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THE TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP

November 4, 2005

Ben Crane

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Ben Crane, thanks for joining us after the second round of the TOUR Championship. Great finish today, eagle, birdie, birdie on 15, 16 and 17 and put yourself into great position heading into the weekend. Start with some opening comments on a great day for you.

BEN CRANE: Thanks. I hung in there most of the day and just kind of was making a lot of pars and getting up down a lot, missed a lot of greens by a little bit, which can be very penalizing. I was able to knock the ball close out of the rough from beside the green a few times and keep saving some pars, then all of a sudden I get to 15 and things started happening.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: If you could assess your season. It seems like you changed your swing to help with your back pain and ever since you've done that your career has really taken off.

BEN CRANE: Yeah. I mean, something obviously drastically changed this year, and all the guys at Titleist have really kind of helped me figure out what it is I need to do with my back while I'm swinging in order to be healthy and be more consistent. So along with the guys at Titleist and Butch, we kind of came up with a game plan and changed my swing dramatically, and it's just been amazing to have it progress a little bit every month, and I'm feeling better about my swing, and my back has been feeling great, so I'm giving myself more opportunities at birdie, which is a good thing to do.

Q. How dramatically did you change your swing, and can you explain it to us in terms that we might have a slight chance of understanding?

BEN CRANE: I changed my swing dramatically. The guys at Titleist have a way of looking at your swing kind of in a 3 D way.

Q. Carlsbad?

BEN CRANE: Yeah, and basically what was happening was I was arching my back at the top of my back swing, so I was putting my back into extension, and then from there I would make a big thrust with my hips towards the ball on the way down, which when you take your back from extension to flexion in a matter of less than a second, it really puts a tremendous amount of pressure on your back.

So once we realized that my back needed to stay more in a rounded position throughout my swing and not let it get arched up, it's taken a lot of pressure off my back.

Q. You stay more stable it sounds like?

BEN CRANE: Yeah, it's more efficient, more stable.

Q. I'm sorry, when did you go through these changes and how long did they take do you think?

BEN CRANE: Well, I was out for just over two months in February and March, and I started back playing again. My first event I think was Hilton Head, somewhere in there. Good course to start on, real wide open (laughter).

Q. How long did it take for the swing changes to kind of sink in would you say? Was it immediate?

BEN CRANE: Well, as everybody knows I've taken my time over the ball to kind of get the "what am I supposed to do here again?" It's taken it a while for it to go from my head into my body. But it's getting better. I'm still not there yet. I don't get up over the ball and go, "turn turn," but it's getting better. I've gotten more comfortable with it, and I think I'm about 80 percent of the way there.

Q. You obviously found yourself in the news in the middle of the summer for a reason, crazy reason, but was there some good out of that? Did you get a lot of positive feedback from other players and from fans?

BEN CRANE: Yeah, I got a lot of support from friends, but stuff like that happens for a reason, and I think that it was a good thing. Number one, I was in the news because I was playing well but also because I was playing so slow. You know, when you have a lot of people telling you, "hey, look, you're going too slow here," obviously it's time to pick it up. It's been a process of trying to obviously pick up the pace over the ball over every shot, and it's gotten better. Is it where I want it to be? No, I don't get up over the ball like Davis Love, and he gets up over the ball, looks at the target and fires. I'm not there yet. I'm getting more comfortable with what I'm trying to do, and certainly I'm working in the direction of obviously speeding it up. It's gotten better.

Q. I was going to ask, if it's tough, obviously it wasn't because you played so well today, if it's tough to play with a guy who's really fast, or can it be?

BEN CRANE: No, not at all. I mean, it's nice. It's harder to play with someone like me that's a little slower obviously because then we're falling behind and it's tough to catch up. Anyway, it's probably a little easier. Davis is just a great guy, so it's always fun to play with him.

Q. Are you actually keeping track of how long you take over the ball, like do you know how many seconds you've shaved off your routine?

BEN CRANE: Yeah, we did some experimenting at the Bell Canadian Open this year with kind of timing myself and my caddie timing me. We've tried to shave about maybe 10 to 15 seconds off each shot, and we're pretty close. It's gotten to the point now where I'm not in violation when I'm hitting shots like I probably would have been a few months ago.

Q. Just talk about the par save at 18. It looked like a pretty difficult shot and yet you made it look pretty easy. Just run through that, please.

BEN CRANE: Yeah. I mean, I got up there and my ball was kind of on the downslope and the green was running away from me a little bit, so obviously the degree of difficulty was high. Yeah, it's probably one of those places where you go, yeah, 15 feet would be a pretty good shot here, and my caddie is like, yeah, let's just try to get a putt at it from behind the hole. I just felt good about it and decided I was just going to try to release under it a little bit more to get the ball to go a little bit higher, and I was able to just it's one of those times where you kind of go, "well, if you hit it like this, it could turn out perfect," but you never know. I just hit a good shot and it turned out better than I thought, which was fun.

Q. I see you brought some people in here; family, friends, fan club?

BEN CRANE: These are friends that I stay with every year at the Bell South and we've gotten pretty close over the last few years, Clayton and Joe, and Clayton gave me two four leaf clovers before the Saturday and Sunday round at the Bell South when I won. He found them in a field, and so that was a neat memory. We were going to leave Sunday night and we stayed the night with them to hang out because we had a great victory party after my first win. We're pretty close to the family.

Q. Any more four leaf clovers this week?

BEN CRANE: He told me he's going to find some for me. I've never found one in my life. He can find them in a matter of minutes.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Maybe we could touch on your eagle at 15 and birdies at 16 and 17.

BEN CRANE: Yeah, on 15, I hit it down there in the fairway and had 215 yards in and hit a 4 iron, just went right at it, landed just short of the green, hopped up to three feet, one of the shots that worked out perfect.

And then 16, drove it in the left rough, hit a good shot out, had a good lie, it went out to roll it down there about 20 feet, made a beautiful putt for birdie.

Then 17, drove it in the fairway, hit not a very good iron shot out to the right. I don't know how many feet that was. A lot. I was just trying to get it down there somewhere in the Zip Code of the hole, and it went in.

Q. If I can ask you about your feelings about the proposed schedule changes and the FedEx Cup coming in 2007, do you think that's a good idea and do you think enough of the big players will buy into that to make it work?

BEN CRANE: From what it sounds like to me, and I can't claim to fully understand the details of it, but it sounds to me like it's going to add more excitement for the fans, it's going to be more exciting for the players, and the commissioner has a history of doing great things with the Tour over the last number of years, so I have nothing but great things to say about what he's done, and with what he's doing it's going to be more exciting for us and for the fans. I think is it sounds like a great idea. Do I fully understand it, no, but I'm sure as time goes on, we will.

Q. I just wanted to ask, I notice you wear your glove kind of behind your belt, which is kind of unique out here.

BEN CRANE: Yeah, because my hands are always sweaty, being nervous. So I put it back there and let it air out, let it breathe in the wind as I putt and waggle around a little bit.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Ben Crane, thanks.

End of FastScripts.

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