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CIALIS WESTERN OPEN

July 2, 2004

Charles Howell III

LEMONT, ILLINOIS

TODD BUDNICK: We thank Charles Howell III for stopping by with a 4-under 67, Charles at 6-under for the tournament, coming off with a 2nd place finish last week. Looks like you're playing well.

CHARLES HOWELL III: Yeah, it's getting better. You know, I've felt for a while I've been playing well. I hadn't gotten obviously the results I've been looking for. Believe it or not, Shinnecock was a big confidence boost. I thought I played well through Saturday and was lying 13th there going into Sunday, and that gave me a bit of a boost. Obviously Avondale seemed a lot easier than Shinnecock, coming from Sunday at Shinnecock to Thursday at Avondale. It was a good week last week, and fortunately I've played well the last well here.

TODD BUDNICK: Looks like three top 10s in your last six events going back to New Orleans, so you've got a good streak going.

CHARLES HOWELL III: Yeah, until last week I couldn't say at all that I had a chance to win a golf tournament this year other than New Orleans. I finished 5th there, and other than that, last week was the first really good chance I had to win a tournament this year. As everyone knows out here, it's about winning. It's about how many times you win.

You know, it was nice last week to be in a position to win a golf tournament, and hopefully by Sunday I'll have a chance to win this one, as well.

TODD BUDNICK: Four birdies and just a bogey today. From us we see good weather, good conditions, not too much wind, yet it doesn't look like people are really attacking the course.

CHARLES HOWELL III: Well, it's amazing. I thought yesterday the scores would be a lot lower than they were. I played in the afternoon, and it was absolutely zero wind. For any event, but especially for one in Chicago, it was phenomenal. It's actually almost more difficult when there's absolutely no wind because you're looking for just a little bit. I thought for sure yesterday the scores would be lower.

Even so, today, if you would have said there's going to be no wind on Thursday and Friday, I think 7-under is leading at the moment, I would have thought at least by now 10, 12-under would have been leading.

But on the flipside of it, though, the changes have made the golf course a little more difficult. You know, the 5th hole was a fairly short par 5 that's now a very good par 4. That's a shot tougher.

Then the 9th hole is only semi-reachable where with a good drive it was reachable a lot of the times. It's not easy now because there's two holes that you could count on two good chances at birdie there, which isn't the case anymore.

Q. The rough and the firmness of the greens, are they more penal, too, than in past year?

CHARLES HOWELL III: The rough is definitely more penal, no question about it. The firmness of the greens, the greens are firm. They haven't gotten as hard as I thought they would have gotten as of yet, but I can foresee tomorrow and Sunday, if no rain, they'll get fairly firm, yes.

Q. What have you done to turn your thing around and start playing better lately?

CHARLES HOWELL III: You know, the weird thing is nothing. David and I have spent the last four months working on the exact same thing in my golf swing.

Q. Which is?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Obviously I'm always looking to quiet my lower body. The way I'm built and the way I generate speed, I have a lot of torque. Where it can be a blessing, it can also be a curse. I've worked very hard on that, and it's the same thing we've worked on now for about four months.

Other than that, I've spent the vast majority of my time on the short game, the putting and chipping of it. I'd say that that's the one part of my game that seems to have been living and dying on that to be fair.

You know, I haven't seen huge variances in my ball-striking, but variances in my short game seem to affect my score a lot more, and we spend a tremendous amount of time on that.

Q. You talked about winning and how winning is everything out here. Can you talk about the burden and expectations that people expect you to win and win a lot out here?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Yeah. You know, it's almost -- if could you take Tiger completely out of the picture, and if he were to have never come along and do what he did, I think expectations would have been a little different for a lot of the young players, but I think Tiger coming and doing the incredible at such a young age, then you start looking for the next one and the next one and the next one, and in saying that, I think expectations are confidence. If no one has an expectation that I'm going to play any good, then they don't think I'm any good. They don't think I'm worth a darn. I take that as compliments. I would love to live up to it. I'm doing all I can. But you see a lot of the young players out here are kind of caught trying to get over the hurdle of winning a lot of golf tournaments.

In 2002 I think everyone had written off all the older players and said with 18 first-time winners, here are the young guys, and obviously that made Vijay upset and he proceeded to win a ton. They kind of went the other direction now.

I think there's a lot of expectation of the younger players. I think they're well warranted, but I think there's something to be said for some experience, for learning your own recipe to play well that the older players know.

Q. Just continuing with that, with you and Adam shooting it out last week, Adam has two wins, Sergio has two, do you feel like your generation is starting to get over that hurdle this season?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Yeah, I think so. Obviously Adam winning The Players Championship was a big boost for every young player. As much as it was for him, it was a boost for a lot of young guys because they say if he can win, then I can win, and that's such a large event.

Yeah, sure. I think obviously Sergio has been a good player and a solid player for a long time.

I think more so Adam winning The Players Championship was a big boost for a lot of young players.

Q. What did you think at The Players Championship this year, Johnny Miller has been in the news a lot and was candid with you at The Players. He said something to the effect if I was Charles' mentor I would only work on little finesse half shots and he needs to get that done. Were you offended or was he right?

CHARLES HOWELL III: I think I take it a little bit of both ways. First of all, Johnny likes to shoot from the hip. I saw him on Golf Talk Live the other night trying to give Tiger a lesson. That was rather humorous. But on the flipside of it, a lot of what he says is right.

Yes, a very large part of my focus is working on three-quarter-type shots, is working on those shots, sure. For my whole life I've played hitting it hard. Yeah, there's no question about that.

On the other side of it, Johnny doesn't always know what club I'm hitting out there. He doesn't always know what club everybody is hitting and he doesn't know the shot that they're trying to play, either.

So I think from his position in the booth, he isn't really in a position to criticize. When I'm home taking weeks off, I win every week. I mean, I could have hit that shot and that's easy, and that's just really easy to do.

When I take a guy like a Johnny Miller, I just try to take whatever out of it that can improve me and forget the rest.

Q. That's what I meant was, forget about Johnny, is that your main focus, the little finesse stuff?

CHARLES HOWELL III: It's a very big focus, sure, and that also gets back to, though, if I quiet my lower body, I have more time to hit those shots. If my body is racing away from me and I'm trying to hit a three-quarter shot I'm going to hit it straight right because it can't catch up. So a lot of the focus that Lead and I have had on my golf game has been the ability to quiet the lower body, so I'm able to do that, thus hit draws, cuts, hit different shots, versus just one shot, a high hard one.

Q. One last lower body question. Does it race away from you on the downswing?

CHARLES HOWELL III: More or less it is -- at the start of my downswing, starting too much laterally and not enough rotary. In essence it's my left hip outraces my left knee when I start down, versus the downswing starting with the left knee and then the left hip. So it's a sequence problem. It enables me to hit it far at times, but it also allows me to get off with it, yes.

Q. So do you like Johnny going off on those tangents like that? Would you do it that way if you were in the booth?

CHARLES HOWELL III: You know, no, I like Johnny Miller. I don't mean to say I don't like him. I like him a lot. I think a lot of what he has to say is good. I also think it's fun for the average viewer at home to watch it.

You know, but I also think Johnny has to realize the difficulty it is to play golf and to play golf -- it's not easy, and everybody is out here grinding and doing their best. I think some of his criticism, especially his criticism of Tiger, I mean, it's humorous.

I like his style and I like the way he does things, but do I think he goes overboard at times, sure, no doubt about it.

Q. Let me ask you about Tiger's cut streak. Does it get the credit that it deserves? Can you even fathom what he's done as far as that?

CHARLES HOWELL III: No, I can't fathom his cut streak, no. You would think surely he would get a bad side of the draw and get really bad weather one day. I mean, that's going through British Opens, it's going through U.S. Opens, Masterses. You would think surely there would come a situation where he was so far against the wall that it would be near impossible, and the guy finds a way to do it. I honestly think he can tie one of his hands behind his back and make him play left-handed and he would still make the cut. He just has an incredible knack of just getting it done. Arguably one of the best of any sport, not just golf. The guy is incredible.

TODD BUDNICK: Let's go through your card, Charles. Birdie on No. 5.

CHARLES HOWELL III: Yeah, the 5th hole I hit a drive and a 6-iron to ten feet and holed that for birdie.

9th hole, par 5, I hit a driver and a 5-wood in the front bunker, bunker shot to about three feet and made that for birdie.

The 10th hole, I missed the fairway, missed the green, ended up -- I had a par putt from about 25 feet, missed that, bogey.

The 11th hole, drive and a 5-wood just over the green in the back bunker, bunker shot to about six feet, made that for birdie.

14, the par 3, I hit a 6-iron to about one inch, almost went in, and made birdie there.

15, the par 5, drive and a 5-iron to about 15 feet beyond the hole, two-putt birdie there.

Q. How long have you carried a 5-wood?

CHARLES HOWELL III: I put a 5-wood in earlier this year, and it's been a really good club because I have so many yardages in the par 5s it seems that are between 235 and 250, and when the greens get harder, it's just a lot easier to hit a 5-wood straight up in the air to hold the green than it would be a 2-iron, especially if the lie is a little bit iffy.

Q. Is that when you took out the 2-iron?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Yes, I did. I saw Vijay carries a club like that, Jesper carries a club like that. There's a lot of guys going towards that, and it makes the par 5s a whole lot easier.

Q. Is it a hybrid club?

CHARLES HOWELL III: No, it's a Callaway regular 5-wood, not a hybrid.

Q. At Kapalua, Freddie had a 5-wood and some guys were making fun of him. Anybody tease you about using a 5-wood?

CHARLES HOWELL III: No, I'll refer him to a Vijay or a Jesper. If you look in a lot of guys' bags there's more in there than you think, and it just makes sense. As far as the balls go now, we're able to hit our 3-irons so far now that, yeah, there's really no -- obviously like Tiger who has a great ability to hit his long irons extremely high, but for a lot of guys I think it's great.

Q. Didn't Vijay carry a 7-wood at certain times this year?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Yeah, it was either a 7 or a 9.

Q. I have a question about your clothes. Pretty subdued tones. Do you miss at all the attention that the Lindeberg clothes gave you?

CHARLES HOWELL III: My Lindeberg contract came up at the end of last year, and as part of my Callaway extension I was going to wear the Callaway apparel. I was lucky enough that it came along -- this is actually the Japanese license for Callaway, so this isn't the stuff in America made by Ashworth. It's a company called Sanei. They're actually a very large clothing company. They've actually fit the clothing for me so it's not really a size. It just comes fit for me. I like it. It's a bit different.

There's a lot of guys wearing Lindeberg stuff now. It doesn't have the individual appeal that it used to. It used to be just myself and Jesper and Aaron Baddeley. Now there's a lot more guys wearing it, which is great, but as far as the individuality, it's kind of lost that appeal.

Q. Not as many comments from the gallery?

CHARLES HOWELL III: No, which actually, I guess, isn't a bad thing.

Q. You're not exactly baggy yet, though.

CHARLES HOWELL III: No, and quite honestly, I guess I'm not big enough to be baggy. It just fits me.

Q. You were baggy at the Presidents Cup.

CHARLES HOWELL III: Yeah, I was, I looked huge. If a big wind gust came, I might have floated up. I could have gotten three pair out of that one.

TODD BUDNICK: Thanks, Charles.

End of FastScripts.

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