BOB HOPE CHRYSLER CLASSIC

February 16, 2001

Kevin Sutherland

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I feel very good about how I'm playing. I've been getting off to fast starts. I think I've shot two 31s and a 32 on the front side of my first three rounds. In some ways that takes a little bit of the pressure off, so it's always nice to get off to a good start. I'm driving the ball well, which is giving me, usually, very good birdie opportunities. So I'm very pleased with how I'm playing.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: It just happens. In my case, especially if I played well the second nine of the first day -- the last two -- well, I shot 34, which wasn't too bad, but I shot 36 yesterday on the second nine. For me things were going so well on the front, you play a few holes, and I even made a bogey on 11 and you make a few pars and you start losing your patience and start pressing which you should not be doing. It's hard sometimes not to do that because you want to keep making birdies and it doesn't happen and you don't want to force it to happen. In my case yesterday, I didn't do anything, I just shot 36 and made a bunch of pars. So I think that's the problem more than anything. I don't think it is so much that you are kind of letting up. It's just that sometimes you kind of want it to happen so badly you just don't let it happen.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Yeah. That was kind of fun today. I hit a 9-iron on 11 -- not 11. I hit a 9-iron on 17 and made a hole-in-one. As it turned out, I didn't play too well after that. I actually played 18 pretty well, but I missed a four-foot birdie put, and then I bogeyed one. I kind of forgot about the hole-in-one pretty fast. But it was a lot of fun. It's always fun to make a hole-in-one.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I saw that sign and as I was walking up to the tee. I caught it out of the corner of my eye and it said "First Pro," and then I saw "Sunday." So I make a hole-in-one; so it was kind of funny to think, "You're disappointed, you can't even win a car there".

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: You know, this is fun, to do this. I don't think I'd want to do it every week. I'm not sure I want to go all the way to the U.S. Open, either. I think somewhere in between would be just fine. I would much rather have this than the U.S. Open. It's kind of a headache there.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Yeah, we did. You know, I hit -- it was 144 yards, I hit a 9-iron. The ball was going right at it. I didn't really know what to say. I was kind of looking at it going, "It felt really good and it looked like it was going pretty good". Usually I say, "get up, sit down," whatever, and I didn't know what to say. It landed in the hole -- it went about three feet short and it popped up against the pin and kind of spun around the hole and went in. It was a lot of fun. But it was kind of looking really good. I didn't want to say -- I didn't want to jinx it.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I think my playing partners were a little more excited than I was. They took a swing at it. They looked at me and thought: "I can make a hole-in-one, too." I think they had a really great time today, and I know they were excited about the hole-in-one.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I haven't even looked at the leaderboards really. I didn't know what place I was until I got in here. I think you have a tendency to just kind of play golf. You're not really paying attention because you really don't see anybody. You see the same guys every day because the same guys are playing around you. So you really don't have a sense of the tournament I think until Sunday, until everybody gets there, and I think that's when you really feel like the tournament's started. Right now, you're just trying to get yourself in a position.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Yeah, I think that's a lot of it. A lot of guys are out there just playing golf. I think there's no question, you are playing your best golf when you're not thinking about too much of anything, really. You're not worried about, you know, what the leader is or whatever anything is or what the top 10 is; you're just playing golf. I think that has a lot to do with why the scores are so good, too.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Yeah, I had somewhat of a chance. I mean, I played well. I had a lot of strokes to make up. I was very pleased with how I played, and I think I played well on Sunday. A lot of times, playing well on Sunday gets contagious, regardless, whether it is to win a tournament or to finish in eighth place. I think playing well on Sunday kind of breeds upon itself. You just kind of keep playing good golf.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: That's true.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: 11, I hit a 5-wood left of the green and I actually putted out of the chipping area. I putted up to about 10 feet past the hole and made the putt coming back. 13 was my next birdie. It was a 7-iron and from -- I think -- I can't remember. Like 175, I think it was. It was downwind a little bit and I made a 20-footer there for birdie. Then the hole-in-one, which we've already gone over. And then my next birdie -- oh, my bogey was on 1, which was a bad bogey, really. I was right in the middle of the fairway with a 9-iron and I hit just a horrendous shot left of the green. I hit a good chip to three feet and missed it. It was just a bad bogey all around. The next hole, I made a -- I hit a good drive and a bad iron shot into the green on the par 5, and didn't hit a very good chip either, and I ended up making about 20-footer for birdie. It was kind of an ugly thing and it went in. That happens sometimes when you're playing well. I kind of got that bogey back on kind of an ugly birdie. Bogeyed 5. 5 is a very difficult hole. I hit it right of the green with a 3-iron. Hit an average chip, not really a bad chip, and missed about a 15-footer. I hit it up by the green on 6 and chipped it up to a foot. 8, I hit a sand wedge to foot and a half, two feet. And then on the last hole, I hit a 6-iron from about 165 into the breeze and I made about an 8-footer.