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VERIZON HERITAGEApril 12, 2006Chris DiMarcoHILTON HEAD, SOUTH CAROLINA
TODD BUDNICK: We welcome Chris DiMarco, the 2066 Verizon Heritage. Your first trip from '99, maybe 2000. We were trying to figure it out.
But Chris, what brings you back here this year? You've had a chance to play the course now. Tell us a little bit about it. CHRIS DiMARCO: Well, partly because I haven't played much, but the other part is because it's one of the few courses we play where you can't just bomb it and hit it anywhere, courses where you need to put it in play are few and far between out here, you don't have many courses like that. It's nice to see. You can tell if you miss it, it rolls down into the straw. The hardest part about this course is getting it around the trees. TODD BUDNICK: Off to a great start this year with a win at Abu Dhabi. You came over here and it a couple of T 15 and T 9 at Match Play. You struggled a bit of late, but give us an assessment of your early season. CHRIS DiMARCO: Well, I actually after Doral, I was looking I was right on pace to be right where I needed to be. I was hitting the ball great. I went skiing and had an injury. I was fighting through it. I took TPC off, and was rust I the last couple of weeks. I was okay at Augusta. But playing with an injury is no fun. It's getting better. It's still not a hundred percent. It still feels bruised but doesn't hurt when I swing. I'm looking forward to this week. It's nice and warm, which is loosening it up. I have to get back some confidence. Confidence is the big thing out here. Q. Tell us why you stopped coming? CHRIS DiMARCO: It was scheduling. It was always the week after Augusta. I usually played two or three before that and then go into a big stretch after this tournament. So I always felt like the first quarter of the year, the first third of the year, that I always took two weeks, I usually took Houston off, and went to the next quarter, and went into the third quarter. It just was total scheduling. It was always just a bad a bad time for me scheduling. I usually take the week off after a major, where a lot of guys take the week off before? Q. Steve Spurier was here in the Pro Am. Did you make an attempt to speak to him? CHRIS DiMARCO: I saw him earlier. We missed each other. We're going to try to go to dinner. Steve, Jr. walked the last four or five holes with me. My second favorite team is the South Carolina Gamecocks, without a doubt. Q. Did you remember a lot from the course? Whether it was '99 or 2000, it's been renovated since you've been here last. Notes and stuff, is that of any use to you? CHRIS DiMARCO: I forgot how claustrophobic it is out there. Boy, it's tight. But it's good, too. It's very fair. If you drive it well and you put it in play, every pin is accessible out there and you can score around there. And when the wind blows, it gets really tough. A little bit of length, but I know No. 8 is 470, and 8 is probably 450. And all the others are around 410 or 430. So we used we're used to seeing four or five holes over 470 or even six holes over 470. It's kind of a breath of fresh air not it's funny, I used to look to see how long holes are, I don't even look now, because they're all 460. Q. Chris, you said you injured yourself a little bit while you were skiing. Was it just a bad fall that you took and are you going through some kind of regimen every day? CHRIS DiMARCO: It's a bruised rib. There's nothing I can do. I'm icing it and heating it, but there's no physical therapy that they can massage it and make it better. It's a bruised rib, it has to heal itself. It hurts sleeping, and when I wake up it's a little stiff. But other than that I get out here and loosen it up and it feels better. Q. How frustrating is it for you to deal with, coming off last year, and you had a lot of momentum coming into 2006? CHRIS DiMARCO: Yeah, because I got off to a great start in Abu Dhabi, I got that win off my shoulders. It's been extremely frustrating, obviously. Taking three weeks off and missing the last two cuts. Basically five weeks without doing much is very frustrating. And I've pretty much been injury free my whole career, so to have this and have to struggle with it, I don't want to say you start doubting yourself, but your confidence isn't as high as it should be. And a lot of times you think you should take off until its totally healed so you can go back a hundred percent, but I'm trying to fight through it now. Q. There are a couple of guys here coming off of real good Masters last week. Is that something that can carry you into the next part of the season? Particularly the first time that it happened to you is that something that kind of sustained you? CHRIS DiMARCO: If you play good at Augusta in that arena, you take a lot of confidence out of there, because that's the biggest arena we have, biggest tournament we play. And you know if you can do it there you can do it anywhere. I'm sure the guys that played well last week are looking forward to this week, not so much different golf courses. The courses are pretty much the same, where there's a little more room at Augusta, you can hit it all over the place there and still have a shot, whereas here you have to drive it straight. You look for guys that have always played well here. And Davis Love is obviously has obviously played well here, but I don't think he hits too many drivers. Q. The first year when you contended at the Masters, did that carry you for a little while after that? CHRIS DiMARCO: Yeah, I mean I guess. You just kind of playing well in the majors is obviously a confidence boost, but other than the fact that the media hypes it up and everybody talks about it, it's still 72 holes and a golf course we know. We still play under a tremendous alternative of pressure any tournament we play, major or not a major. You hope you can persevere through that. If you're playing well, it really doesn't matter the pressure, because you don't feel the pressure from like you're going to screw up. You feel the pressure and that's a good pressure. You want the pressure. That's what we strive to have. You want the nervousness and anxiousness out there, because that's what gives you the difference between guys and other guys. That's why Tiger is so good because he can handle it better than anybody else. And also he loves that feeling. When you're playing well and you're on your game that's a great feeling to have. Q. Ernie was in here a little bit ago and he said maybe from the way Phil is playing he may have even gone past Tiger in more Masters that he might have. You saw Tiger up close, obviously, at the Masters last year. Do you see Phil maybe surpass go Tiger at Augusta a little bit. CHRIS DiMARCO: No. The one thing that I think Phil Phil's on a hot streak. Two weeks ago everybody was saying he hadn't won yet, and all of a sudden he's won two tournaments and he's better than Tiger as Augusta. It's funny how that works. Phil is a great player, I have a lot of respect for his game, it's awesome. But that course sets up great for Tiger. If he putted at all like he normally putts, I wouldn't say he'd beat him, but it would have been closer. Phil was in control of that tournament and what he did to the field in Atlanta, it was amazing. And it's nice to see Phil the confidence that he has in majors and the calmness that he looks like he has out there is something that I think it took him a while to get, but I think like he said, everybody was waiting for one. He said I'm planning on a bunch. I think you're going to say a lot more majors in Phil, for sure. Q. The weather is so nice this weekend, what kind of number do you expect for the week? CHRIS DiMARCO: I haven't been here for so long. Somebody said this was the highest cut last year on Tour. If the wind wants to blow 10 or 30, if it blows 10, somewhere around 10 under, that's what usually wins here, 8, 10 under, something. If the wind blows hard it can probably be down to four or five. Q. How much have you played with Camilo Villegas, and what are your impressions of him? CHRIS DiMARCO: I played a couple of practice rounds with him a couple of years ago. I think he played it's not just him, it's all these younger kids. They're ready to play out here. They're ready to be in the spotlight. They're ready for what it entails with the nervousness and stuff like that. You don't see kids screwing up down the stretch like you'd expect them to do. Like John Holmes. You expect a Ryan Palmer, who's been there. And John Holmes birdied every hole. So you're not they're not afraid to win, like I was, to be quite frank. It was hard. It was hard with the lead out there and the cameras on you and the people cheering you. It was hard to balance all that. And these young kids now are able to do that. Q. What do you think has changed? CHRIS DiMARCO: I think they have a lack of fear. And I think that you're starting to see more college I think, like you barely read about it in golf week, now you're seeing it televised. There's a lot more notoriety out there. Kids are used to this. There are more people following college tournaments. And people are getting a breath of what it's like. Like Camilo played the Nationwide last year, and he had that whole year to get used to what it's like out here. And he's a great talent. He's going to be here for a long time. There's a lot of kids that are that are going to be here for a long time. Q. Is that lack of fear translated into the way they play with hitting it as hard as they can? CHRIS DiMARCO: I think they prepared better in college. I went to college to have fun. I can promise you I had a lot of beer. And I had a good time in college. These kids now they don't do that. They're working out at 6 in the morning, and they're concentrating on golf and they're getting through. When they come out they're ready for it. I had basically when I turned 22 is when I said, okay, now time to get serious. Now they're doing it at 18 or 19. They're just doing it younger. |
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