THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT

May 31, 2001

Jeff Sluman

JEFF SLUMAN: Obviously, very pleased with my round. The conditions were out there were for scoring. What you have to do here, I did well today. I drove the ball in the fairway for the most part. A couple fairways I missed, I managed to hit the ball on the green from there, and made no bogeys. Just a pretty good, solid round of golf, and I made the couple of 6- to 8-footers that I ran by -- the greens are extremely quick. I talked to Jack yesterday, and he wants them up, 14, 15 on the meter. So they are -- they look the same as they always have for us in the last five, ten years, but they are running much quicker, as we speak. I don't know if we get the rain in, how much that is going to slow them down. Probably, actually, not too much. But they are significantly quicker, so you -- if you are above the hole at any time, you really have to be careful. You can hit a pretty good putt and hit it four to six foot by.

JEFF SLUMAN: Today, I did. (Laughs). Yeah, for the most part. I like greens like this that challenge your imagination, and you have to have some feel and, obviously, some touch. Let the ball swing out there and try and funnel into the hole. There's numerous ways to make putts out here because you can dive in the hole, obviously, playing more of a break, a little more courageous and ram them in there, but there's a risk/reward with that. But overall I seem to like greens like this.

JEFF SLUMAN: The wind was definitely swirling, especially the first couple holes. I think once you got out -- it seemed like once I got past hole No. 5 or 6, the wind started to get a little more consistent out there. But it was definitely more of a lottery early on, picking a club and trying to decide where the wind was actually coming from.

JEFF SLUMAN: Yeah, my record here certainly isn't very sterling, but I come here because it is a great golf course. You know, it's Jack Nicklaus's tournament. I think that eventually, if you stay patient, I feel that I'm a pretty good player, that I can come out and play well at just about any golf course. There's a few I might stay away from. This is a wonderful opportunity to compete against the best players in the world. They have got a great field. I think you should be here if you are playing on Tour and if you are exempt.

JEFF SLUMAN: I think mainly, a little bit of the 5s. I'm not able to get there on a daily basis. Today, I bombed one on 5 and only had 200, I think, to the front. 15 was playing downwind. It was easily -- I didn't make birdie, but I only had a couple hundred to the front there, also. You know, all in all, those are a little difficult. Some of the holes are about 10 to 15 yards too long for my game, and once again, we never seem to play this thing hard and fast, which I think would then suit my game because you have to shape a lot of tee shots to keep them from running into the rough with that. Every year, it doesn't matter -- early May, early June, whatever, the tournament seems to get a lot of water on the fairways. I think in my times coming here, the only time I can remember it played hard and fast was when Curtis won, about 1990 or something -- '89, something like that.

JEFF SLUMAN: Playing the TaylorMade 320.

JEFF SLUMAN: Oh, yeah.

JEFF SLUMAN: It depends on the conditions. Swinging well, I would say up to 15.

JEFF SLUMAN: I think I just have a great combination. Honestly, I've got a great launch angle. I've been on Titleist's launch monitor, and this driver launch, it is up great with the spin rate, and the ball certainly is as fantastic -- it's been going great for me. I keep hearing, "You're the poster boy for the new technology this year," but the funny thing is, you don't step up on any tee and just not think about what you're doing, or put a bad swing on it and hit a good shot. You can still hit some bad shots, and you've got to be prepared to go out and work hard on your game and all that, and take advantage of the technology that's out there; finding the proper ball and club, shaft combination for you. I think that's really where we can pinpoint the equivalent we are using, versus the amateurs, you might try 50 drivers, and you don't have the right one for you. But we can look at these computer readouts and find out.

JEFF SLUMAN: 3 was tough. Felt like the wind was straight into us. We had 161, I hit a 7-iron and flew it a yard past the hole. I thought if I hit 7, I could just get it up short of the hole. I didn't really think that I was going to fly it past the hole.

JEFF SLUMAN: No, I hit it about 12, 15 feet. Going through my round, I hit a good driver on 2. I hit an 8-iron in there and that was another one I thought the wind was against us a little. I hit the 8-iron long and left on the green. I had 40 feet and made that one, which was a total surprise. Just trying to get that thing down in two. 4, I had a very nice shot on the par 3 with a 5-iron and had hit it about six feet underneath the hole. 5, a good drive and I hit -- where the pin was, it was right over the water on the left edge. I hit a 5-wood just on the back edge and chipped it to about four feet. 7, laid up, like I've done 94 times in a row on that hole and had a sand wedge in there about 15, 20 feet left. Made that. Nothing special from there. I hit 5-wood off the tee on 14; it was playing into the wind, and then a wedge from 112. Pin was only about ten on the right. You want to lay it over there left. All the replays seeing Peter Jacobsen hole out; it rolled about five feet down and made that. I didn't get it up-and-down out of the bunker on 15, which was disappointing. I hit a very nice putt. Almost birdied 16. But all in all, like I said, no complaints.

JEFF SLUMAN: Some weeks. I know that sounds like -- obviously, it depend on how I'm hitting. Like Colonial, I hit some gigantic drives, but if you are watching the tournament, it had not rained in three weeks, and the fairways were blowing downwind it was hard as a rock, and everyone was hitting some bombs. Under those conditions, that's where I've really been able to take advantage of -- at times, with the par 5's. Although, looking the way I played par 5s this year at Colonial, I have not played them very well.

JEFF SLUMAN: What a surprise.

JEFF SLUMAN: Not really. I feel much better about my game this year. I think I feel like I'm swinging better. I had a little problem earlier in the year with my thumb and took a cortisone shot. This is only the second week I played with it. I took a cortisone shot on my left thumb during the Nelson. I withdrew and went home and took it, and played Colonial and took last week off and played here. I feel like I'm get back to where I was hitting it on the West Coast with a good bit of power, and drive the ball and carry it a good way again. Hopefully, modern science will help me out here with my thumb.

JEFF SLUMAN: Gosh, it's hard to remember how far. It wasn't like even last year or the previous years I was out there hitting ground balls and hitting it 220. I think that's what people think, and that really isn't the truth. I was never a long, you know, hitter, but I certainly wasn't short by anybody's standards out here. I always felt like I had an ability to hit it very very far. And now with the new combination, the drivers are getting longer. When I first came out they were 43 and a half with wooden drivers, and now they are 45 inches; that's going to increase your distance. If you can keep the ball in the fairway with a little longer driver, that helps. There's so many little combinations; and you work out, you do all the things that you have to do now to really stay out here and try and compete. It's really hard to pinpoint any one thing.

JEFF SLUMAN: I've always had that syndrome. From day one. From day one. When my swing -- what happens with me is I -- and I think, you know, you can almost call it the Little Big Man Syndrome. Most of the guys my size or whatever, seem to -- you hit it good, and then just like this much every day you swing a little harder and harder. It might take a couple months, and then all of the sudden your timing is off and you're spraying it everywhere because you are swinging it too hard, and then you've got to tone it down. I took a lesson a couple weeks ago after this cortisone shot worked off and I was able to swing the club, and that's the only thing my coach said: "You're swinging so hard, and your tempo." It's just one of those things that just, you know, on a graph just progresses incrementally all the way up, but I've always had that problem from Junior golf on. You've got to re-evaluate and say: Let's try and hit it, this and it's 60 percent again. And you have your caddy look at you and I say, "I just barely hit that one, just touched." And he says, "No. That's a perfect swing." Just one of those things that kind of goes on with me. That's kind of my curse, I guess you could say, when I start driving it well. I get that most overrevved up and I want to hit it harder and harder, and one day, you can't find it out there.

JEFF SLUMAN: This is my personality, I guess. (Laughs). Everyone has got some weakness and that is always probably going to be my ideal; trying to hit it too hard sometimes with the driver. There's other things that other guys do. They aim too far left, too far right, get the ball back too far back in your stance. I don't really have many of those problems, but my problem is usually tempo-oriented.