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JOHN DEERE CLASSIC


July 8, 2004


Daniel Chopra


SILVIS, ILLINOIS

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Daniel, for joining us for a few minutes here in the media center at the John Deere Classic. Great start to your week. Talk a little bit about your day and then we'll go into questions.

DANIEL CHOPRA: Well, it was my first round. I played a round with my new caddie, Steve Duplantis, so it was a little bit of a fresh start. I guess it was very exciting to try something different. I think we got here so early, we missed the cut last week and we sat on our butts for the rest of the day and I got so bored, and I was just so excited to start playing golf again. I guess that's hard to do, but with me playing well it's something you look forward to.

Q. Did you have any indication early this week playing practice rounds or anything that you were due for a good round, or was this kind of like being --

DANIEL CHOPRA: Well, I played really well in the second round last week, so I have been playing well. I guess I just haven't been putting it all together. Either I'm not hitting it close enough, or if I have, I haven't been making the putts. But all in all, my game has been quite good. Not everything has been firing, but it's been right on the precipice. Today I got off to a good solid start the first two, three holes, knocked one in there close, made my first birdie, and then it went on from there.

Q. After you made that first one they seemed to fall?

DANIEL CHOPRA: Yeah, especially after last week I started off really poorly in the tournament, started missing a few short putts early on, and I really wanted to consolidate the round and get some good shots, get some good putts in there early, and I did. I really hadn't missed a shot on the front nine, and I got a couple good up-and-downs the first couple of holes to kind of keep it going, not start off on the wrong foot. Then I birdied 14 from about three feet, and I was under par.

Then I played 15 beautifully, 16 beautifully, 17, two perfect shots and two-putted from about 20 feet.

Played 18 beautifully. Literally I was hitting the ball -- I would tell Steve on every shot, I want to hit it at that thing, and I'd hit it there. I'd go in the fairway and say I want to hit this thing six feet right of the pin, a little bushy thing or a little sign in the background, and I hit it there.

Even though I wasn't really hitting it close on the holes I was making pars. I was hitting the shot exactly where I wanted it to every time. The pins were tucked close to bunkers and water and whatnot. I played pretty flawlessly on the front nine and even the back nine. The only shot I missed was the one on 9 I hit in the bunker. I ended up saying I'm going to hole it. As soon as I hit the green, it started spinning a little bit and then rolled it up, and I said that's going in, and it went in. It was one of those days where pretty much everything I tried to do, I did.

Q. Jose Coceres started out hitting corks with sticks. That's not the standard. What's your background?

DANIEL CHOPRA: Why don't you ask me the question one more time.

Q. What is your background? How did you get started in golf?

DANIEL CHOPRA: I was born in Sweden. My father is from India, hence the surname Chopra. My mother is Swedish. I was born in Sweden. For a couple years between the ages of 6 and 8 I lived in England. That's when I first started to speak English. I originally planned to live maybe a couple years in India, New Delhi, with my grandparents to see the other half of my family, see how they lived. Then I started to play golf, and I've always been drawn to the game, to play, and I had the opportunity in India. Then time came for me to go back to Sweden and I didn't want to go. They enrolled me in school there and allowed me to pursue my dream and play golf. I was lucky.

Q. So you grew up in India?

DANIEL CHOPRA: I grew up there until I was about 16, so I guess my formative years were all there.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Were your parents there?

DANIEL CHOPRA: My grandparents, my father's parents.

Q. Is that a country club background?

DANIEL CHOPRA: It's a golf club. It's a colonial club that was done by the British. It's actually one of the best golf courses in the world. I would still rate it -- of all the courses that I've played, I'd put it in my Top 10 courses in the world, still, without the bias of me having grown up there. It's actually a brilliant piece of work designed by Peter Thompson. I was lucky to have a world class golf course to play at.

Q. Name of it is?

DANIEL CHOPRA: Delhi Golf Club.

Q. How did you end up with Steve?

DANIEL CHOPRA: Well, he's a fantastic caddie. He's got such a great reputation of being such a great caddie. Earlier in the year I was kind of looking around, and I asked a few players, Gabriel Hjertstedt, he caddied for him, he told me one of the best caddies he's ever had is Steve Duplantis. I kind of committed to another guy for a while, then I changed and went to another guy, a funny guy, Mike Collins, who's a stand-up comedian by profession. I needed someone to lighten my mood out on the golf course. But I guess it got a little bit too light at times and I felt I needed to come back a little bit, so I made another change. Having Steve -- you know, just somebody that's been around great champions like Furyk and Hjerstedt and Armour, he was on his bag when they broke the scoring record last year, just his experience, actually being a pretty good golfer himself, he can see shots, and now that he's got to know my game a little bit, I use him as my mirror. I kind of bounce a shot off him, I'm going to hit this a little left of the pin, hit it in there, and he'll say, "Okay, I like that shot." So it gives me that reinforcement from him that will give us the correct shot to play, we'll play that shot. I don't hit one shot all the time. I'll hit any shot that's required at the time, and I enjoy doing that. Sometimes I get a little carried away and try to do too much with it, but today it worked out perfectly.

Q. Being your rookie year out here, does it help having somebody that's been around and knows the terrain, knows the game?

DANIEL CHOPRA: Well, it will be. Just to know kind of where the restaurants are and the hotels and stuff like that and where to kind of fly into, things like that, he can help me with. On the golf course when you actually go out there and you play a practice round, I pretty much take responsibility for getting to know the golf course myself. I don't want to try and rely too much on him to tell me where not to hit it. I mean, he can tell me, okay, -- the last thing you want to tell a player is don't hit it left or don't miss it right, whatever. You kind of want to have that all in your own head.

Just his ability to see shots and read some putts for me on the greens every now and again as a pretty good player himself, that's what you need.

Today it was all about me (laughter). He had nothing to do with it.

The greens are still soft. That's the most important thing. The fairways rolled out a little bit sometimes, but it was -- I think by tomorrow, it should be nice and firm again.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Can you go over your seven birdies with us starting with 14?

DANIEL CHOPRA: Okay, that one there was a short -- that was the only fairway I missed all day on 14. I pitched it right in the center of the fairway and hit this ridge in the fairway, kind of a split fairway, and it hit that ridge and kicked hard left and ran all the way through the fairway into the rough and I had 70 yards to the pin and I hit a lob wedge to about three feet.

On 17, I hit a great drive down the middle of the fairway and then cut my Rescue club up to about 20 feet, two-putted.

On 1, I hit a pitching wedge to -- pitched almost in the hole and spun back to about four, five feet, made that.

On 2, I hit a driver and a 4-iron just over the back of the green, two-putted, actually almost made it.

On 4, I hit a big drive and then I hit a sand wedge that pitched about three or four feet past the pin, spun back, almost went in, tapped in for birdie.

On 7, I hit a 3-iron to about 15 feet left of the pin. That was the first putt I actually made that was missable, 15-footer.

And then on 9, I hit a pretty long drive, I was kind of between 8 and 9 and I hit a little cut 8-iron but I was on the downslope, and when you're on the downslope and you're trying to hit a cut shot anyway, it'll tend to cut a little more. I just pushed it just a hair and it hit the right fringe and spun back down into the bunker. I told Steve, now is the time -- I was only 25 feet, 20 feet, and it was the perfect upslope, green going slightly away from me. It was just the perfect setup, the kind of shot you don't even practice when you go in the bunkers because it's too easy a bunker shot. It was quite funny when I told him, this has to go in. Right in the center, perfect speed.

Q. Growing up in Asia, I've been told that golf is coming up on that side of the world, that the major they aspire to the most is the British Open as opposed to the American players or the Canadians that think more about the Masters or the U.S. Open. Is that more the one that inspires players?

DANIEL CHOPRA: I would say that's correct, not necessarily for myself. I would probably rate The Masters probably for me because it was the first major that I ever saw in television, watching Nicklaus win in 86, just the mystique that surrounds Augusta National is something really special and just to be able to get into that tournament you have to have done something pretty incredible just to play, and then to win that event. So for me that would be the ultimate.

Most people do regard the British Open for themselves as the largest --the international players.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you for joining us.

End of FastScripts.

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