CANON GREATER HARTFORD OPEN

June 28, 2001

Jay Don Blake

JAY DON BLAKE: I started on the back side. I hit a decent drive and then hit my second shot just to the right. 10 is a pretty tough hole to start on anyway. I felt good getting up-and-down from the right side of the green and making par. You obviously don't want to start off making bogey on the first hole. From then on I started hitting a lot of good shots, hitting some good tee balls, hitting some irons in there. Made a couple birdies right there in a row on 11 and 12. The par 5 I was just about in between, trying to go for it, but I laid up and hit it about eight feet and missed that one. The next birdie I made wasn't until the par 4, the short one, No. 15. I hit it -- pretty much in the morning, it's not much wind. The wind direction was almost going a little bit right and not much at all. Everybody that was playing was trying to drive the green, and the hole is playing a lot easier. If the winds is blowing pretty much straight out, it is going to be a lot harder for the guys to reach it. I think the morning was an advantage. The golf course seemed pretty receptive. With the wind, it got a little bit firm; shots to the greens were harder to keep by the holes. I birdied 15. 16, I hit it just left of the flag and it kicked off the green and made bogey on that hole. Chipped it about eight feet past and made bogey. The next hole, I hit 3-wood off the tee and hit 9-iron about 12 feet and made that for birdie. Then 18, I hit it left bunker hit it to the right of the green on my second shot and chipped it past and made bogey on 18. So for a stretch there, I just kind of got going up and down, birdies, bogeys. Turned it around on my 10th hole, which is 1. I hit a wedge to about three feet and made birdie on 1. Hit sand wedge on 2, to three feet and made birdie there. Kind of keeping the round going a little bit. Then on No. 3, I hit it left in the fairway and got just, really, a horrid lie in the rough. Had to hit a wedge and just chip out and had 90 yards left of the flag and hit it about four feet. That was probably pretty crucial there to kind of make par and keep things going after making a couple birdies right there in a row. Made a good par there, I felt. Next hole was pretty tough. Hit a good drive and I've still got 3-iron left of the hole. Hit it a little right; so I've got to carve it around the tree, and I hit it about five feet on No. 4 there and made birdie. So that's a big -- that's almost picking up a couple shots on the hole there. From here on out, I just pretty well got up-and-down about every hole I played. I had to get up-and-down out of the bunker on 5, the par 3. 6, I went for the green in two. Hit it to the right of the green. Chipped up to about eight feet and made that for birdie. Then the next hole, 7, I hit a tee shot way right. Hit it horrible. Laid up just in front of the green and chipped it up about eight feet away and made par. Par 3, I almost shanked my iron shot over there right. Kicks off the bunker and goes way right. Hit a fluff over the bunker about three feet and made par. For a while I was like, uh-oh, what's going on. Hit it so well and then all of the sudden. I've made a bunch of swing changes. Been working on my game real hard. I can go on the range and hit it real well. Trying to take it to the course, with the changes I've made, it gets a little bit kind of iffy sometimes, and coming down the last little bit, the wind started blowing, trying to play the holes into the wind. I wasn't trusting and kind of hitting some bad shots. My game kind of saved me coming down the end. The last hole I played pretty solid, No. 9. Hit a good solid wedge and came up about three feet short. I hit two good shots and hit a good putt and it just broke a little bit more than I thought. All in all I felt pretty good about my game. I felt like I hit it really well. Two or three shots that kind of got away from me. Making that save par around the greens helped, can keep a good round going. You know, I haven't played well in a while, so it was nice to kind of get a good score out there, and we're going to try to do the same thing and plug along and see what kind of score we can put up the rest of the week.

JAY DON BLAKE: You stand over every shot and pretty much think, "Okay, let's just put a good swing on this. Try to block out what you've just done." I think right now, I'm almost robotic, mechanical type of a swing. I think instead of going up and trusting what I've done on the range -- because I hit it good on the range. I go out there and make the good swings I like and they feel good. Hit good, executed shots out there. Now I get on the golf course, I've kind of missed a couple shots and all of the sudden you start thinking -- well, you get too mechanical and too tight and kind of try to steer it and guide it out there. You need to kind of stay more relaxed and just trust what's going on and go ahead and just rip at it.

JAY DON BLAKE: Obviously, it leaves doubts, because I hit shots like that, but the way I hit it today earlier in the round, I really felt really good about the way I hit some shots. It's been a while since I've been able to hit some iron shots the way I hit some today. You know, I felt real solid early in the round, hitting drives in the fairway. You know, you're playing tough holes like 17, you've got water right and wind blowing into you and bunkers left. To go up there and try to trust a swing, hit a good shot there -- I hit a good shot out there, and, you know, just hit some good shots at crucial points where I felt like I needed to. Kind of gives me some good, positive feedback for the rest of the week, and just keep working on the same stuff and go out there and just fire away. You can't really do much about it. Just try to do the best you can out there. Just hope that it doesn't get away from you and get wild and crazy. Just keep plugging along.

JAY DON BLAKE: I think about it sometimes, thinking, well, you know, I wonder if I play better early or late. It doesn't really matter. There's times where I've played horrible in the morning and times I've played good in the morning. I think it's just the way your game is. I don't think it really makes much difference.

JAY DON BLAKE: Probably my earlier years on Tour I never fiddled around much at all. Never really made any club changes. Used same clubs, same equipment and never really changed much. I think -- I think probably now that I've developed a lot of back problems through the middle part of my career. Last couple years, I've been fighting elbow problems. Last year, it bothered me quite a bit. So I think I developed a swing where my right elbow going through the shot, I was -- at one time, I had a hard time extending my right arm and I kept playing instead of trying to get it better, get it healthy. I think I developed some bad swing movements and I've had to really fight and work those out. Now my elbows, it hurts, but I'm able to kind of get through the shot the way I would like to. You know, gradually just kind of feeling some progress with the swing. So it's probably been the last, oh, year and a half, I really kind of started tinkering a lot.

JAY DON BLAKE: I mean, everybody is going out there trying to find the perfect swing. I think probably just recently, I've really worked hard. I've brought my videocamera and tried to look at it visually and see what I'm doing wrong. That's where I've found some key points, during the hitting at impact, my right shoulder is way too low. My body stays way too far back, and so I'm trying to get it to where I fire from my right side a little more aggressive instead of just hanging back. The last month and a half is really when I've hit it pretty hard, trying to make the changes that I'm trying to make right now.

JAY DON BLAKE: Well, I mean, this is the PGA TOUR. You never know. There's times you go out there and you don't -- you think it's playing pretty tough and people shoot 62s and 63s out there. There's times where you think it's not playing that hard out there and you only see guys shooting 4- or 5-under par. Early in the round, obviously, I felt like the golf course is pretty receptive. I felt like you could put a pretty good number up there and get some good chances at birdies and stuff out there. Obviously, when the wind blows, it makes it a lot harder with your iron shots and try to keep your ball in the fairway, because fairways are starting to get firmer. The greens are firmer. With the rough up as much as it is, it is a big premium to keep your drives on the fairways; you're going to have to pretty much chip out a lot of times. When the wind is up moving your ball around, it is difficult to keep the ball on the fairway and on the greens.

JAY DON BLAKE: Yeah, it probably was. I think, like 15 where a lot of guys drive it, playing it with that much wind, I think was a lot easier. If it blows like it is tomorrow, I probably wouldn't hit driver. I would probably just lay back by the bunkers and just hit a little wedge or sand wedge in there and just see how it goes tomorrow. Then 17, you know, you're playing into the wind and blowing a little bit towards the water. Just stand up there whether there's no wind or not, it's a pretty tough shot. I think today is a good advantage to get out in the morning and get through those holes early.