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BUICK CHAMPIONSHIP

August 27, 2004

Hank Kuehne

CROMWELL, CONNECTICUT

LAURY LIVSEY: Welcome, Hank Kuehne in today, 7 under for the tournament. Last year you barely made the cut here and really weren't a factor. You're in a much better position after two rounds this year. Do you want to talk about your round a little bit.

HANK KUEHNE: Yeah, I played pretty solid golf. I hit 15 greens, but the three greens I missed were all fringes, so I was able to putt everything, so I really didn't have it was a low stress round, which was nice.

The wind is a little out of a different direction today, and I think it might play a little bit more difficult this afternoon than it did this morning.

LAURY LIVSEY: You missed your last two cuts out west in Colorado and Reno. What were your expectations coming in here this week.

HANK KUEHNE: I felt like I've been playing well. I've been struggling a little bit driving it. I'm having a hard time driving it where I'm looking, so finally I got some of my old stuff out, my old driver, and Taylor Made, doing some stuff with them, and I was able to find a driver that I feel comfortable with, and I think that's been the biggest difference is I'm driving it well now.

This week I've driven it really well and I'm hitting my irons the same and putting the same and doing everything else the same, so it just makes the game a lot easier when you can find your first one.

Q. In a related matter, do you finally say the last two or three weeks that the visibility factor has increased based off your exposure with the Bridges tournament playing with Tiger and Phil and those guys? Have you noticed any appreciable difference, say an increase in gallery or anything like that?

HANK KUEHNE: I'd say it's been pretty similar to the same galleries I've had in the past, a little difference.

I'd say off the golf course, probably it's a bit more noticeable kind of walking around different places, but other than that everything has been pretty much the same.

Q. Is that a good thing? Do you welcome the visibility to be a little bit more in the public eye or would you rather stay in the background and let your game do the talking?

HANK KUEHNE: I just want to live my life. Whatever that leads to, then that's what it leads to. If it puts me in the public eye, it puts me in the public eye. If it doesn't, it doesn't. I just want to go about my life the same way that I've gone about it and continue to go about it, and wherever that puts me, it puts me.

Q. You said you went back to an old driver. When was the last time you hit it or when was the last time you used it and what is the specific driver?

HANK KUEHNE: Well, I just went back to the Taylor Made 510 Tour. It's a driver that I used for the past two years. I switched to the new driver. I think it's a great driver, it just really didn't seem I wasn't kind of hitting it as well as I would have liked. I probably didn't take enough time to work into it, to get to know the shots that I was going to hit with it, so I just got my old driver out because I know exactly I know if I make a certain swing and have a certain feeling, that's what the ball is going to do. So I went back to it, and it's just been pretty good. I like it.

Q. How long had you used the new driver before going back?

HANK KUEHNE: Oh, I don't know, I'd say probably maybe three, four months maybe. Four months, somewhere around in there.

Q. This is not one of the longer courses out there. How many times did you use the driver today?

HANK KUEHNE: Well, I hit driver on 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 13 and 18, so that's seven? I hit seven drivers, eight drivers. And then I hit kind of a bunch of 2 irons, like a driving iron thing, hybrid, whatever you want to call it, hit a few of those. Pretty much all the other holes I hit that except for no, actually every other hole except for 9. 9 I hit 3 iron.

Q. How important is driving distance? Obviously with your length are you one of those guys who would like to be known as the longest hitter or are you intentionally backing off from that?

HANK KUEHNE: It definitely doesn't it's not something that I think about. If I step up on a hole and it's a 2 iron, it's a 2 iron. It's not a driver just because it's a driving hole. Last year I think I hit last year I hit driver pretty much every time it was a driving hole, and this year I haven't done that. My driving is a little bit it's down this year a bit, but it's not anything that I just try to play the golf course, basically put the ball in position to give me a chance to score, and if that's driver, that's driver. Some of the driving holes that we use are not driver holes.

Last year I would have hit driver anyway, but this year I just have kind of played and not really worried about it. I don't really it doesn't really bother me either way.

Q. So it's not a big thing then?

HANK KUEHNE: No.

Q. Maybe jumping the gun a little bit, but you and Corey Pavin are at the top of the leaderboard. Have you two ever played together?

HANK KUEHNE: I think I have. I know I've hit I don't think I've ever played with him in a tournament, but I know him and I have spent a fair amount of time around him and I've done a few different things with him. Really a nice guy, definitely a different style of golf than I play.

Q. (Inaudible).

HANK KUEHNE: I'd like to hit it as straight as he does. It was definitely a great round of golf he played, 8 under par. Around here, really good.

LAURY LIVSEY: How about we go over your card. You had three birdies on the front and two on the back.

HANK KUEHNE: I think I birdied 3, 6 and 7.

3, I hit driver, just pulled it a little bit just in the left rough, hit sand wedge to about 20 feet, made that putt.

6, I hit driver down the fairway, hit 2 iron just short of the green, chipped it up, made that one.

Then I hit driver on 7 in the right rough, hit lob wedge to about four feet, made that one.

13, I actually pulled it off the tee with a driver, had to lay it up to I laid it up to like 75 yards and then lipped it out from the fairway to about a foot. I was able to somehow cover the foot putt.

Then 15, I hit 2 iron or my driving iron to it couldn't have been more than 15 feet from the hole. I was just pin high just this far in the rough just left of the green and I chipped it up. Pretty uneventful.

Q. How do you like the risk reward this course offers for your style of play?

HANK KUEHNE: Definitely. I think the good thing about this golf course is that it doesn't necessarily favor one style of golf. You know, you can there are holes that you can try to overpower and there's other holes that you can't, so I think the golf course is one that gives everybody a chance to play, and I think that's great. I love it. I love seeing that. I think it's great when you have totally different styles of golf leading golf tournaments because there's certain tournaments you go to and certain courses that no matter how well I don't care what style of play somebody has, if they're on, they're on, but if you look at a leaderboard on a lot of things, nine out of ten play a certain style of golf, or whatever else, and here, I think you're not going to have that. You're going to have shot makers, you're going to have bombers, guys with great short games and a little bit of everything here, and I think it should be a lot of fun this weekend.

Q. For those of us who don't get to see you, the other thing we've read about Hank Kuehne is your battle with alcoholism. Do you mind talking about that, what it's like to deal with it?

HANK KUEHNE: It's just everyday life. It's part of it. I'm an alcoholic and I've been sober nine years, five months and 19 days, 20 days. I mean, it's just what I am. I wake up every day and it's not going to change. I'm an alcoholic and I always will be. I don't have a problem with talking about it or with people knowing about it. I'm not afraid of where I've been. I didn't do a lot of good things before, but for the past nine and a half years I think I've done all right.

Q. Back to your game, you talk about using the driving iron more now. You must feel really good about it, the way you just talked about the way you hit it. Is that kind of your new favorite thing because it's working for you?

HANK KUEHNE: I still like driving. I still like to hit driver. I feel like when I'm swinging well, I feel like driver is the best club in my bag because I can work it, I can hit soft, I can take advantage of a lot of I don't think my advantage comes on par 5s. I think my advantage is on long par 4s. Par 4 is where guys are hitting 4 or 5 iron into, I can cut corners and hit wedges into some of those holes.

I still like it. I definitely like having a club that I can go to that doesn't fly 310 yards. It definitely makes it a lot easier to have that option because early in the year I was struggling to try to find something that fits a gap because I hit a 3 wood almost 300 yards, and then I hit a 2 iron 255, so I was really struggling to try to find something to fit that gap, and I found a great golf club that's been able to fit that gap, and it definitely makes my life a lot easier around the golf course.

Q. If we were to go get one, would it be is it a 2 iron?

HANK KUEHNE: It's called a 14. It's a company out of Japan. It's like 18 degrees, a driving iron, but the company is called 14. I don't know where you get them, but I got one (laughter).

LAURY LIVSEY: Thanks for joining us today.

End of FastScripts.

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