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EDS BYRON NELSON CHAMPIONSHIP

May 13, 2004

Chris Smith

IRVING, TEXAS

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Chris Smith, thank you for joining us. A first round 66 puts you at a great start for the week. Talk about your round today.

CHRIS SMITH: It was a lot easier today than it's been. I've played pretty good really this year. I don't have a lot to show for it, but I've hit the ball pretty good and I haven't been able to do the little things to keep the rounds going, and today I hit a couple more fairways and a couple more greens and made a few putts and just kind of kept the round going and really played pretty similar to the way I've played quite a bit this year.

Q. You played with a pretty good friend Jerry Kelly today, who also shot a 66. Just talk about playing with a friend out there.

CHRIS SMITH: Well, it's nice. I was excited when I saw my pairing because I'm playing with Shaun Micheel, who I played a lot of college golf with, and Jerry, who's one of my best friends. I knew I'd have fun today, whether I played good or not, and we all kind of got off to decent starts. Jerry struggled a little bit at the start but then started making some birdies, and the next thing you know the three of us are feeding off each other and having fun and enjoying the day, which I haven't done a whole lot of this year.

It's been a little frustrating because I haven't been able to do the little things to keep things going, but today was fun.

Q. Do you find it easier to do the little things well when you're more comfortable playing with guys you know?

CHRIS SMITH: It's easier to do the little things I think when you make a couple good putts at the start of the round to be honest, and I hit it real close on the first one, three or four feet, made that, and then on the third hole I made it from about 18 feet, and I felt like I was rolling the putter good and I kind of got off to a good start and I think I made a 3 on the first five holes and then birdied 7.

I got off to a good start and then I felt like things were going to go in a good direction and I just kind of kept plugging away and kept talking to them, and the next thing you knew we were done and we had all played well.

Q. Are you surprised you got it in the way it looked this morning?

CHRIS SMITH: I thought we were going to be called off at 7. It looked bad on 7 green and it looked like we were dodging storms all day, so we're happy to be done. I thought we'd for sure be sitting in the locker room for a couple hours.

Q. Did you see any lightning? Some people did.

CHRIS SMITH: I did. On 7 I thought I saw some lightning over on the other side of the hotel, and then on 16, we were up on 16 green, and it looked like there was some over by the DFW Airport. I thought I saw two of them.

Q. Does weather affect your playing?

CHRIS SMITH: Not really. The rain was kind of a menace. It rained a couple times, but I would rather have a couple sprinkles of rain and some wind than a sunburn, which I got yesterday. It was hot yesterday. Today it wasn't hot, so it didn't bother me that much because it wasn't nearly as warm.

Q. Can you put your finger on what hasn't gone right for you in those little things? Are you talking about just getting up and down?

CHRIS SMITH: It's been frustrating. I'll have a good round going and I'll hit a drive that looks like it's pretty good and it's right on the edge, it'll bounce into the rough and I won't be able to get it on the green and I'll hit it into a bunker and it'll plug in the bunker and I'll make a bogey.

Last week I hit the ball really good all week last week and was really happy with the way I was hitting it, and I couldn't get a putt to go in. I was all over the hole for two days and couldn't get anything to go in, and it's just the little things that keep you going and that keep you in the round and that keep you excited.

The first hole was a perfect example of I hit a drive right down to the front of the green and I hit a lob wedge up there four feet behind the hole and I made it right in the middle, and if I miss that putt I'm sitting there thinking, "Here I go again, I hit two perfect shots and I miss this four-footer." It's just kind of a momentum thing of saving shots.

I hit a good shot on 17 today, and I was the first one to hit and the wind was blowing really hard, and it got hung up in the wind and it came up short of the green, and I had a difficult stance and a good pitch and I pitched up 10 feet short of the hole and I made it for a par save. It's those things that keep you going.

In bed tonight I'll be laying there thinking I played pretty good today, and if you do a couple little things, miss a couple putts or hit a bad iron shot and you shoot even or 1-over, you think, well, I didn't play any good, and you've really played the same.

Q. How big a factor was the wind out there?

CHRIS SMITH: It got windy at the end. The greens are softer this year, so in the past when the greens have been so firm, the wind really -- downwind you couldn't hold the greens, but this year they've gotten enough rain, the greens are a little soft so you can still hold the shots downwind. I think I was a little bit more patient this year, and I tried to put the ball in the fairway a little bit better instead of trying to chase it down closer to the green, and I think that made it a lot easier for me.

I hit some shorter clubs off of the tees this year than I have in the past year, and I looked at my caddie when we were going up 16 and I said, "This course plays a little easier from the fairway," so I just was trying to figure out a way to get it in the fat part of the fairways instead of trying to chase it down into the narrow parts to try to get it closer to the green.

Q. Were you cheering for your boy Sindelar last week, for the Buckeye?

CHRIS SMITH: I could not have been any happier. Yes, I was very happy for him, and there isn't a nicer guy out here, and it had been, what, 13 years and 8 months or something since he won. I think it was long overdue. He's played a lot of great golf over the years, and it was long overdue, and I was extremely happy. I did wait until Tuesday to call him, and of course I didn't get a hold of him, but I did call him and leave a message and congratulate him because I was extremely happy for him.

Q. What does that tell you, though? Not only just happy for him but guys can still win.

CHRIS SMITH: That means I'm not in my prime yet, I hope. I hope I'm still able to walk around the course at 46. Yeah, it's funny you ask that question because after he won, I was talking to my wife on the phone, and I said, you know, it was kind of refreshing and it gave me a little hope to see Joey win because I've played a lot with Joey this year and I feel like Joey and I have been playing very similar.

I think Joey has had a lot of same things going on as I have where he's played a lot of good golf but hasn't gotten anything out of it. My wife thought I was stupid for not having the faith already, but she said, you're right, and it did give me -- it motivated me a little bit. It motivated me to the point where I changed putters to what Joey is putting with this week. I think I've done a lot of things like he has this week, and I think last week he had a week where everything kind of fell into place and he made some good swings and good shots at the end, and there you have it.

Q. What's the new putter you're using this week?

CHRIS SMITH: Futura, a branding iron, potato masher, whatever you want to call it.

Q. Is it a similar type putter to what you've been using or is it a pretty radical change for you?

CHRIS SMITH: I've actually used that putter on and off for two years since it came out. I hadn't used it at all this year and I had kind of been struggling with my consistency with my putting, so I just went back to this. I played with Joey the first two days last week -- no, two weeks ago, and he had rolled it really well and it made me think maybe I should try the Futura again, and I pulled one out on Tuesday this week and rolled the ball really well.

Q. Have you had those type of exchanges with your wife or your caddie or someone elsewhere you've been kind of down on yourself and they've said --

CHRIS SMITH: Oh, yeah. I mean, I think this is the easiest job in the world to get down on yourself. It felt like -- I got a new teacher at the end of last year, and he and I have worked really well together and I feel like I've been going in the right direction but haven't been getting the results. So yeah, it's easy to get down, and you wonder when are you going to put four good rounds together again and when are you going to have a good tournament again. You've just got to keep plugging.

My caddie doesn't say very much. He's not excited when I'm playing good and he's not depressed when I play bad. I can't get a read on him at all. I just try to keep going, and I think I've been close. It's very easy to slip into a down, depressed state with your golf because you're going to hit a lot of bad shots. It's just the way it is.

Just when you think you get it, then it leaves you, and that's kind of -- I've been going back and forth with that the last year and a half or so.

Q. Playing with Joey, is that practice rounds, tournaments rounds or both?

CHRIS SMITH: With Joey?

Q. Do you regularly play practice rounds with him as well as just getting --

CHRIS SMITH: Yeah, well, Joey likes to come in at the last possible minute. Joey goes home on Sunday and comes in late Tuesday night or even Wednesday morning if he's got a Wednesday afternoon Pro-Am, but whenever Joey is around I try to play practice rounds with him. I've been paired with him some this year. Joey is just a guy that when I was in college, Joey was -- obviously still is very active with Ohio State, and he would come back and he was a guy that I looked at that I thought was just a great guy that was somebody that you can look up to and use as a role model, and I kind of have looked at Joey that way for 17, 18 years now, and so it's -- you know, he's turned into -- he's gone from my role model kind of to one of my friends. I just was really happy for him, and if there's anybody that deserves it, it's Joey.

Q. When you get down on yourself, what ways does that show up? Is it just on the golf course? Do you start hating life?

CHRIS SMITH: Keep going.

Q. Feel free to expand on it.

CHRIS SMITH: Yeah, I mean, it's tough. When you're struggling and you aren't playing good, you don't want to go out to dinner, you don't want to do anything because the golf is completely taking over your mind, and I've gotten better as I've gotten older at trying to separate personal life with golf, but for a long time if my golf was going good, I felt everything was going good, and if my golf wasn't going good, then everything was going bad.

I've been able to get past that. You just have to try to dig down deep inside and realize it's the nature of the game and there's going to be good and there's going to be bad, and you try to keep working, keep practicing and stay positive and realize that at some point you're going to start going back towards the good.

Q. You don't keep loaded weapons in your house?

CHRIS SMITH: No, golf doesn't mean that much to me. I've got a lot more important things going on than letting golf consume me.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: If we could just go over your round real quick. Lob wedge to 4 feet on No. 1 and a 17-foot putt on 3. What did you hit there?

CHRIS SMITH: Sand wedge.

4, hit driver, sand wedge again, and that was probably about 10 feet again.

7, hit driver, 6-iron, on the green in two, probably 35 feet, two-putted it.

12, bogey, I drove it in the left bunkers with a 3-wood, left it out short and right of the green and hit a real nice pitch shot there about seven or eight feet left of the hole and missed that putt.

Birdie on 14, hit 5-wood off the tee, hit 9-iron about six or seven feet behind the hole.

16, I hit driver, 3-wood about 17 or 18 feet and two-putted. I had a real good shot there.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Good par save on 17.

CHRIS SMITH: 18, I thought I hit my tee ball perfect on 18, and the last roll it got about six inches into the rough and I had to lay it up. I was 90 yards on my third shot. I couldn't even get it close to the green. I hit it up there about 10 or 12 feet below the hole and missed that one.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Chris Smith, thank you very much.

End of FastScripts.

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