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MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 8, 2005

David Howell

AUGUSTA, GEORGIA

CLAUDE NIELSEN: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome with me David Howell. David started the day, I'll just remind you, on No. 10 tee, and he played through 17, cumulative 5-under.

Q. How did you get it going? Can you go over those holes?

DAVID HOWELL: Yeah, I hit a lovely drive down 10, just a beautiful 6-iron, good yardage, about four-and-a-half foot.

Similarly driver and 6-iron to 11, came up a little bit short on that one, about 25 foot and managed to roll a beautiful putt in there. It had about three or four foot of break on it.

13, I hit a nice drive and a 3-iron into the middle of the green, so 35 foot there up the hill. Actually that one went bang online just short.

Probably a bit of a momentum swing was on 14, a nice drive again. I hit a fat 7-iron short of the green, very similar to what I did yesterday strangely, and that was a special position to be in. I hit a good chip, which I managed to get to maybe 15 feet and holed that. So that really kept me going.

Then a drive and a 5-iron onto 15. I actually just tugged my 5-iron, probably 65 feet away in two, and managed to 2-putt there.

16 I managed to hit a 7-iron, just came around on the slope to about six feet behind the hole, which anything behind the hole was a nightmare so was pleased to hole that putt. It was an easy pin but don't get past it.

Q. When you're playing that well, how difficult is it at this point not to be able to play more today?

DAVID HOWELL: Well, I mean, I'm obviously delighted with my day's work, even though it was only eight holes of golf at the end of the day. That was all I could do, and I managed to play well. You don't know what's around the corner in golf. It might turn out to be a great thing for me that we stopped, who knows.

Over 72 holes, you have the ebbs and flows that come with golf, and I've just had a good 2 1/2 hours, and maybe the break will do me some good. We'll find out tomorrow.

Q. How did you spend the 2 1/2 hours?

DAVID HOWELL: I had lunch with my girlfriend and had a sleep in the locker room for an hour, just next to Padraig Harrington actually, a hat over the head. He was snoring when I woke up.

Q. For some of us that are not totally familiar with your background other than your results, can you give us a little history of yourself?

DAVID HOWELL: Cool, there's a question.

Well, I'm from Swindon, England, and I won the British Boys when I was 18; that was one of the first signs that I might be able to be pretty good at this game. I played on the European Tour -- delighted to have gotten on the European Tour when I did on my first attempt.

My career has gone far better than I thought it would. I wasn't someone that sat there dreaming of beating Jack Nicklaus' records at seven, that's for sure. I'm happy to play golf for a living at any level I would have been happy with, and I've just kept reassessing my goals as we've gone along, so knocked off the Ryder Cup last year. That was one of the things on my to-do list, and play in the Masters was another one. So everything is going swimmingly, as we say.

Q. Has there been any one special influence in your career?

DAVID HOWELL: Not really. I wouldn't say -- I'm not from a family of golfers. My grandmother and father, they played golf and had a slight, you know, encouraging factor there when I first started. Not really. I just happened to grow up with a municipal golf club. There was a group of five or six guys that were all good; another young guy that played for England and that all fed us along together, and I was the one that managed to do the best in the end. But there's never really been one guiding figure in my career.

Q. That was Broome Manor and Gary Harris?

DAVID HOWELL: There we go.

Q. What have you learnt from your Ryder Cup experience that you feel stands you in good stead over the next couple of days?

DAVID HOWELL: Oh, there's a question. I wasn't particularly nervous on the first tee this week, which I felt a bit strange when I walked off the first; I thought I would have been more nervous. Probably you can look back to the Ryder Cup there. The drama of teeing off in that for the first time is never going to be -- you're never going to get anything more nerve-wracking than that, so that probably stands you in good stead only in a small way like that, but everything helps.

But, you know, I've handled pressure really well at times in my career. I've struggled at other times when I wouldn't have thought I would have done. And I stood up pretty well in the Ryder Cup when I played; that being said, I didn't play fantastic in my two matches, but I just wasn't playing all that well, you know, I just wasn't in that great of form.

So you can't read too much into it. I guess I just have a general feeling that I'm really making my way in this game.

Q. What are the advantages and disadvantages of playing here for the first time?

DAVID HOWELL: Well, there's a question. I mean, it's a bit of a double-edged sword really. The more you play here, really, you know where not to go. Sometimes that's not a great thing with golf. If you know you can't go some where, that makes the shot that much harder.

So, you know, we're pretty quick learners on the Tour though. The golf course is there in front of you. In general we know what's going on.

So I guess the greens are just so quick normally, especially when it gets firm and fast. Just generally you do need the experience, obviously with Fuzzy being the only first-time winner, but I think all of the guys this week, a lot of the first-timers are playing well at the moment; for whatever reason that is, I don't know.

So you can be as experienced as you want. If you don't hit the ball straight and you don't hit it where you want to, you're not going to do very well. If you know where you want to go, fire at the pin, hit great shots, you're going to do well. Experience doesn't make up for good golf at the end of the day.

Q. When you got on this roll today, what was sort of going through your mind to keep you steady and also keep you going?

DAVID HOWELL: Not a lot, really. Just plodding along, trying to hit one shot at a time. I didn't think about much really. Just wandered around and hit the ball to be honest (laughter).

No, which was a good thing, my mind was pretty free of the fact that I'm playing well in the Masters, you know, didn't really give it much of a thought.

Q. You've played a fair amount in the United States this year. I just wonder how much of a learning curve you feel that that experience has been?

DAVID HOWELL: Yeah, I'm starting to -- I haven't played well, I haven't been overly comfortable. I'm happy with my game, which never helps. I was just saying in the car park there, it's a bit like, you know you're good at your job and you move to a new office and then you're not doing your job very well; it's frustrating. You think maybe people are looking around, so there's been a little bit of that going on.

But the more you play here, the more you meet, you meet six or seven new players each week when you play with them and you feel like you know them and you're a bit more comfortable being around everybody. It's not to say that I don't know anybody; there's lots of Europeans and guys I've met before. I'm becoming more and more comfortable in the locker room and just round about the place.

Certainly this week the only difference is I'm starting to turn my game around. That's what's happened this week.

Q. What's been the key in terms of turning your game around aside from obviously --

DAVID HOWELL: Technically I'm swinging the club slightly flatter. My shoulders are turning on a slightly flatter plane on the way back and my hands are in a better position at the top. Everything is a lot more neutral, and it's just been working better. It's what I've been trying to do the last six months every day, and I just haven't done it. Monday it just seemed to quick.

Q. Can you just give us your distances for those approach shots for the birdies?

DAVID HOWELL: They were probably about 185 yards both on 10 and 11; 235 yards with a 3-iron on 13; 203 yards, I believe, with my 5-iron on 15; and 17 was playing about 170 -- 16, sorry.

Q. Did playing in the Ryder Cup help you at all?

DAVID HOWELL: Well, I've pretty much covered that; you might not have been there. Sorry (laughter). Sort of (laughter).

Q. Have you played much golf with Luke?

DAVID HOWELL: I haven't, to be honest with you. I played with him in the British Open, practice round, I believe eight years ago; he was young then. But no, I haven't. I've been around him on the range and stuff, and he's obviously playing fantastic. You can just see he's confident at the moment and he's swinging the club really well.

CLAUDE NIELSEN: Thank you for coming in, David, and good luck tomorrow.

End of FastScripts.

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