've got to work it, you've got to cut it, hit it high, low. You really get rewarded for having a non-one-dimensional game. I think you look at the past champions and all of those guys worked ball and hit shots.

Q. It seems to me that many of the veterans like that older style course that you just mentioned, three or four of them that are all great golf courses and the younger guys like the bomb-it/ wedge/see-who-putts-it-best golf course, but the trend seems to be whenever the Tour goes to a new golf course, it fits the latter description?

JEFF SLUMAN: We need to get you on TOUR, get some different golf courses. (Laughter.)

Seems that way, doesn't it? It really does. I'm not saying it's right or wrong but I think you're just stating the facts as you see them and I kind of agree with you. We can only play the golf courses that have the tournaments and I don't miss this one, I don't miss Riviera and I don't miss Colonial. Most of the older guys love to come here and those other courses because of that.

Q. Would you put yourself in that quote unquote, ball striker's category of Nick Price and some of the other players that you work your game into shape for the hole and where the pin is?

JEFF SLUMAN: I'd like to think so.

Q. What's harder to do, shoot 64 or follow it up the next day?

JEFF SLUMAN: Tomorrow you can't get caught up in what you did today. That, sometimes, is a very difficult thing. You understand that it rarely happens, to do what Ben crane did at Atlanta, I think he shot 64-63, 127 on the weekend really gets it done out here. That's a rare occurrence.

You just have to go out and actually try and forget about yesterday, yesterday's score, but you want to understand that you are playing solid golf and continue to play the way you're capable of.

The only thing I'm not going to do is look at tomorrow morning's local paper for the tee times. Everybody was talking about that on the range, so I figured I'd just mention that. (Laughter.) I wasn't even scheduled to play today. (Laughter.)

End of FastScripts....