home

jobs

	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

BOOZ ALLEN CLASSIC

June 24, 2004

Charles Howell III

POTOMAC, MARYLAND

CHARLES HOWELL III: I shot 13 over on Sunday and 10 under today, so that's a big swing.

Yeah, I don't reckon I've ever had a 23 shot swing in two rounds of golf. Michael Clark, my next door neighbor in Orlando, shot I believe it was 81 62 the first two days at FedEx, although it was not the same tournament. I clipped him.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Billy Mayfair did the same thing today, 89 66.

Have you ever had eight 3s in a row? That was pretty impressive. That must have been a lot of fun to put on that card.

CHARLES HOWELL III: I don't think I've had eight 3s in a row on a normal golf course, no. This is my low round not only as a professional, but ever in competition. I had a 62 at the Sony Open a couple of years back but that was an 8 under but that was a par 70.

It was a good day. It was one of those funny days where everything tends to work your way, and the best that you can do is get out of the way and just let it continue to happen. Some people call it a zone or flow. But yeah it's just one of those things that starts to happen for whatever reason, and the best you can do is just keep going.

Q. Do you almost feel like it's an out of body experience at some point, almost spectating like you just can't believe that everything keeps pouring in?

CHARLES HOWELL III: No, of course it is. It's very strange. The best way to describe it is you get a feeling that you can do nothing wrong, and it's just a feeling that no matter what you ultimately are deciding to do, with any shot, with a putt, the way you see it breaking, no matter what happens, you have a feeling and a knowing inside of you that you can't do anything wrong. And that's really the best way I can describe it is that you just know that if you've read the putt, you've read it right, it's going to work out.

And how to recreate that feeling, obviously is the $64,000 question. But it sure is fun when it does happen.

Q. Some of us watched you struggle, not you personally, but the group at Shinnecock; what was that like? Do you then feel every decision is wrong?

CHARLES HOWELL III: You know, at Shinnecock, to be fair, I played well on Thursday Friday and Saturday, and on Sunday. The very rare thing on Sunday is what they got of all the starting to play golf and dreaming to win a major championship, dreaming to win a really big event on that stage, a U.S. Open, I never ever in my wildest dreams thought a Sunday round, teeing off at two o'clock was going to turn laughable. And I thought the USGA did a poor job of setting the golf course up on that Sunday.

And the ultimate end feeling of that was disappointment in the fact that and I think I can speak to other players who felt they were actually playing very well, and I'm not saying that I had a chance to win the golf tournament. I was lying 13th going into Sunday, at 3 over par, but a chance to do really well and to get up into whatever it might be, let's say the Top 5, as it turned out being setup, it was laughable. So Thursday, Friday, Saturday, were fine.

Q. Inaudible?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Clearly it was the greens. The golf course being firm and fast, that's understandable. I've only played one British Open. I'm sure some British Opens even get firmer and faster than that. The ball bouncing up to the green, that's fine. That's golf a lot of places. But the way the greens were was just shocking.

To see Ernie Els, the No. 2 player in the world had he won Sunday, he would have become the No. 1 player in the world; I believe that's right. And so what a huge day it was for him. I mean, that's a feat people have claimed undoable, for two years they were saying at one point in time to catch Tiger. And now this guy has a chance to do it, and that course he would love to play. So if anybody would be the most gutted and upset, it should be Ernie, as well as he's played.

But no, the only thing that went wrong on Sunday there were the greens. The seventh hole, the 10th hole, the 11th hole, you can just keep going, the eighth hole where that flag was put, just unbelievable. I mean, I guess Tom Meeks wants to go out with a bang this year and next year. It was unbelievable.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about the conditions today? There were a lot of low, low scores today, as opposed to last week at Shinnecock. Can you talk about the overall conditions?

CHARLES HOWELL III: I've played here a few years now, and this is the best shape this golf course has ever been in. I don't know if that had to do with a little later date on the schedule, but the greens are the best I've ever seen them. They are a little bit soft because of the rain we've had, but as we went on today, some of them are actually getting a little bit bouncy. So with no rain, the greens are going to firm up a little bit, but the golf course is the best shape I've seen it in my short few years here, and it's great.

Q. What is your mindset when you see a 7 or 8 under going up on the board, knowing coming from a U.S. Open, especially the last days where you're not seeing that, do you have to start playing more aggressively again and getting into that whole mindset?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Yeah, I think you do because a U.S. Open and I guess any major for that matter, it puts such a huge premium on par that you're grinding and you're trying to gut things out for par, trying to make pars. All of a sudden now you come to this event, I'm not sure where even par is sitting right now, but it's just totally different. I t was shown again last week; if you'd have made 72 pars, I think would you have finished third.

So your premium and your focus goes from par to another time especially last week, Sunday you're not able to aim at the flag on a 40 yard chip shot. Here you're going at flags with a 4 iron. It's a very big, big difference in mindset on that.

Q. When your tee ball at 9 was in the air, did you think it would be closer to the pin than it was?

CHARLES HOWELL III: I did. Actually that's probably the toughest flag on that green all the way back. I was actually playing to finish this, about five yards short of the flag and I actually thought that I got I thought it was going to finish a bit closer than that seeing it in the air. But any ball on that green is good, any ball. That green doesn't look very big from up on top of that hill.

Q. Did you give any thought to 59?

CHARLES HOWELL III: It's funny you mention that. I thought walking off the eighth green, it flashed in my head. This course was a par 71 versus 72, and then that inevitably popped in my head. But then you take a look at how small that green looks from the top of that hill and that thought is fleeting and you just hit the ball on the green and just hit a putt at it.

Q. Obviously none of us can come close to 61, when you do something like that, does it have to be just an insane putting day or was it a ball striking and putting or was it just does the hole look like a manhole to you?

CHARLES HOWELL III: It's strange, because the fun part about golf is hitting good shots. It's hitting it's being able to hit a high cut when you want to. It's being able to hit a draw when you want to. It's all of the neat things that you're able to do with the ball when you're playing well.

But the thing that ultimately decides winners and not winners is the putter. I thought that I was paired with Retief last week on Thursday and Friday, and he putted phenomenal and obviously it continued on the weekend. You could arguably say that Retief did not hit the ball the best last week, but he definitely putted the best.

You saw Ernie at Memorial have 100 putts and he wins there. It's unbelievable that it always comes down to the putter. And that's not a discredit to any other part of the game, but the chipping and definitely the putter, because you know very easily there, I could have not made the birdie putts I had on 8 and 7 because, those are not tap ins obviously. And I don't make the eagle putt on the sixth hole and I 2 putt and now I'm out of those holes 1 under instead; and a shot is only as good as a good putt. That's probably the best way I can put it. It always seems to come down to that club.

Q. Is this your best putting day ever?

CHARLES HOWELL III: No, it's definitely my best putting day, sure, no question about it. I can say that comfortably.

You know, the mindset of the putting changed a bit today as well, because on Sunday at Shinnecock, it forces you to putt very defensively, and very conservatively. On Sunday at Shinnecock I 3 putted six times and 4 putted one. And holed two 15 footers for 3 putts; yeah, so a 3 putt. So I could have very easily 3 putted four times. A friend of mine, Bo Van Pelt, told me he 6 putted the fourth green. So when you see that and that happens, it makes you so defensive in your putting that you're trying not to 3 putt or you're trying to not to knock a ball six or eight feet by, versus today, I was able it was like I was much more aggressive with the putter. I was able to try to hole a putt and try to get a putt to the hole versus having to putt very defensively and whatnot.

Q. Do you think it is a good idea to play the week after

CHARLES HOWELL III: You know I think it's a great idea to play the week after that. I definitely would not want to go home and think about that any longer. The Sunday night flying down here and Monday was enough.

Yeah, I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to do it, just to forget about it.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Why don't we go over your round.

CHARLES HOWELL III: Well, the 10th hole, I teed off on 10. I hit a sand wedge to about foyer feet and made birdie.

The 11th hole, I hit a pitching wedge to about 15 feet and holed that for birdie.

The 12th hole, I made bogey. I missed the fairway on 12. I couldn't reach the green. I had about a 15 footer for par there and I missed that.

13, I knocked it on in two with a 4 iron to probably 40 feet and 2 putt birdie.

14, I holed a putt for birdie from about 25 feet.

15, I missed the green in regulation and I did not get up and down. Had about a 10 footer for par and I missed that one.

So my first par of the day was on No. 16. So I played the first six holes with no pars. Similar to what I did at Shinnecock except I didn't make any birdies. And then number let's see here, my next birdie came on I hit the green there and 2 putted from about 20 feet there.

And then the 6th hole, the par 5, I hit a driver and a 5 wood to about 15 feet and made that for eagle for 3.

No. 4, I hit a 9 iron to about ten feet. Made that for birdie.

No. 5, a sand wedge to about five feet. Made that for birdie.

No. 6, the par 5, I hit a 5 iron to about 15 feet and holed that for eagle.

No. 7, a 6 iron to 30 feet. Holed that for birdie.

No. 8, an 8 iron to 20 feet. Holed that for birdie.

And I 2 putted the ninth green from roughly 30 feet, I would say.

Q. Talk about coming back from the bogeys and how you recovered .

CHARLES HOWELL III: It was an odd feeling starting off birdieing the first two holes. That was the first time I had been under par in a few days, and it was actually nice to get off to that start, just to calm down a bit, to kind of get in the momentum and get in the rhythm of the round.

Obviously, I had seen the leaderboards and seen that Rich Beem had shot 7 under, so it's important to get off to a good start when you see that. You know that some guys are making birdies and you know that the wind is not blowing today. So we had a good draw in the afternoon by having no wind or very little wind. And then like you said, my first putt didn't come till 16, so it was quite nice to make that par there to get things settled down a little bit.

Q. Can you imagine calling somebody and telling them you had two bogeys and still shot 61?

CHARLES HOWELL III: No, it's just golf. You know, my year so far has been average at best. You know, probably would say arguably the one tournament I had a chance to win was in New Orleans. I finished ninth at FedEx but never really challenged there. I've had an average year. But I felt that I've been playing well, I just haven't gotten the scores out of it. It was nice it see the other side come out today of the scoring side of it. Not every day are you going to hole 130 feet of putts, obviously, but at the same time it's nice to see a bit of the practice and the persistence and whatnot pay off.

Q. You're known as a fantastic ball striker who has struggled from time to time with the blade, is there anything that you did differently, is there anything technically you did differently?

CHARLES HOWELL III: You know, absolutely nothing, no. And I wish there was something I could say, oh, I did do differently, but no, I didn't.

David Leadbetter, obviously we spend a tremendous amount of time together. He stayed with me last week. We rented a house together. We stayed together and we worked very hard at it. We're always working hard at it and fortunately today, it clicked and it turned around.

But no, nothing different at all. I'm always working on the rhythm of my stroke, the pace of the putts. That's no secret. That's nothing new. But no, I wish I could say something different, but I can't that's the idea, but the thing with this game is not to get ahead of yourself. It's not to play Sunday's round on Thursday.

One thing I think I'm getting better at is staying where I am and staying in the present. Too many times I've felt I've hurt myself by looking too far in advance and looking too far forward. A great example of that came at the L.A. Open, the Nissan, when Mike Weir came from a few behind me and he ended up beating me in a playoff in 2003 there. It was a good learning experience there in just staying where you are, today.

And then I'll go play tomorrow's round as hard as I can and see where that takes me and that's the best I can do and not looking forward into the future.

Q. Do you know what your lowest score was before?

CHARLES HOWELL III: The 62 is the Sony Open in the par, but it was a par 70; that was 8 under.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Is that the lowest score since you've turned professional? When you were in college, did you shoot that?

CHARLES HOWELL III: No. This is my low score ever in competition.

Q. Is this how you felt at the NCAA Tournament?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Yeah, it's funny you bring that up because it was a bit, actually. It was very similar to that; yes, it was. I still probably contend that that is the best week of golf that I've played. Although I feel like I'm a much better player and a much wiser player today than I was then. I still didn't feel like I've played that good for four days maybe I need to fly Coach Holder and have him out there with me. It's funny, I still would say that it the best four days of golf I've played and so was today.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you for joining us.

End of FastScripts.

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297