BUICK CLASSIC

June 17, 2003

Chris Smith

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: We'd like to welcome defending champion, Chris Smith, back to Westchester Country Club for the Buick Classic. If we could start with some opening comments about coming back to defend your title. I'm sure you have good memories about coming back to Westchester.

CHRIS SMITH: I do. It was nice to pull in today and see the range and kind of remember some of the things that happened last year. It's been kind of a tough year for me so far, so it's nice to come back to what I feel like is friendly surroundings, and looking forward to playing this week.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: I think you played the event four or five years and you improved each season. What is it about the golf course that you improved on as far as your game and overall on the golf course? Obviously you must like the golf course, having won the event last year.

CHRIS SMITH: I do. I've always liked playing here. I think this course makes you hit a lot of different shots, it's not just a golf course where you stand on the tee and hit it as hard as you can, which should be something I like, but I'd much rather play a golf course that you have to work the ball.

So I've always felt good here. I also like golf courses where even par is a good score, and every year, if you throw a couple even pars in, it doesn't shoot you out of the tournament. So I come out and try to play this golf course fairly conservatively and take advantage of the holes I can. It's a place that I've always felt comfortable, and after last year, it's even higher on my list, actually. I looked forward to coming back this year.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: What are some things you might work on to get into that stretch where you might hit a hot streak?

CHRIS SMITH: I think I've exhausted everything, I've tried everything.

I've had some physical problems this year, some problems with my back that I've never had to deal with, and that has set my game back a little bit and I have not been able to practice quite as much as I've wanted to .But I've got some old clubs back in my bag that I played with last year that were good clubs. I think I'll play fine this week.

Q. Have you been able to work out your driving problems?

CHRIS SMITH: I was in search of some more distance at start of the year, but I think with the distance I definitely lost some accuracy. I put my old driver back in the bag at the Open last week and didn't play very good at the Open, but I definitely drove the ball better.

I definitely think that my game kind of revolves around my driver, and when I'm driving it good, I play good and I have not driven it good all year. So I'm anxious and excited play again with my old driver because I feel like I can keep it in play pretty good and I know what it's doing, and I think that will help my game for sure.

Q. What do you consider more important, length or accuracy.

CHRIS SMITH: Every couple of years, I go through this where I try to find some yardage somewhere and I always end up going back to the shorter driver that I hit straighter, because if I am hitting it crooked, I don't have a chance because it's going a long way, and when it's going a long way crooked, it's really crooked.

I spent the first half of this year hitting it in spots I couldn't score. There's no way I could play good from where I was hitting. So I've gone back to trying to hit it straight and I definitely think that straight is more important than long.

Q. What do you do for straight? Is it the driver or something you do physically?

CHRIS SMITH: I think one of the main problems I was having was my back to be perfectly honest. I was from an 8-iron down I was pretty good. I could do it pretty comfortable, but for my 8-iron up, I was in a lot of pain for a long time.

So I think that was the problem and also, I definitely think that my old driver that I've gone back to is a driver that I know I have one shot, I know I can hit a cut with it when I need to, and with my other driver, I just didn't have a shot that I could lean on. And when you don't have a shot that you can fall back on when you need it, you can hit it in some bad spots.

Q. Your old driver, was that a Mizuno?

CHRIS SMITH: It's a Ping.

Q. How long is it?

CHRIS SMITH: 44 and a half inches. I hit it plenty long. Distance has never been a problem for me. I think I definitely hit the Titleist driver further, but I definitely hit the Ping driver straighter.

Q. Did you have this driver in the bag last year?

CHRIS SMITH: Yeah. I played it for three years leading up to this year, and decided I needed a change.

Q. How many times did you hit driver at Olympia Fields?

CHRIS SMITH: Thursday when I was still felt like I was in the tournament, I didn't hit it very often. I probably hit three or four of them.

And Friday, I got 3-over pretty quick on Friday. I knew I was going to have to make some birdies to make the cut, so I started hitting more often. But that was a golf course that really, there are only three or four holes that really called for a driver.

Q. What are you doing for your back, do you workout?

CHRIS SMITH: Yeah, I think actually to be perfectly honest, I think that's how I hurt my back. I decided last November that I was going to start working out and I started running and lifting weights again, and I lost 30 pounds. Next thing you know, my back goes out in Florida, and I definitely think that that was part of the problem. So I quit running and I quit doing the stuff in the gym that I was doing. It started feeling better and I got together with Tom Booros, who is Freddie and Davis and Duval and all of those guys, their back guy, and he helped me in Charlotte. That was the first time that it started getting better. He told me then that he thought it would be six weeks before I felt pretty good. He's been pretty much on.

Last week, I was able to play without any pain, really, in my back at all. The problem I had was I went about two and a half months where I could never go to the range. So I literally went almost three months where I was not able to practice at all, which usually is a good thing, but not in the middle of the season.

Q. You referred to this as a tough year, and obviously you won here last year and Tiger won the year before. Tiger has now won a major in four and people are talking about him struggling; what do you think about that?

CHRIS SMITH: Tiger didn't win here, right? Is that correct? Sergio won. Are you talking about Tiger or Sergio?

Q. Tiger.

CHRIS SMITH: I can't help but to laugh when I hear Tiger is slumping. I mean, I think that is -- I just don't see it. What he does, his record, is hardly a slump.

I played with him at the Memorial the first two days this year and I finished -- I don't know what he finished, he had a good tournament, but he's hardly slumping.

I think there are so many good players and there are so many different guys that have a chance to win the majors that it's hard to win a major all the time. Just because Tiger isn't winning, you know, half of the majors or a third of the majors, I don't think that's a slump. The guy the guy has won three times this year and his record speaks for itself. I wish I could slump like that.

Q. What would you consider it if your last win was at Bay Hill and your last win at a major was last year's U.S. Open, for you personally?

CHRIS SMITH: It would be a nice stretch of golf, I would say. (Laughter.)

Q. Do you think that because of who he is, that he's held up to just a totally different standard?

CHRIS SMITH: Just by you guys, I think. I think that you guys have come to expect him to win every week, and that's a high standard. I mean, nobody can do that.

From what I gather with what I hear him saying and what I see him say, I think he feels pretty good about his golf game. I think his knee has obviously been a concern of his, and how much that plays into it, I don't know; only he knows that.

But I would expect him to win some more tournaments this year, and any time you have a year where you win three tournaments by the U.S. Open, I personally don't see that as a slump.

Q. The fact that he's won three times this year already and people still consider that he's in a slump, are people devaluing wins in non-majors more than they have in the past because of him or for any reason?

CHRIS SMITH: Possibly. That could be part of it. I don't know. Has he been in here yet? Have you guys talked to him?

Q. He's coming tomorrow.

CHRIS SMITH: I don't see what he's doing as a slump. Like I said, the majors are the majors. It's four tournaments a year played on new golf courses that we don't see every year, and you get geared up to play one tournament.

I can really only speak for myself, but I know for me, the majors I play in, you put a lot of pressure on yourself, and when you cut right down to it, it's just another tournament that has a major title and that you want to win. Obviously, there's more importance put on the majors and all of those things, so you do try harder to win them.

But, you know, I think it's just as impressive that he had won three tournaments before the U.S. Open, and he didn't play as good in one of the rounds as he wanted to in the Open and he didn't win. It's hard to ask me what he's thinking, I don't know what he's thinking, but as far as the importance of the tournaments, I think every single tournament out here is important. Sure, the majors are a little bit more important because of all the hype that is put into them, and the fact that you want to win a major. Obviously, when you're a kid growing up and playing golf, one of the things you want to do in life is win major championships. There's no doubt about that. But also every single week we come out here, these are important tournaments and you want to win those just as bad.

Q. Well, you won one last year, you won this one, beside winning the money what prestige did you get out of it?

CHRIS SMITH: Every single time I'm proceed on the first tee now, I'm the 2002 Buick Classic Champion. I'm proud of that every single Thursday and Friday morning. It was a dream of mine to win a Tour event and I won last year and I'm a lifetime member of the Tour, and I will be the winner of this tournament in 2002 for the rest of my life and that's something I'm very proud of.

I think that the prestige thing is kind of how you perceive it yourself. It was something that I spent -- last year I was 33 years old and I literally had spent 29 years trying to get to that point. To have it all come together and to win the golf tournament was very satisfying to me because of all the time and effort and hard work that not only myself, but my wife had put into it, and my kids, and the sacrifice and all of those things.

So there was all kind of feelings inside, that I had inside of myself that made me proud of the fact that I won.

Q. Your back, is it muscular or skeletal, and what did you do for it?

CHRIS SMITH: I had inflammation between the fourth and fifth disk. And Tom worked on me at Charlotte and gave me some exercises to do for it. It got better at the start but it's continually gotten better. I've done exercises to try to move my back that I had never done before, and the movement in it has helped me get some more flexibility and it's helped it heal by the stretching and the exercises I've done for it.

Q. Is he a chiropractor or a physical therapist?

CHRIS SMITH: He's a physical therapist. He doesn't do any cracking. When he worked on me, he was stretching me; he wasn't cracking me.

Q. I know you had a long stretch of six straight tournaments or something --

CHRIS SMITH: Yeah, I've played too much.

Q. If you had not been defending here coming off Olympia Fields, might you have taken this week off?

CHRIS SMITH: Oh, no. My wife wouldn't let me take this tournament off. Even if I weren't the defending champion I'd be here every year. I love coming to New York. I get a big kick out of the city and I enjoy my week here, and my wife really enjoys this tournament. I can promise you that it doesn't matter how many tournaments I play in a row; as long as I have an invitation to play here, I will play here.

Q. Coming off a high-pressure event like the U.S. Open, is it less pressure coming here as a defending champion, more, same, different?

CHRIS SMITH: It's kind of all new to me. It's obviously the first time I've defended.

So I think I've probably putt a little bit more pressure on myself all year, having won last year, I think I've kind of raised my expectations and put a little bit more pressure on myself.

As far as this individual week, I'm really truly going to try to enjoy it. I'm going to try to have fun with it and enjoy parking in the first spot in the parking lot all week. I've made a lot of friends here and I have a lot of great memories here. I'm going to really try to enjoy the week, and I think if I do enjoy the week, that I will play good golf, too.

Q. You started to elude to it, but when you left here last year, how did that change your expectations? What did you think the rest of the year would hold?

CHRIS SMITH: You kind of go from a place of wondering if you're good enough to win, to knowing that you're good enough to win. So it kind of changed my whole perspective of the tournaments, and I think that you have to do that if you want to get better, but you also can't -- you can't bury yourself in it.

I played really got rest of the year after I left here last year. I think I missed the first cut after this and then I didn't miss another cut until the Hope this year. I had a couple Top-10s and I had a couple other chances to win and I was very comfortable in the situation and felt very good.

Then I took the off-season and came out and I felt like, okay, now it's a new year, let's hurry up and try to get another win, and I think I probably was pushing a little too hard and getting a little bit down if I struggled a little bit on Thursday or Friday or Saturday morning or whatever. I think that's what I've had to learn how to manage, is realize that I'm not going to win every week, obviously, and I'm not going to be in a position to win every week, but I need to do the best that I can, whether that has a chance to have a good tournament or try to sneak by and make the cut.

Q. Are you still using that old Ping putter?

CHRIS SMITH: I am, yeah. I pulled that out at Muirfield. It had been 17 years since I had hit a putt with that putter, and it was fun. It's not nearly as fun this week because I didn't putt very good last week, but I am still using it.

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