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BAY HILL INVITATIONAL PRESENTED BY MASTERCARD

March 19, 2004

Chad Campbell

ORLANDO, FLORIDA

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Chad Campbell, thanks for joining us. Two solid rounds, 66-68 puts you in great position heading into the weekend of the Bay Hill Invitational. If we could start with some opening comments about your day and specifically talking about playing with Mr. Palmer the last couple of days.

CHAD CAMPBELL: Playing with Mr. Palmer was just a real pleasure. As soon as I saw the pairing, I was so excited have a chance to play with him, not knowing how many more events he's going to be playing. So it was really special to be able to play with him, especially here at his tournament you know, he hit a lot of good shots out there. He's still got some game.

As far as my round, played pretty well today. Didn't get into too much trouble. Had a bogey on the first hole, kind of sluggish start the first couple of holes. Played pretty solid the rest of the way. Hit a lot of greens and had a lot of birdie opportunities.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: It looked earlier that Shigeki was going to run away with it, but you guys had not teed off yet. What was your mindset going into a round five, six, seven shots off the lead?

CHAD CAMPBELL: You know, didn't really think about it. I figured somebody would get to 10,11, 12 before we even teed off so just tried to stay focused on what I needed to do as far as my game and let everything happen.

Q. What did Arnie say to you on the 18th?

CHAD CAMPBELL: I don't think he said anything in particular. Just after we played, he told me, "Great playing," and he enjoyed playing with me and I just told him it was my pleasure.

Q. How much would it mean having played two days with him, seeing him again on Sunday?

CHAD CAMPBELL: Oh that, would be awesome. Definitely would be great. I've got a lot of work ahead of me before that happens but I definitely would like the opportunity to be there.

Q. Did you feel like today's round in the conditions, playing later, was a better round than yesterday?

CHAD CAMPBELL: I feel like I played a lot better yesterday. Obviously I shot better, but overall, I feel like a played a lot better yesterday. Drove the ball a lot better yesterday. Didn't drive it too well today. I hit it, you know, just wasn't quite there with the driver.

But I got it around and will go work on it here in a little bit.

Q. Talk about your year so far. Do you get a sense that it's starting to kind of round into form at a pretty important time of the year?

CHAD CAMPBELL: Yeah, it is. Obviously I was disappointed with the first part of the year and wasn't playing near what I thought I should be.

Definitely happy to be playing better now the last two weeks. I think I've had Top-10s so definitely turn it around.

Q. Why do you think it as a struggle coming out of the gate, because you obviously ended the year on a strong note?

CHAD CAMPBELL: Obviously, I don't know. I knew I wasn't driving the ball very good at all the first part of the year. That made it really tough on me. I was driving it really bad. When you're doing that, it's tough to score out of the rough. So I think that had a lot to do with it.

Q. Have you changed drivers? Are you still playing the same driver?

CHAD CAMPBELL: No. I was hitting the same driver up until last week and it cracked on the driving range, which kind of was, I think a blessing maybe. So now I can't blame it on the club.

Q. Are surprised at all that Zach Johnson is hanging around, too? Another guy that's sort of that similar position to you last year, been anointed as the next big potential breakthrough guy.

CHAD CAMPBELL: Not really. I haven't played that much with Zach, but I've heard a lot of people say good things about him. Obviously, I know he works really hard at it and he's got a lot of talent. So definitely not surprised with the way he's playing.

Q. Surprised to see Tiger shot 74 today, assuming you had seen that?

CHAD CAMPBELL: Actually, I didn't know. Somebody with the local media told me he didn't play too well, and then Jimmy Roberts told me that he shot 74.

So, obviously you're surprised whenever he doesn't shoot 68. Seems like he does it every day.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Let's go through your scorecard. You mention the you bogeyed the first hole.

CHAD CAMPBELL: Yeah, I drove it right and then didn't have much and hit it just short of the green. Chipped it just over the green and chipped it down to five feet or six, seven feet and made that for bogey.

2, I hit it short on the upslope of the bunker, chipped in, 5-iron off the tee.

6, I hit driver, 3-wood, just over the back edge and chipped it to three feet.

7, I hit 6-iron to about 12 feet past the hole and made that.

12, drove it in the left rough. 6-iron, wedge to about six feet.

16 was driver, 5-iron just a little past the hole and right of the green. Chipped it up to six, seven feet.

Q. How is your mindset different going into the weekend in this position as it would have been a year ago, before, for example, you had THE TOUR Championship under your belt or an experience like that?

CHAD CAMPBELL: You know, I definitely think you have more confidence knowing that you can get the job done since I've done it once before. If you don't have any experience winning out here, it's kind of hard to draw off anything. Now I have THE TOUR Championship to look back on and help me through those situations.

Q. There's only five guys on TOUR who have won each of the last three years; would you be surprised to hear that Shigeki is one of them?

CHAD CAMPBELL: Actually, no, because I heard a funny stat about him. I heard he was the only player to make over a million dollars his first four years or something like that; is that true? So it's kind of random so. No, I wouldn't.

Q. It would seem like for a lot of the American public, he's a guy that slips under the --

CHAD CAMPBELL: No, he definitely does. Somebody told me that one stat and then kind of makes me definitely more -- makes him definitely more recognizable to me, anyway.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Chad, thank you.

End of FastScripts.

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