MICHELOB CHAMPIONSHIP AT KINGSMILL

October 8, 1999

Tom Byrum

TOM BYRUM: I'm happy to be here right now. Obviously the way my year has gone I haven't been in this position a lot. But I do feel pretty good about my game right now. So it's not a surprise to me, anyway, that I'm playing well. I wasn't expecting to lead, but I did expect to play good. I felt like I was playing pretty good last week, just needed to get rid of a few mistakes. So far I've gotten rid of a few, and there's still a few. But very fortunate to shoot what I've shot so far.

TOM BYRUM: Well, actually the course suits my game when I'm playing well. You drive it in the fairway, and obviously you always have to play good here on Tour, but it's the kind of course you have to keep your ball in play, there's a lot of severe shots out there. If you miss a shot you can get in trouble in a hurry. So those are good courses for me. And actually I think it's even maybe you have to have a little more patience when the conditions are like they are now. You can't hit like every flag, like in the summertime when it used to be really hot they had to keep the greens really wet so you could look for the pins a lot more. I don't know why now is better than then, but I had always felt good about coming here.

TOM BYRUM: You hate to even -- it's one of those things you don't want to dwell on because there's a lot of golf left. You start thinking about that and you're just going to handcuff you a little bit for going out there and playing golf. I guess in my position I can -- I feel a little bit better about my position than somebody else. I'm not too worried about what's going to happen to me if I fall out of that category or miss my card. I'm still going to be here next year in some tournament. So that's not a big concern. Obviously I don't want to go back to it, but there's just way too much golf left. And I haven't allowed myself to really think about it too much.

TOM BYRUM: Yeah, I haven't allowed myself to think about it. It's not something that I want to think about it. If it happens, that's fine, I'll deal with it then, but there's just way too much golf left. I don't need that much money with the kind of money that's out there, either. Shoot, I can take care of it this week, if I just go out there and play my game. And I feel good about my game. That's another reason why it's something I'm going to put on the back burner and deal with it when it happens.

TOM BYRUM: I'm playing the rest of the year.

TOM BYRUM: I can. What do you want to know? I started off on No. 10. I parred 10. The first birdie was at 12. I hit a good 3-wood off the tee, and hit it about four feet, 8 ironed about four feet and made birdie. And then parred up to 15. And I laid it up and hit a sand wedge about ten feet or so. I doubled 16, I drove it left. I hit it up by the green I hit the cart path and carried it a little further, just hit it up past that hole. It's pretty fast, it was just one of those things, coming out of the rough it took off on me a little bit and ran up the hill. I really hit good putts, I wasn't disappointed. I was disappointed in 6, I wasn't disappointed in the way I hit the putt. Then birdied 1 with a 3-wood and sand wedge or wedge to maybe 8, 10 feet. I birdied 3, I laid it up on 3 and hit a sand wedge about 10, 12 feet. I birdied 4. I hit a 6-iron about inside of ten feet or so. I parred the next hole. Then I made a real good -- I didn't hit a very good 4-wood off the tee, I didn't hit it very far. And I hit to the right of the pin and it rolled back down quite a ways and I had a big breaker. It's one of those putts you hit out to the right and let the slope take it and it went in the hole. I birdied there and parred in.

TOM BYRUM: That was 6.

TOM BYRUM: That was probably 25 feet.

TOM BYRUM: I struck it pretty good. I skipped a few, here and there. I hit one to right on that par-5 at 7, it hit a tree and came back out in the center of the fairway. And I still tried to hit it on the green with a 3-wood but just came up a little short. But that ball was headed -- it wasn't big right, but it was headed far enough where it hit the tree. So I was concerned when it was in the air, to say the least. And there were some others I don't remember right now, but -- oh, on 8 again I hit it to the right with a 3-wood and it hit the cart path and went down on the little shelf. And I had a wedge in there where some guys had been hitting 6 or 7-iron. I was lucky, but I felt good about it. Like I said, I putted really well this week so far.

TOM BYRUM: I changed my stroke a little bit and just -- I did change putters, I guess, last week. It's a combination that's kind of giving me a little bit better feel.

TOM BYRUM: I probably used it -- I used one putter in between, but didn't putt very good. So before that I'd used really just the one putter most of the year. (Inaudible.)

TOM BYRUM: Not necessarily. Just a different look, maybe, and different -- line up a little differently, if it's brighter, flatter, either one. It's just a change. And I guess the change felt good. And like I said I've been working on my stroke, too. So I probably could have kept the other putter and done the same thing, but I was kind of tired of looking at it right now.

TOM BYRUM: You guys look at it every day, it's your focus. That's how you know who's where and what's going on, the top 30 means something, the top 60, 70. That's how you track golf. For us it's something that we -- we're aware of it, but it's the way that we keep track of what we're doing out there, but yet it's more of a distraction, because, I don't know, I'd rather have it so you go out and accumulate points or finishes or something like that, and hopefully it would work out the same. But you think about it but you're a professional golfer, you have to go out and play the golf course, you have to learn how to put it out of your mind and go play. It's just another distraction. You get over these putts and you're thinking about the money list, you're not doing your job. So I hope that answers your question.

TOM BYRUM: That just tells you how hard this course is playing. You have to drive it in the fairway to score, and even then scoring is tough, because the greens -- I guess it's the cool air, the greens are firm and really quick. On some putts they're very fast. The course has got some teeth right now, you have to be patient. There might be some good scores, but you're just not going to go out there and tear it up. You're going to get -- you keep firing at some of those pins, or you'll miss a fairway and have to lay it up and sooner or later you're going to make a bogey, everybody is.

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