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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 24, 2006

Vijay Singh

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA

Q. How was it?

VIJAY SINGH: A little disappointing. I made a lot of bogeys. I had 3, 3 putts, which obviously on this golf course is not that good, or any golf course. I held it together on the back nine, played some decent golf, and got it around in 2 under, which is respectable in conditions like today.

Q. Tiger talked a little bit about the fact that you guys started out and things were kind of just there, but the wind just really started kicking up, and started dancing in the trees, I think is the way he put it?

VIJAY SINGH: I didn't see them dancing. It was up and down. Midway through the round when we started the back nine it was pretty calm. And we thought, wow, we took our shirts off. It was supposed to be cold today, but you never saw that part of it. If it doesn't pick up but they say the wind is going to pick up this afternoon. I haven't seen it yet, but I hope it does.

Q. Does this golf course change day to day or year to year even though you practice here and play here, is it the same or is it different all the time?

VIJAY SINGH: It's a different golf course when you have a tournament. The greens are unbelievably fast. The fairways are much tighter, the rough is longer. I don't play much here when I'm home, I just practice. But this is probably better that way, if you don't play and just come in the conditions we play every year. It can get really, really difficult out there. The greens this is probably the smallest greens we play on Tour. So it's pretty testing.

Q. You had 3 bogeys and turned your round around. What was sort of the was it an adjustment in the change in thinking?

VIJAY SINGH: Nothing, really. I said hang in there, there's a lot of golf to be played. In back of the mind you keep thinking about the conditions that could happen this afternoon. So you just say hang in there and play decent golf and see if you can get it back to par.

That was my goal, to get it back to par, which I did, and played good on the back nine.

Q. So how much do you like your position, knowing you'd rather be leading the tournament and all that?

VIJAY SINGH: It's pretty good. There's still two days to go, and it's not going to get any easier. I like my position, but I just have to hang in there and think about tomorrow in a positive way, not thinking about what I did today.

Q. Because you work here so much and you live down the road, how much does this tournament mean to you?

VIJAY SINGH: I've got a lot of friends out here, a lot of fans, all the workers over here are my friends, I see them every day. It just feels like home. It is home.

Q. Some people talked last night about how they're changing things, and you were involved in some of that. How important is it to not just support the Tour but your home, how involved were you in the decision making of what's going to happen in the next 20, 30, 40 years?

VIJAY SINGH: This golf tournament, they want to make it a major. And it is called the 5th major. I think the golf course has the potential to be one of the best golf courses out there. And right now it's not even ranked in the top 50. But this is a great opportunity for them to make it a little tougher, and make it a good test of golf.

Q. The Masters goes back to one place, the other three travel around, this one stays here like Augusta?

VIJAY SINGH: I think it's very fair, and it's good for the Tour, as well. This is the headquarters, this is the TPC of golf, right here. And to make it one of the toughest tests of golf, I think they have a great opportunity to do it. If the conditions doesn't get windy over here or soft, you know, firm, it's a pretty simple golf course. But you need good conditions to make the golf course tough here. Now they have a chance to make it tough without the hard conditions.

Q. Can something be made a major? Can you declare it a major? What would it take for you to say I'll give away one of those PGAs for one of these?

VIJAY SINGH: Well, that's a tough question. I mean it's if you say, yeah, that they can make it a major. When do you make it a major? Do you start off from the very beginning? Guys that have won in the past, they call them major champions, I don't know. From this day onwards, I think definitely this has the potential to be one of the best tournaments in the world, even better than all the majors. It's got the potential it's got one of the best fields in the world anyway.

Q. You take this golf course and take the conditions that are expected this weekend, it's going to take patience and a real mental attitude to compete this weekend?

VIJAY SINGH: Yeah, I think so. It's not a long golf course, but it's very, very tricky. And the roughs are not getting any shorter. They're going to get it's going to get firmer and your ball is going to run out in the rough. So it requires a lot of patience. Each hole is an adventure out there, anything can happen. I've played it so many times. Coming into the second shot on 16, tee shot on 18 and tee shot on 17, it's still you get real tight. Imagine what happens on the weekends when the conditions get a lot tougher. It's going to be a really tough test.

Q. Did you run into Greg Owen this week, and if you did or didn't, what would you say to him?

VIJAY SINGH: I did. I said tough. But he learned from that. Sometimes it's better, that happens, then you get a better it's a great experience in golf. And sometimes losses are you learn it's tough but it's sometimes a better lesson when you lose, for the next position.

Q. You're designing courses now, did you like what Pete did on the last three holes here, can you compare them to other finishing holes in golf, as relates to the ebbs and flows?

VIJAY SINGH: He designed this golf course a long time ago. If you go back and see the design of the golf course, it's totally different than what you have right now. All of those bunkers that you have on 5 and 11, they were full of sawgrass. If you go in there it was a penalty. Right now they're hazards, but they are friendly hazards. And they did that for regular playing, not for tournament play. When he designed this golf course, you talk to the guys that played then, they were shocked to see the conditions right now. It's a piece of cake they say right now.

Q. Specifically 16, 17 and 18, and that finish, could you talk to that and from a design standpoint?

VIJAY SINGH: You know, it's really it's an unbelievable design, to come up with something like that. And in this day and age with the length of the golf course, those holes, they're not very long, but yet they are very, very testing. That shows if you put water in the correct places, it's going to play havoc, and that's what it's doing right now.

End of FastScripts.

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