WORLDCOM CLASSIC--THE HERITAGE OF GOLF

April 19, 2002

Davis Love III

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you, Davis, for joining us for a few minutes. Good day today, but it ended on a good note with those two birdies coming in.

DAVIS LOVE: It was a good finish, and really hit just a couple of bad shots on the front 9 and never really got anything going. And the back 9 was just kind of boring. I hit it in the rough a couple of times, just off the edge of the green a couple of times, and had longer putts, didn't seem like the ball wanted to get real close to the hole today in that wind for me, at least. And I hung in there until the end.

And I was patient and got a good chip in at 17, which was probably the closest I've been to the hole for the back nine. But maybe it was better that I was chipping rather than putting.

And then 18, hit two good shots and made a nice putt there. It was a great way to finish. And I was real patient today, and I think that's the best thing I did. I didn't get frustrated.

I hit a bad 3-iron at 2, and it hit the trees and went out-of-bounds, which was a little bit of -- it was a bad swing and a bad break, and made bogey. And that -- that got me off to kind of a sour start.

But then birdied 5. And then hit one at 6, same thing, just pulled it a little bit and it ran through into the sand by the cart path, and didn't get it up-and-down. And other than that, just nothing really happened all day until the end.

Q. How difficult is it to stay patient on a day like that?

DAVIS LOVE: It's hard. Well, today was the day you couldn't just reel off five or six in a row and get yourself back in it. You had to just hang in there and not force it. Because this course, if it's calm, you can put yourself in the right position to hit at every green. But when it's windy, even good shots you get behind trees.

I laid up at 15 with more club than my brother wanted me to hit and got -- the wind turned around into me, and it came up too short and I had to go over the tree rather than having a straight shot at the fly for my third. It's just tricky in there. You can hit good shots and not get good results, and hit good drives and have them go through the fairway where the day before they might have stayed right in there without the wind. It was a good day to be patient. And obviously if you played well, you could shoot a good score. If you didn't hit it right, it was a lot harder than yesterday.

Q. Just how good is Phil's 64? I know he played the back first and probably ducked some of the wind.

DAVIS LOVE: He didn't duck much of it. Probably equal to the score I shot yesterday, because it played three shots harder, probably, especially for us. Because yesterday morning the first nine or ten holes was just dead still. And that was a heck of a round. And I know he's playing really, really well. So I wouldn't expect anything less out of him.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Can we go through your round? You did 2. No. 5?

DAVIS LOVE: 5, a driver and a 6-iron to about 30 feet, 2-putt.

6, 3-wood off the tee, ran through the -- behind that big oak tree in the sand by the path and hit a pitching wedge but thinned it and it went over the green, hit a bad pitch shot about 30 feet by and made bogey.

And 7, a 5-iron to about ten feet.

17, 7-iron just ran off the edge of the green right at the corner of the bunker, and I was probably 25 feet away, 30 feet away, chipped in.

And 18, a 4-wood off the tee and a 9-iron to about 25 feet and made that.

Q. When it gets going really low, fast, do you have to learn how to handle that or not get too aggressive or not back off?

DAVIS LOVE: You have to try not to think about it is I think -- try not to keep score. I know it got me yesterday on 18. Really the worst putt I hit all day was on 18, my 9th hole, when I realized par was 30 and I was putting for 29 rather than putting another putt, like I had been making them all the way through for 8 holes.

So you've just got to -- you always try to downplay it or put it out of your mind, especially here. The score boards are on top of the green. You hear them clicking while you're putting, so it's hard not to look at them. You've got to put it out of your mind and look at every hole as an opportunity to make a birdie and not anything else.

Q. You talked last week about how bad breaks -- how tough it was on No. 2 to not think, here we go again with that?

DAVIS LOVE: It was tough. But I -- that one's over with now. If you could make a five, you've still got the same easy shot you had before. If you can make a five or at worst a six, it's a long day. But it was tough. Like I said, if it had been a calm day and you say, well, there's no big deal, there's a lot of birdies out there, it would be easier to take.

But I hit a good second shot or whatever, fourth shot and a good putt and I did almost make par. And I played -- maybe I wasn't as smooth as I was yesterday, because of getting off to a rattled start. But I did make enough good swings to hang in there, a couple of good swings right after that. But it was like the next hole I hit a good, solid 6-iron that went a little through the wind and bounced over the green. And I was chipping rather than putting.

That was the difference yesterday. Everything was falling right at the pin. And today it was a little bit off. And like we said, this course a little bit off, instead of having a 30-footer, you're chipping out of the rough side of the green or it runs off into the sand, just off the fairway, rather than being in the fairway. And that's the difference between 64 and 69 is just -- you have to hit almost every shot fairly good, not really miss one to stop your momentum.

Q. Davis, do you feel like this round kind of gets you over a little bit of a hump in missing putts this year, the last week of The Masters, you followed it up with a 75 on the second round? Do you feel some stuff falling together for you this week?

DAVIS LOVE: Well, yeah, that's what I was saying, I was patient today. I didn't get frustrated, even though I lipped out, hit a lot of good putts that didn't go in. I hung in there and kept thinking up excuses, something good's going to happen, flip the page from the 12th hole -- 13 through 16, I said the last six holes I'm going to play well or ask for a new ball at 16 and said this is the good ball. And I lipped it out again at 16 or burned the lip.

And I was real patient with myself all day. I never got frustrated, I never thought I wasn't going to make a birdie. And that's a good step, rather than getting frustrated and feeling sorry for myself.

Q. Davis, the last hole for Phil, I don't know what he hit off the tee, but he drove it into the green-side bunker at nine and got it up-and-down for a birdie. When you've got the lead, I don't know -- if he's in that position, taking shots like that, where if he's hitting a driver off the tee, he could get in trouble, is that typical of him, I guess?

DAVIS LOVE: Yeah, it's typical Phil. I did the same thing. So it was just my 9th hole. It was the play today. That back left pin, I had it up about halfway out of the bag yesterday and put it back. The back left pin, if you don't put it exactly in the right place, it was a tough up-and-down. Today was the day to do it. No matter where you hit it ,right or left, you can get it on the green and not put bogey in the equation. And I just didn't hit a good bunker shot, but I hit it right where I wanted it.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you, Davis, for joining us.

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