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84 LUMBER CLASSIC

September 13, 2006

David Toms

FARMINGTON, PENNSYLVANIA

TODD BUDNICK: We thank David Toms for stopping by for a pre tournament interview here at the 2006 84 Lumber Classic. David, hopefully we don't have the same situation as last year. Why don't we start off there. I think you've had a great year, no problems, no repercussions or anything like that. Why don't you give us a health update.

DAVID TOMS: It's obviously much better than last time I was sitting in this room. I've been looking forward to coming back here all year, just because of the hospitality that I was shown last year in difficult times. You know, I wanted to come back. I know it's the week before the Ryder Cup, but once I got up here and saw the kind of conditions we were under this week, I think it's pretty good preparation for what we're going to have the next two weeks. So I look forward to getting started tomorrow.

TODD BUDNICK: You're 9th on the Money List. You won very early at the Sony Open in Hawaii. Looks like you've got your game, speaking of the Ryder Cup, heading towards that way, T19 at the International, T16 at the PGA and a T8 at the WGC.

DAVID TOMS: Yeah, it's been pretty good the last month or so after missing most of the summer due to a minor back injury. My first week back wasn't so good at the Buick, but other than that I've been playing pretty solid. I had two weeks off the last couple weeks. I was able to practice a little bit, so I feel good about it.

Golf is one of those games where you can get on a roll and stay on one for a while, and I felt like I was moving the right direction before I took two weeks off. So I look forward to the competition tomorrow.

Q. How much longer is the course playing with the rain?

DAVID TOMS: Well, I mean, let's see, what hole was it? We were talking, Scott and I were, I think it was 15, just to give an example, I had the last time I played that hole last year, the first round, I hit a 9 iron to it. I think I had 152 to the hole. Today I hit a 5 wood short of the green. Certainly that was the most dramatic of all the differences.

There was another hole, I think No. 10, I think we were 50 yards behind where I was last year, which was my first hole of the tournament last year. So it is different. I wouldn't say it's necessarily playing into my hands at all. I had a lot of long clubs today to the middle of the greens, so I can't imagine what it would be like when the pins were on the back.

What I'm hoping is that they will take all that into consideration and maybe move some of the tees up. I don't see why not. If the golf course is still going to be difficult enough as it is, maybe they'll give us all a chance by moving up some of the holes.

Q. This tournament has always right down to unfortunately what happened with you last year, has always had kind of like one thing after another that's kind of brought some notoriety or attention to it. When you heard that it was done, what was your reaction to it? Were you surprised?

DAVID TOMS: You know, I enjoy it up here and I've always felt there were a lot of things to do besides just play in the golf tournament, and you can't say that every week. I was hoping for a summer date so that we could come up here and bring our families. In the fall it's very difficult. I said to my Pro Am partners today, if you're going to miss a week of school in the fall or sometime during the year, for the kids it would be Disney or Hawaii or something like that. I mean, it's not going to be to come up here. Whereas in the summertime when they're out, there are plenty of things for them to do and it would be a great place for the summer. That's what I was hoping for, but obviously that didn't happen. It's unfortunate. I don't know all the details, so I can't really comment on that. For me it's always a place that I've enjoyed come to.

Q. How much finally did your foundation put toward the Katrina relief?

DAVID TOMS: It was north of $1.5 million, south of $2 million, somewhere in that area. You know, to this day, from time to time we'll get donations directed towards that effort. There's still a lot of work to be done down there. It's ongoing, but things are settling down, that's for sure, from what we're trying to do for them. We gave the majority of the money away so far, and we have a little bit left and we have a couple special things that we might do to New Orleans. They're trying to revitalize the city park area, redo that, so we have some money set aside for a couple special things we want to do.

Q. Four or five Ryder Cup guys are playing. I know you can't speak for all of them, but you want to be playing going into it? I know you said you wanted to come back here because of the hospitality. Would you have done it if it was somewhere else?

DAVID TOMS: I'm not really sure, to be honest with you. I think everybody prepares differently. I think we have some guys that have played maybe once in between or once before the Matches. You have other guys that might not have played at all. I'm not sure that if it was another event somewhere else that I would have even played this week myself. I think everybody prepares differently.

I think you could go down the line, and even before major championships, everybody has their own thing that they like to do. I think it's such a that week is such a grind once you get there and everything gets started that I think you have to feel rested and prepared at the same time to play, whether that's preparing at home or in a tournament, everybody does it differently. I don't think there's any rhyme or reason for why guys are doing what they're doing.

We have a couple guys playing over there in the Match Play this week, too, and two guys that are playing great golf, so they'll probably have a chance to be there in the end. So it'll be a long week for those guys. They play a lot of holes, the guys that are there at the end of that tournament.

Everybody approaches it differently, and for me it was about coming up here and supporting an event that was good to me in the past, not only for what they did for me last year but also we've done some charity work together through my foundation, so I felt like it was something I needed to do.

Q. Apart from preparing, as such, does going from stroke play here to a match play event of that magnitude require any particular regearing of your mind?

DAVID TOMS: Well, I mean, I think that you have to be prepared mentally more than anything else. I think that your physical game, sure, if you're playing well you can overcome some mental errors even if your swing is right where you want to be and you're playing great golf. I think you can go over there not playing particularly well and get into representing your country and the magnitude of the whole thing and overcome some physical problems with your golf game just by being very strong mentally. I think that being rested and feeling good about your game and having some confidence and just feeling good about being there and being a part of it is the main thing, really.

Q. How does it feel being an underdog for a change?

DAVID TOMS: I think it's great. They've always done well with it, so why not? I think it's I think we can definitely use that as a positive going into the Matches.

I think our team will do well, I really do. I just have a good feeling about our team and some of the players that we have. Even though we have some inexperienced players, I think we have a good mix of guys that have been there before. Then if you look at inexperienced players, I think they can intimidate a lot by the distance they can hit the ball, by the number of birdies they tend to make, and I think they'll do very well. So I think we have a good mix there to have some success.

Q. Give me a sensation, please, of how you felt under the pressure of the Ryder Cup your first time and what these guys might feel what they're going to have it for the first time?

DAVID TOMS: On the first tee shot they'll be as nervous as they've ever been before. You can feel it, the importance of it. You know, so many times that you're playing, you're playing for yourself. It seems like all the time. We're always playing for ourselves. It's just something different about playing for your country and playing for wanting to play well for the people that are you know, normally when you're on television you have this big group of players and you only see the ones that are playing well. In the Ryder Cup you basically see every shot that everybody hits when you're watching it on TV, so you just feel the importance of it, wanting to play well for so many people you know are pulling for you.

I don't know, there's never a time that I play golf in a tournament, even if I'm winning a tournament, that I have that many people pulling for me as you'll have when you're representing your country, and you might have people that aren't even golf fans that are going to be pulling for you. So it is different, just a different atmosphere totally. And then the whole bonding experience behind the scenes that you're part of, that's I think that's the neatest part about the competition.

Q. Do you remember that first shot, that first Ryder Cup, that

DAVID TOMS: Yeah, I do. It was at the Belfry. It was a tough driving hole. A lot of guys were hitting long irons trying to get the ball in the fairway. For me that golf course was long enough to where I hit driver most of the time. I can just remember that, how nervous I was. I'm not even sure I could tell you where the ball went. I think it was one of those where I just barely missed the fairway and it went into the fairway bunker on the right, but I hit a good shot and I want to say I made birdie, so that helped me a lot to settle down for the whole Matches.

Q. Just for the heck of it, what did you do at No. 10?

DAVID TOMS: I had to lay up every time. I think maybe they moved it up one day, but I don't remember ever really going for the green because it was a new tee box they played that was a bit longer than in years past.

TODD BUDNICK: Thank you, David. Good luck to you.

End of FastScripts.

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