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84 LUMBER CLASSIC

September 16, 2005

Chris Smith

FARMINGTON, PENNSYLVANIA

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Chris, thank you for joining us, two good rounds, 68 66. You're in great position heading into the weekend, 10 under par. Start with some opening comments on a good couple of days for you.

CHRIS SMITH: I played well. I hit the driver really good both days, and I made some good putts and hit a lot of greens, so you do those things, you end up playing pretty well. I think I was pretty good mentally both days and felt pretty good out there.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Talk about your season. All year your ball striking has been pretty good and you've put some really good rounds together. I know you want to putt a little bit better; this week you've had 26 putts and 28 putts. Looks like that's working a little better for you this week.

CHRIS SMITH: That's been good. It wouldn't take long to talk about my season so far. It's been a little disappointing. I really might as well say the last three years have been pretty disappointing for me. I felt like I've started playing a lot better the last couple of months, and it always has been kind of a thing with me that I need to make some putts, and I've started hitting the ball a little bit more consistently again the last couple of months and started putting a little bit better. Next thing you know, you're kind of enjoying playing golf again.

I went through about two, two and a half years where I really didn't enjoy it that much.

Q. Talk about your drive on No. 8. ShotLink had you down for hitting a 387 yard drive over that sand trap.

CHRIS SMITH: I think it was 440 (laughter).

Q. Just tell me about that hole and what you did there.

CHRIS SMITH: Well, that hole, normally I think the carry on that bunker is 336, and normally that's a hole where I try to hit a driver and cut it over the bunker and hit it up into kind of the bank of the fairway. Yesterday I hit a drive like that and I had 232 yards I think to the front. Well, I got out there today, and I felt pretty good, and I felt like I was swinging pretty good, and the wind is blowing straight downwind, and I just stepped up and tried to hit it as hard as I could, and ended up carrying the bunker and it rolled all the way down the hill. Yesterday I had 232 to the front, and today I had 126. I ended up hitting driver, sand wedge and had a good look at eagle.

That hole doesn't normally play that way, and I've played here every year and I've never played that hole where I was trying to hit it over the bunker. But with as hard as the wind was blowing today and it was a direction I was comfortable with and I felt like I was swinging pretty good, so I went ahead and took a smack at it and hit it pretty good.

Q. You had switched to the belly butter from Hartford and the last time I saw you on a Friday. Talk a little bit about how that's affected you because it seems like maybe you've picked up a little bit since then.

CHRIS SMITH: It has. Last year I talked to you about it at Hartford, but last year at the end of the year I was so frustrated with my putting I went to a belly putter the last five or six tournaments. I made all my money for the year with the belly putter, so then for the wintertime I started telling myself I'm a good putter, I don't need a belly putter, and I came out for the first six or seven months with a short putter thinking I could putt, and I didn't putt any good.

So I went back to the belly putter, and when you feel like you can make some putts instead of hitting a bunch of shots where I spent a lot of the time this year hitting shots into the green to 10, 12, 15 feet and knowing I wasn't going to make them, and it gets depressing. So I put the belly putter in, I feel like I can start the ball on line a little bit better and I start making some putts and it does lift you up because all of a sudden you don't feel like you have to hit every shot right next to the hole. You feel like if you're going to miss the green you can still chip it up there somewhere where you can make a putt, and all that stuff builds and turns into positive momentum, and I haven't had that except with about six weeks last year with the belly putter and about four weeks this year with a belly putter.

So next year I'm going to start with the belly putter and see what happens.

Q. Is there plenty of room out here to play to your length, and what did you hit into the other par 5s?

CHRIS SMITH: Plenty of room, yes. There's tons of room out here. You've got to hit it hard out here. My caddie and I were talking about it yesterday morning. I played the practice round Tuesday without him, and I was hitting I wasn't carrying the bunkers that I was carrying last year and I couldn't figure it out, and he and I got talking about it, and he said, you know, last year you were winding up and hitting it pretty hard, and so yesterday I went out and I was swinging there are some holes on the course yesterday that I tried to hit my driver harder than I hit it all year, and I think you have to if I'm going to take advantage of my length I have to do that out here because there's bunkers that if I go ahead and try to step on one, I can get over the bunkers.

So it's good for me because that's how I grew up playing, and I get in a better rhythm and I feel better on the golf course when I'm kind of letting it go. That's what I did on No. 8.

And the other par 5s, No. 16 I drove it in the bunker and had to wedge it out of the pot bunker.

No. 5 I hit driver, 7 iron and made eagle, hit it about three feet.

No. 11, I drove it right just in the first cut of rough on the right hand side and decided to lay up and laid a 6 iron up short and pitched it on the green from there.

Q. It seemed like yesterday most of the lower scores were in the morning and then it got a lot firmer in the afternoon. How different did the course play for you this morning versus yesterday?

CHRIS SMITH: Well, I think the greens are definitely a lot more they receive the shots a lot better in the mornings. In the afternoon I think the ball goes a little bit further, which I think helps you on this golf course probably more than anywhere.

With the wind blowing today and the sun coming out, the greens are going to be they're going to be hard and they're going to be tough this afternoon. So if somebody shoots a real low number this afternoon, that would be pretty good.

I personally like to play in the afternoon better, even with the greens hard, because I like to sleep in, for beginners, and I also like it when the ball is jumping a little bit. I felt like to be perfectly honest when I came out today, I felt like it was a morning where I just was trying to come out and not make any mistakes and keep going along and doing the right thing, and next thing you know, on my last nine holes I kind of got things moving a little bit. But I like playing the afternoon better.

Q. You said you've been here all three years. How has this course made a lot of changes every year? How has it evolved?

CHRIS SMITH: I think the course is great. I liked it the first year. The problem they had the first year was they didn't have enough pin placements on the greens, and that was something that definitely needed to be addressed. They fixed the greens last year, and you could use the whole green last year, and I think that was good. The new No. 18 I thought was a much better hole than the original No. 18.

This year they made a hard golf course harder. No. 9, I stood on No. 9 on Tuesday, I played the back tee, and I wasn't sure I was going to be able to finish, 490 yards, whatever it is, with the water and the trees, and then No. 12, of course, is a very difficult hole.

I think each year the golf course has gotten better. I think the golf course also gets better as it matures. I think it plays a little bit better. The first year we were here it was very firm and fast, and there weren't any of the par 5s that you could keep a ball on because the greens were so hard and they were brand new.

I think the course gets better as it gets older, and I think the changes they've made each year are great, too. If I know Pete, I'm sure he'll keep his hands on this and keep molding it the way he wants it, and I think they're doing a good job.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: If we could touch on your round. You started on the back side. We mentioned your birdie on 11, and the next birdie was on 15, the par 4.

CHRIS SMITH: 15, I hit a driver down the middle of the fairway and hit a wedge about 15 or 18 feet past the hole.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: I believe your only bogey of the day on 16?

CHRIS SMITH: Yeah, I got my drive a little bit too far to the right on 16, got in the pot bunker and I wedged it out. I was down there 126 yards, I think, to the front, and I was right in the middle of a divot and thought I hit a pretty good shot and it came up short and had hit the rocks and goes in the water. It turns out I dropped another wedge on the back part of the green and made a bomb for bogey, so I don't know, that putt had to have been 50 feet anyway.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: 49 feet.

CHRIS SMITH: Yeah, pretty good, huh?

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Then on the front side you birdied 2.

CHRIS SMITH: Yeah, No. 2, I hit a good drive down the middle and I hit wedge there that released back to the hole to eight or ten feet.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: 11 feet. No. 4?

CHRIS SMITH: No. 4, I hit a driver and a lob wedge that rolled down...16 feet?

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: 10 feet.

CHRIS SMITH: 10 feet, made that one.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: You talked about No. 8, as well.

CHRIS SMITH: Was I close there, three feet on No. 5?

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Two feet, three inches.

Q. Did you whistle any show tunes out there today?

CHRIS SMITH: No. That's all I'm saying about that.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Chris Smith, thank you very much.

End of FastScripts.

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