THE HONDA CLASSIC

March 14, 1999

Eric Brooker

ERIC BOOKER: How many guys shot under par out there today? Not that many. It was a tough day, you know. Actually I had probably a decent round going until my last few holes. Got a little sand in the face today, got dirty. I have really nothing to really talk about, I don't think, except, you know, that I almost won the Honda Classic, but it just didn't happen this week. Maybe next week.

ERIC BOOKER: I'm disappointed, yeah. I think Jim just told me I made $124,000; is that right? That's my biggest paycheck, last year was $79,000, now it is $124,000. I'm looking forward to, you know, the next big paycheck, I guess you want to call it. I mean, I can sit there and dwell on, you know, oh, if I made that put on 18 or if I didn't make double bogey here, you know, I could have -- I would have made this much money or that much money, but that's not really what it's all about. You are out here to try to win and you just gotta figure out how to do it. It takes good golf and I, you know, I was close. I'm glad I was in that situation and I'm looking forward to getting in it again.

ERIC BOOKER: Well, you know, that double on 10 was disappointing because I knew I had a, you know, a nice par on 9 to, you know, I could have accepted bogey but to miss the short putt and double there, you feel like you are throwing shots away. Like you say, I came back with birdie, played fairly solid until 15 and -- or 16. I hit a bad iron there and it set me up for a double bogey the way it turned out. I actually played 17, 18 fine, you know, solid shots, just need to hit those putts a little firmer.

ERIC BOOKER: Well, somebody told me -- I have been working on my swing with this instructor and we started working on some things early in the week, I have a tendency to drop the club a little too low on my down swing, and basically what was funny is I actually hit that 2-iron solid, just had no loft on it. When you drop it, when you flatten it out, like my tendency and like Nick Price has a tendency to do that, you know, you take loft off the golf club. If it was a 4-iron in my hand and I did that, I probably would have been fine. So, you know, you're under a lot of pressure out there and you're dealing with it the best you can and it is a game of misses. Hopefully your misses are in positions where you can control the situation or rely on your short game to recover. That was just one situation that, you know, that didn't turn out in my favor.

ERIC BOOKER: A little bit. More towards the end of the round. I was looking at it on 17.

ERIC BOOKER: No, I didn't get caught up in that. It's windy out there, par's a good score, just trying to play smart golf and do what I know I can do. The only time that really becomes important to me is the last few holes, you know, do I need to make birdie on 18, do I need to try to do something that I wouldn't normally do to win a tournament. If I need to make birdie on the last two or something you might be a little more aggressive, but up until that point you're really not -- I'm not paying attention.

ERIC BOOKER: Oh, definitely. I -- unfortunately I made double there. Bogey would have been acceptable and I could, you know, have still won the golf tournament. Actually, on 17 I pushed my tee shot a little bit, I hit a bunker -- I hit a bunker shot, actually it wasn't that difficult of a shot, I actually flushed the 9-iron. It was 160 to the pin. It was actually a pitching wedge. I just don't normally hit pitching wedges 160, so, you know, I had that right up the flag. If it was a pitching wedge, I'd probably have a nice little 10-footer for birdie there. If I do, that I'm back in the driver's seat and I have to make par on 18, or something like that, so at that time I didn't know what Vijay was doing. He probably was in a situation he could have easily have bogeyed 18 and gone to 10 under, so I knew my putt on 17 for par was important because a birdie on 18 would, you know, win the tournament for me, but unfortunately I made bogeys there as well, so...

ERIC BOOKER: This adds to it. You start swinging poorly, the wind blows around, you lose your balance a little bit, makes you flinch a little bit here and there. I'm basically trying to make sure I have a solid foundation and trying to get over my putts and almost waiting for the wind not to blow you because at times you get these gusts that hit you in the chest and kind of throw you off guard there and you're not expecting it. Makes for -- it makes it difficult to stroke the ball on the greens.

ERIC BOOKER: Thank you.