MICHELOB CHAMPIONSHIP AT KINGSMILL

October 4, 2002

Charles Howell III

Q. What is the designer line that you wear?

CHARLES HOWELL III: J. Lindeberg, his name is Johan Lindeberg. He has a fashion line, and this line is called the on-course line. He does a lot of fashion stuff, as well. I think fashion week in New York, it was either last week or the week before, he was rated as one of the best new designers.

Q. You hooked with them, what, two years ago?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Actually the first time I wore the clothes full-time was this week last year, so it's been a year this week. I played with Jesper last week at the Texas Open, which was the week before this, on Sunday, and he spoke with me about the clothing, and on Tuesday a box came here, and I signed with them later on in the off-season.

Q. Does it help to be built like Jesper to wear this stuff?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Probably so. Actually he makes all sizes. I know that my waist is a 30, but in his clothes I'm a 32, so it makes me feel a little bigger.

Q. He's not designing the shoes? You even get a little funky with the shoes.

CHARLES HOWELL III: These are Nike shoes. He has some prototype shoes coming out but I haven't seen them.

Q. We still see a lot of laces and then you're wearing the zip-ups. It looks like a little Michael Jordan action there.

CHARLES HOWELL III: This is a little different. This is pretty different for Nike.

Q. Is it just a habit that when you're young you dress young?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Well, I think to the average person or the average fan, they don't know between -- a lot of golfers. Obviously they know who Tiger Woods in and they know Phil Mickelson and David Duval, but apart from a select few, the average fan doesn't really know one from the other, but maybe if I figured I would do something a little different and dress differently, I know Jesper has done it for his different clothing and his hat bill flipped up, so you have people's different things. So hopefully I think through that you might reach a few more people out there. That's the reason I do it. I enjoy wearing the clothing because it fits me well, but I think I could tailor anything to fit a certain way, but the clothing is done for that reason. I think maybe to differentiate from the everyday khaki pants and white shirt.

Q. We'll get to talking about golf in a second.

CHARLES HOWELL III: That's fine.

Q. Are you and Jesper the only guys wearing the Lindeberg line?

CHARLES HOWELL III: On the U.S. tour. There's a few guys on the European Tour and I don't know who they are, a couple other guys, and I believe there's Pearlson (ph) on the LPGA Tour is wearing it, and other than that I don't think there's anyone else.

Q. Did you kind of anticipate shooting 65 yesterday? I mean, this course seems to set up pretty well for you at times.

CHARLES HOWELL III: You know, I like the golf course a lot. It fits my eye well. I played well here last year. You know, I like the golf course a lot. I don't think there's one bad hole on the golf course. The rough is up this year, which is different from last year. Apart from the majors this has some of the deepest rough I think I've played all year, and I've played a fair amount of tournaments. The greens aren't quite as good as they were last year, but they're still rolling fine. The fairways are perfect, as always, so I enjoy playing here.

Q. Did you kind of feel like you should have come out of the box a little quicker yesterday?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Yeah, I didn't play very well yesterday. I never really got anything going. The golf course played pretty easy yesterday afternoon I thought. I thought that it was definitely out there if I would have played a little better, but I didn't play well. Obviously this morning I wanted to get off to a good start, and fortunately I was able to do that and keep going.

Q. Loren said the holes were in more difficult places today then they were yesterday, and if you look at the scores you're one of the only ones to really shoot a number out here today.

CHARLES HOWELL III: I would agree with that. I thought the holes were a little bit more difficult today. I think I had the advantage of playing early. I think I played the first eight or nine holes with not a breath of wind, and that makes a huge difference. A few of the greens that got firm in the afternoon got soft, especially some of the holes on the back nine which can be pretty tough with wind, so I would say the pins were playing a little bit easier conditions this morning.

Q. Charles, you're 37th on the money list. Obviously TOUR Championship was one of your goals at the beginning of the year. You plan on, I think, playing the rest of the way, as well, so a good week would help you here, but you still have some time.

CHARLES HOWELL III: I'm going to play the rest of the year out. THE TOUR Championship was one of my main goals starting the year off. I came close. I seem to have been hot and cold this year versus I would have liked to have played a little more consistently. I got off to a really good start at the beginning of the year but I was kind of flat there towards the middle apart from playing a couple of the majors. Hopefully I can get a strong finish here. I played last week which starts the run of everything coming in, so we'll see. Then I'm going to play a couple events overseas in the off soon, as well.

Q. Do you get tired?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Not at this age, no. I will someday. No, I don't, and in fact, when I go home I practice hard. I don't quite yet see if I'm going to go home and play golf, I might as well stay out here and play tournaments. I'm sure in a few years I'm going to sing a totally different song than that. But I'm 23 and I don't see a reason not to play 28, 30 events a year right now. Heck, I mean, to play golf on the PGA TOUR, I've dreamed about this for so long that I want to play every week. I have a wife that keeps me from playing every single week, but no, I play a lot.

Q. I shouldn't say concerned, but I guess are you a bit disappointed that you haven't been able to break through yet?

CHARLES HOWELL III: A little bit, yeah. It wouldn't be fair to say it if I wasn't, so I am a little bit. You know, I was very proud of myself last year to play through the seven events and able to get a Tour card, and once that was through, a lot of pressure was lifted off of me to go play and just go try to play for the win or play with nothing to lose. This year I was able to earn enough money early in the year to be safe for the rest of this year and next year, so with that taking the pressure off I would have thought I would have maybe won a tournament by now. It hasn't been a pressure issue. I haven't been -- as far as having to worry about making money or worry about earning a card, so everything would point to I should have by now, and I just haven't been able to. You know, Reno is kind of the same thing. I've been able to put a few rounds together but not four, and hopefully I'll get a couple good ones here on the weekend. I've definitely been close enough times.

Q. Coming into the season what was your thought process? What did you want to try to accomplish?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Well, my No. 1 goal was to finish top three on the money list, and then the No. 2 goal right there with it was to win a turning amount. Anything apart from that was to play well in the majors. I played through the four. I missed out on the British by one spot in the world ranking. I was pleased with how I played in the first Masters being from Augusta. I'm close on the Top 30 but I haven't won yet.

TODD BUDNICK: We'll just go through your card then. The birdies at 11 and 12.

CHARLES HOWELL III: Yeah, 11 I hit 3-wood, 9-iron to five feet.

12, 3-wood and L wedge to maybe 15 feet.

15, missed the fairway to the right off the tee, laid up and then an L wedge to about four or five feet there.

16, I hit a good drive and a pitching wedge to about eight feet, birdied there.

And then 3, the par 5, a driver and a 5-iron in the right bunker, up and down, birdie there.

4, 3-wood, 8-iron to 15 feet, birdied there, bogied the next hole, hit a terrible 6-iron in the left bunker, didn't get up and down.

Then the par 5, No. 7, driver and a 4-iron just over the green, up and down birdie, and then parred the last two.

Q. Sounds like you haven't even really made any big putts?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Not really. I made a few in the range of the 8- to 12-foot area, which I've been struggling in. I felt I putted my short putts pretty good, and with the pins tucked as close to the edges out here as they are, it's so important in the range that if I said 8 to 15, 16 feet, in there, and I've started to make a couple of those, which has been good. You can't go at every flag out here. I've learned it's not college golf anymore. Making that length putt is pretty important.

Q. One last question. Your short game I think at the beginning of the year around Masters time was not exactly where you wanted it. I know you worked really hard on it. What did you do to turn that around and have you in your own mind turn that around?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Yes, I have turned it around. I've experimented with a lot of different wedges as far as they're all the Callaway forged wedges but different grinds and different balances and all that. I'm actually using a wedge now with no balance at all in it and a 60-degree which is different. I didn't think I would have liked it at all, and I love it. Overall I've just tried to put more feel into my short game. I've always been very mechanical. I've loved the golf swing. I've worked with David Leadbetter for ten years now, ten, eleven years, so every time I've done anything wrong I've looked for like a mechanical reason why, I hit the shot right or left because of this or this, and I tried that with the short game and it just didn't work.

We'd look at guys with great short games like Sergio or Tiger or Ernie, and you can tell that their feel is incredible. I've tried to actually go away from the mechanics and go more to the feel side of it. It's hard for me to think that way, but it's getting better.

Q. Did you work with David on that?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Oh, yeah, David a ton on it. We've spent more time on the short game than the long game in the last four or five months, which is a big change.

Q. You started working with David Leadbetter then when you were 12, 13 years old?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Actually when I was 11 I did.

Q. How does an 11-year-old get introduced to a guy like Leadbetter and become kind of one of his students?

CHARLES HOWELL III: Well, actually my dad is a pediatric surgeon and he had a southern surgical board meeting in Orlando at the time, and he called out there to get a golf lesson, and he said: Can my son have a lesson with David Leadbetter, and he said, no, David doesn't see juniors, but we're happy to set you up with an assistant. I worked with one of his assistants named Simon Holmes. I had one lesson with him, met David that afternoon, and he said if you want to keep coming down I'll have a look at you every time and start teaching you, and it kind of started from there. We drove down from Augusta I'd say at least once a month, maybe a little more when I was all throughout -- 1 throughout high school. In college I went to Oklahoma State, definitely not for the weather, and I got down to Orlando maybe once or twice a month there when it was cold, and now I live in Orlando so I get to see David quite often.

Q. Augusta to Orlando is a haul driving.

CHARLES HOWELL III: It's about seven, eight hours. I'd skip school on Friday and go down. I missed my fair days of school.

Q. It doesn't seem like it hurt you too much.

CHARLES HOWELL III: No, but David has been great, though. We've actually now become -- we've become -- we're really close and really good friends. I spend a lot of time at his house still just doing nothing and relaxing. We have many phone calls that don't even relate to golf, just hey, how are you, how's everything going, and he's such a smart individual, I don't think he realizes how smart he is. He just has a knack or a talent for teaching that's pretty incredible. You know, I'm just really lucky to have such a good relationship with someone like that.

Q. At what point when you were younger and working with him did you get to the point where you said, wow, I'm working with David Leadbetter and it's not just a smart adult guy who's helping me with my game?

CHARLES HOWELL III: I think I came to appreciate it when I saw Nick Faldo on the range a lot when I was 11, 12, 13, 14. I would actually be hitting balls six, eight feet from him, and he was one of the greatest players in the world at the time and he was winning a lot with David, and I saw his work ethic and how hard Nick worked and the time David put in there. I think by seeing that I learned a lot. When Nick was playing really, really well those years, he was working unbelievably hard. I don't think people realized how hard he was working then. I don't think he was quite hitting 1,500 balls a day like he says, but he was hitting a lot, and it was pretty impressive.

TODD BUDNICK: All right, thank you, Charles.

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