MARCONI PENNSYLVANIA CLASSIC

September 20, 2001

Charles Howell III

CHARLES HOWELL: Well, today was an interesting day. I got up at 6:30 this morning and for what I felt would be an 8:50 tee time. I played one hole, actually at 9:00, after the ten-minute delay, the first delay, and played one hole and got back out at 1:30. It didn't feel like a golf tournament today. That was the weird thing about it. I took the week of Montreal off, at the Bell Canadian Open, and thought I was going to play the next week at Tampa Bay and something happened and we didn't get to play that week. But no, it's been a couple weeks here, so it didn't really feel like a tournament. It felt kind of weird out there today. The golf course is great -- if not the best, it's one of the Top 3 courses we play all year. It's just, there's not a bad hole on it. Every hole is awesome. The condition is perfect. It's a fun golf course to play.

CHARLES HOWELL: It's getting closer, yeah. It's getting closer. I think I first did, because I turned pro early. I left college here early after the NCAAs, and with my coach's unapproval, or non-approval. So I think I got a little bit of a name because of that. Then I was 144 on last year's Money List, which I think kind of got a little bit of name because of the rules changes that thus happened after that. But I'm starting to get a name for myself by a better way, a more golfer-friendly way, so to speak. But, yeah, it's getting there.

CHARLES HOWELL: Well, I wouldn't say -- it was -- he wanted me to stay in school for another year for the team there. And I think that any time now that you leave college early is a tough decision. Now, obviously, it's not like a big deal with people turning pro in high school. Now I look like I was a master's degree student here. We had a good relationship prior to that and we were good friends. I enjoyed Stillwell. I enjoyed Oklahoma State and so forth. But he kind of knew that it was coming and I didn't tell him until Hartford when I did turn pro. He knew it was coming, but I think it caught him off guard a little bit. Now our relationship is fine, but it's been a rocky road between through and then.

CHARLES HOWELL: Mike Holder.

CHARLES HOWELL: I love it.

CHARLES HOWELL: I love it here. I always played the Sunnehanna Amateur because it was probably one of the best golf courses we played on the amateur circuit apart from the U.S. Amateur courses we played. They are well defined off the tee. You can tell where you're supposed to go. They are tree-lined. The greens are great. The greens were great at Sunnehanna. With all the rain here we got in the last couple days and today the greens were still fast. And it's just a lot of fun. I enjoy -- I played the Sunnehanna Amateur for years and I'll always keep coming back here because the golf course up here is just great. There are a lot of similarities between Sunnehanna and here which I think helped me here. As you may or may not know, I was seventh alternate here on Monday. I had just one practice round. I played nine holes Tuesday night and nine holes Wednesday morning. It has a lot of similarities to Sunnehanna and has the same kind of grass and the same type of golf course.

CHARLES HOWELL: Well, first, No. 3, the par 5, I hit a driver and a 6-iron on that hole in two. 2-putted for birdie. No. 4, driver and an 8-iron to about 15 feet made that for birdie. 6, par 5, I hit a driver and a 2-iron on the green about 15 feet. I 2-putted that for birdie. 11, I hit a driver and a 3-wood pin-high right, kind of in those trees over there and got it up-and-down for birdie. 15 I hit a 4-iron off the tee, 8-iron for my second shot to about 15 feet and made birdie there. Then I made a bogey on 16, the next hole. I 3-putted there. I thought I hit a great second shot. It was about 25 feet short and 3-putted. Then parred the last two.

CHARLES HOWELL: It definitely softened up the greens, which made it easier. You know, on this type of grass, if it gets dry at all, the ball has a tendency to bounce on it and not really stop. Today we played -- the first hole I played at nine o'clock this morning, my sand wedge released more than a 4-iron was releasing in the afternoon, and so the ball is stopping a lot quicker. Depending how much wind we get, how much it dries out, maybe it could start playing a little bit firmer tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday afternoon. But right now, the scores should be pretty low now. The ball is not going anywhere once it hits the greens and the same for the fairways. When the fairways are this soft, they become wider, so to speak, because the ball is going to stop when it hits.

CHARLES HOWELL: It didn't feel like a golf tournament. It didn't feel like a golf tournament at all today. You know, it's funny, because you go home, and for the last week and a half now, you turn on the television and all you see is more news. It's just like watching a war on live television, I guess is the beauty of today's technology and media and how far advances have gone. But in Tampa Bay, I was caught in Tampa Bay and drove back to Oklahoma 21 hours, and that's not normal. But really, it just didn't really feel like a golf tournament. Not at all.

CHARLES HOWELL: It's kind of quiet. You know, today it's funny, this is going to sound horrible, but I didn't slam one club, and I can't tell you one round I've gone out and -- I don't have a bad attitude or bad temper or nothing, but I'll get a little frustrated and mad at myself or throw a club in the bag or murmur just how great a player I think I am to myself. Today was just kind of -- kind of gets your attention. It changes your attitude a little bit. Now a bad shot doesn't really mean a whole lot. I know a lot of people in the World Trade Center or the Pentagon, they would love to hit a bad shot today. So I think it just -- it's changed my attitude a little bit. That's for sure.

CHARLES HOWELL: I think what caught my attention most, though, were the American flags and the tee markers for the flags today. Just how like they have a note in the scoring trailer on the first and tenth tees for the caddies to not let the flag sit on the ground. I guess the normal pins, you can just take them out and throw them on the ground, and now they are having to be aware of that. You see American flags on all the tee markers, so it reminds you of it. It's not normal on a Tour event to see American flags everywhere, and I think it's definitely something, it's definitely important, but it reminds you of something not too great.

CHARLES HOWELL: Oh, yeah. I've idolized Nick Price since I was 7 years old. And I started taking golf lessons from Leadbetter when I was 10 and I always saw Nick Price on the driving range and practicing, and his golf swing was just phenomenal. It is today. I still wish I had his golf swing. It's absolutely perfect. Every lesson I get with David, and I'm working on something we always his swing up on the camera and look at his swing. So I have been comparing my golf swing with his golf swing for ten, 12 years now. Not to mention the fact that he's probably one of the nicest guys out here. He's a great person.