THE TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY COCA-COLA

November 3, 2002

Charles Howell III

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Great way to end the season. You ought to be very happy with the end of the year and your performance today.

CHARLES HOWELL III: Yeah, well, it has been a good year, obviously. My first and most important goal was to make it to this tournament and I did.

You know, with that being done -- and I won a tournament which was right up there in importance with that. To give it a run here to, win this tournament, it's been fun. You know, I hope I have many more years like this one.

Q. It seemed like every time you threw a little scare -- like the par 5 on the back, you knocked it on, he knocked it on?

CHARLES HOWELL III: You're exactly right. It seemed like every time I hit a good shot, especially on the back nine, he was right there to answer it. I had quite a few putts there on the front side where if I could have made them, it would have changed things. I had good birdie putts on 1, 2 and 3 and I thought those holes were very important and I was not able to make any of those especially with him bogeying the first hole. Other than that, he played a heck of a round today.

Q. When you start a round three shots back of a guy like Vijay, did you really want to make some kind of move on the front nine, and was starting at 12 just a little bit too late?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Oh, yeah, no doubt I had to do something in the first four or five holes. And I think even probably he would tell you that, if you're ever going to catch someone from three behind, I mean granted, things can change. I figure the first three, four, five holes were done and I thought the last three holes could also change.

Those holes there are tough, so I thought if I could at least be all-square with three to go, I would have a good chance at it. Obviously it didn't start until No. 12, what I was anticipating doing, but it was just a little late.

Q. You shot 66 -- is this part of your continued emergence, or do you walk away from this final round experience with bittersweet feelings?

CHARLES HOWELL III: You know, I think a little bit of both. It's definitely been -- the end of the year here has been great for me. You know, one of the big reasons for that is my caddie, Brendan McCartain, I cannot thank him enough. He's been a huge, huge help to me. That, and work on the short game has definitely been a big change and those are all things that I need to keep working on.

So, you know, bittersweetness, I would have loved to have won the golf tournament, to get that close to a TOUR Championship. But on the other hand, what can I say, if you can't win, you want to finish second. Vijay played a heck of a round. It would have taken a 63 to beat him and that's a hard score to come by.

Q. Is it fair to say that you struggled last year with your putting, does Brendan read putts for you?

CHARLES HOWELL III: He is a phenomenal green reader. He does a great job with that. I've always read greens with caddies in the past but he has a knack for it. He's really good at it. We have a lot of putting contests against each other. He watched me putt a lot so he understands the speed I hit it at. Yeah, he's a great green reader and he's definitely been a help in that, yes.

Q. Given you were in the last group for the first time, were you more or less nervous than you thought you might be, how might have that manifested itself when you were out there?

CHARLES HOWELL III: I was a lot less nervous than I thought I would be. In fact, I was not hardly nervous at all which was unusual. I was more nervous on Thursday than today.

I think that actually helped me quite a lot. I can't prove that by the way I played the front nine, but it certainly helped me. You would think I would be nervous and shoot 1-over on the front nine, but actually I wasn't.

Vijay was great to play with, though. I probably would have been more nervous playing with Phil or Tiger than with Vijay because Vijay and I know each other pretty well. We've known each other for a while. He's very, very laid back and loose.

I could not have picked a better person to play with.

Q. If I might, you're fearless. Did you go out there and in your mind, number one, think, "I can put pressure on Vijay." You were the only one playing with him. He doesn't seem to bend to pressure, if I might, and secondly, your confidence level has got to be sky high as you look forward to next year.

CHARLES HOWELL III: Well, before the round started, I was talking with Brendan and all of the things that Vijay has done, he's obviously won a Masters, which is what I want to do more than anything in the world. He's been there a lot of times. He's had a phenomenal career.

I knew that he wasn't going to back down at all. He's just way too good of a player. And really, no one in this field in his position would I expect to back down at all.

You know with, that said, I felt like I had nothing to lose today. However I played today I don't think it would have put a bad tint on anything. I went out there with a totally different mindset than him. I think he's lost this tournament twice on Sunday going in the last group, so, no, I had a totally different mindset than him. I had nothing to lose.

Q. What about your confidence level now?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Well, obviously it's higher than it has been. There's no question about that. For a comparison, low point of the year had to be around the time of Byron Nelson and Colonial when I missed those two cuts in a row and then obviously, now it is the highest. I've got two more tournaments coming up in the next few weeks time, and practice and then start off next year.

Q. A month ago you were outside the top 40 and you may finish in the Top-10 on the Money List. How much confidence and momentum does this give you going into the 2003 season?

CHARLES HOWELL III: It actually has not even sunk in to be quite honest. I started off, when I went to the Texas Open my plan was to play the last five tournaments in a row. I was 37 on the Money List going into that event and now my plan was to try to stay inside the top 40, at least for the Masters and possibly get in the top 30.

So, from those goals, which were very good goals to be set at that time, to come to where I have been now, is leaps and bounds, and obviously, it really has not even sunk in to be quite honest.

Q. Have you ever been to Japan before?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Never been to Japan but I bought my two little books for the translation words here and there. So I can say hello and good-bye, and I don't like sushi, so it's not boding very well for that. (Laughter.)

Q. Final tournament of the year, first time you're in the final group, Tiger and Phil are in front you, do you feel like this is exactly the element you expected to be in all along and where you will try to stay?

CHARLES HOWELL III: No, today is what I have dreamed of forever. Apart from walking up the 18th green here and winning, this is all I could ever ask for, to play the last group of a TOUR Championship, with Tiger and Phil Mickelson right in front of me and alongside Vijay, I could not ask for anything more.

I could have keeled over dead on the 18th green and died a happy man. It doesn't get any better than that for me.

To play among those people, I've never looked at other people like that in a jealous sense or in a sense of rivalry; they are all great players. As much as I want to beat them, I am also a fan of golf. I was there doing my best on the back nine to rattle or beat Vijay but then again, I got to watch him win the tournament, as well.

I could have keeled over and died and died happy.

Q. You were quoted as saying Nick Price is one of your best friends on TOUR. What if any influence has he had on you?

CHARLES HOWELL III: I started working with David Leadbetter when I was ten years old in Orlando. Back then he was at Lake Nona and I remember hitting balls out there when I was 10, 11, 12 years old and Nick Price would be out there pretty much all day, every day practicing. He was always very nice. Obviously at that time I was very intimidated by him, no question about it.

But he's always been a good friend and our friendship has not changed at all from then until now. We played a practice round together here on Wednesday and he still has a fatherly-like influence on me, in a sense. If you want to take a Mark O'Meara and a Tiger Woods, he's almost like a Nick Price to me, in a sense of a word. He's obviously not that hands-on as Mark is with Tiger, obviously, but we have that kind of relationship. As much as he was playing his practice round, he was teaching and helping me and "here, try this shot, hit this shot, do this, do that."

And he's also been a big influence on David Leadbetter as well as far as giving him thoughts and feedback. Yeah, Nick has been -- I could call him and ask him anything.

Q. How did you come across Brendan, who did he work for previously?

CHARLES HOWELL III: He worked for Jose Maria Olazabal for 3 1/2 years. They won the '99 Masters together.

After that he worked for Jose Coceres, and obviously, he was not with Coceres when he won at Hilton Head but he was when he won Disney. So he worked with him, we were paired together at the Masters this year with Brendan and Coceres and that's actually the first time I had ever met him. But we obviously played together, talked there and after the tournament was over, he had asked me, you know, was I interested in a caddie and so forth and so on. We started at the John Deere classic, was the first event we had together. He still lives in London. He's obviously making a sacrifice to be over here in the United States. He has a five and a two-year old kid. But they came over last week or the week before to Disney World and they stayed last week in Orlando for a vacation.

I owe him a lot.

Q. Is he a native Brit?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Yes, he's got the accent that makes him sound intelligent. (Laughter.)

Q. Vijay is known as one of the hardest workers on TOUR and I gather you're getting that reputation for hard work. Could you discuss if you guys ever talk about how hard you practice on your game and how much you think hard work helps in situations like today?

CHARLES HOWELL III: You know, I've always thought that if it was just hard work, anybody could do it.

For example, I could go work out for eight hours a day for the rest of my life and I could not make it past one play in a football game. I would get broken in half. Hard work won't work that way.

But hard work has always made me feel like I deserve something. If I tee it up on Thursday, I want to know that I've done everything that I could possibly do to make myself play well, and it makes me feel better, in a sense. I've always enjoyed practicing. I would rather go hit a bucket of range balls than go to a movie. That's what makes me happy so that's different that way.

Other players that don't practice as much as I do, it doesn't take anything away from them, they may not enjoy it as much as I do or they may enjoy doing other things. I have not branched out into the hobbies of fishing or collecting or whatever else. Pretty one-dimensional.

Q. How much do you work in a week or a day?

CHARLES HOWELL III: I don't know exactly. I know that the first time I had ever taken more than one day off was this year, the week before the U.S. Open. David Leadbetter told me if I didn't go to the Bahamas for three days without my golf clubs that's would take the clubs away and lock them up. So I went to the Bahamas for three days and that was the first day I had ever taken more than one day off in my life. That felt odd. I was going into spasms about that third day. (Laughter.)

But I'm trying to pace myself better. I do want to play this game for 25 years. I don't want to be locked up in a rubber room too shortly. Golf has a way of driving us all mad eventually. I'm sure I'm on that path, as well.

I just have always enjoyed working hard. And David has always encouraged that, as well.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Can we go through your card.

CHARLES HOWELL III: No. 4, I hit a tee shot in the right rough. Second shot in the left bunker and bogeyed that hole. I never scared par.

The 12th hole was a driver and a lob-wedge to 15 feet, birdie.

13 was a driver and a sand wedge in the hole.

15 was a 3-wood, 3-iron to 18 feet for eagle. Missed that, 2-putted.

17 was driver, 8-iron to four feet and birdie.

Q. What was the yardage on the sand wedge on 13?

CHARLES HOWELL III: 115 yards. The last thing Brendan said there was, "You've got a perfect yardage for a sand wedge, you might as well hit it at the flag." I guess I listened to him once in awhile.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you, Charles.

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