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VERIZON HERITAGE


April 15, 2006


Jerry Kelly


HILTON HEAD, SOUTH CAROLINA

JOE CHEMYCZ: Welcome Jerry Kelly, 5-under par, 66 today. This is Jerry's 9th start at the Verizon Heritage, and 66 matches his career best, which came in the third round in 2000.

Talk about your day. It's been a while.

JERRY KELLY: I started out hitting it solid and I finished hitting it solid. I don't think -- I'm trying to think when I was outside ten feet on the front side, I hit it beautiful. And I really wasn't taking care of my chances. And that concluded with about a three footer on the 9th hole for birdie that I missed and I kind of figured something out there with the putting and told my caddie, okay, 27 holes, let's go. And kept on hitting it well and had some putts drop there on the backside.

Q. You said you weren't really taking care of it with your putting, but how good a round could this have been? You missed a fairly short one on 18, as well.

JERRY KELLY: Yeah, I had it 6 feet on 1. I had it on the fringe in 2 on 2 and didn't get it up-and-down.

About a 6-footer for par on 7.

And 9 I had it three feet.

A little one on 18. That was the way I'd been playing.

Yesterday I hit it exactly the same as today. And then I made a few of them on the backside today to get something going.

And I made six birdies and none of the par-5s yesterday. I'm striking it well. I've got a good idea with the putter I'm working with, where I can go from here. I feel pretty good about my game.

Q. Your results this year -- I think I looked at it -- you had two top-10s in the middle of a bunch of missed cuts. Can you sort of explain what happened?

JERRY KELLY: I didn't start out with a very good swing this year and really got some things going with my coach, Jim Schuman, right before Tucson, felt fantastic through Tucson and Doral and then I mentally took a wrong turn and really just thought about the wrong things and also didn't cut myself any slack. All of a sudden my expectations went up, that I should be contending to win every single tournament, and I was focusing on the wrong things. Three missed cuts in a row and just go back to basics and let myself play well. And I'm right back to where I was those weeks. So I think in terms of the swing I'm doing all the right things, if I let myself. And mentally I've just got to be in a relaxed frame of mind. With the swing I've got right now there's not as much time as there used to be, and relaxed it pretty good.

Q. Is it going to be hard to stay relaxed coming out tomorrow, because you have to put yourself in position now where you do have a legit chance of winning?

JERRY KELLY: When I say relaxed, you have to look at who is saying it (laughter). I'm never going to be Ernie Els out there. I'm going to be hitching my pants and grabbing my shirt and doing everything. That's relaxing to me (laughter). It's a matter of -- let's say I came out this week and one of my thoughts was don't get mad at a shot. You can get mad if you make a bogey. But if you hit a bad shot, don't immediately think it's going to be a bogey. Go ahead, turn it into a birdie, turn it into a par, whatever you have to do and then all of a sudden you haven't gotten mad for no reason. And I had been beating myself up and getting mad for no reason, for hitting some bad shots that everybody hits. We grow up a little each day and hopefully it stays with me. But that's the kind of relaxed I mean. I'm still going to be intense. I'm still going to be the guy going after it. I'm fine, I feel good.

Q. Do you have any superstition about shaving or not shaving?

JERRY KELLY: Yeah, it took it away this week. I wanted to be a little nicer to myself, and sometimes I scare myself in the mirror with that goatee. I had to look a little nicer and kinder and gentler Jerry.

Q. What did you figure out with the putter and how often does it happen that in the middle of a round or tournament that you catch something that really works?

A. I putted great the first day. And it was very similar to the way I was swinging in Tucson and Doral and how I took a piece of it out and missed three cuts with it, instead of looking at it with the hole. My biggest key is that I rock my head forward a little bit and then it goes backwards. That brings the putter on the up swing, and really it can go left or right. So basically just keeping myself going forward in the putt. And sometimes it's difficult, sometimes it's very easy. I've always looked at it, when I've looked at, because I've always gone backwards. That is what made me better a few of the weeks this year. And really I've putted pretty decent this year, with those putts, and it's something I came up with on the off-season. It's not taking one piece of it, and really looking at it as the whole and going ahead and performing, rather than taking one thing to key on and over doing that, and all of a sudden you're out of the entire basis in what you're trying to do.

Q. Did you learn anything from last year's experience here that may have helped you this year?

JERRY KELLY: Yeah. I found the biggest thing about Hilton Head Island, the one thing that would make me come back here every single time from now on, that little wax myrtle bush on the first tee, if I rub it on my skin, those no-seeums don't bother me. And they're bothering me now. But if you can see all the scars and the bumps, I mean basically I'm allergic to the no-seeums. They turn into little welts and little bubbles. And when I scratch those, the tree pollen gets in and I'm extremely allergic. It's like having an allergy test all over my body. I've really been miserable at this golf tournament in the past. And that has really helped me a lot.

Q. How did you learn that?

JERRY KELLY: I think it was one of the starters off the first tee. He's not there, the older gentleman with the white hair. He was a starter forever. Joe Lewis, exactly, a fantastic guy. He told me. I trust him. He was a local, local for years. And I walk by and I grab a branch and I walk away, and a guy will drive by, and said there's a smart boy right there, so I know these locals know what's going on. And I don't want you to print that, because that's my own advantage.

Q. How about leaving early?

JERRY KELLY: Leaving early doesn't teach you a whole lot, except for humility.

Q. Can you talk a little bit, when you see a lot of people within a couple of shots in the lead, it's more pressure to put up a low number, and not wait for people to play back?

JERRY KELLY: It's really the same amount of pressure for me, I think.

Did I go halfway home last year?

Q. Yes. You forget about that?

JERRY KELLY: I forgot about that, sorry. You know, that was one of my little go ahead and spend the money and hope you make the cut kind of thing. That was the reverse psychology and it worked. I got a little too far and spent a little too much money and didn't need to do that. I did at the U.S. Open. I got packed entirely in the plane and had to unload it. I did it at Shinnecock. I've done it a few different spots. I was in Chicago, I drove halfway home and found out halfway there that I'd made it. So I went ahead and drove the rest of the way and had a good dinner and drove back.

You've got to take relaxed and remember who you're talking to.

It doesn't really matter to me the position I'm in. I'm going to take the same amount of pressure, regardless. Because my pressure is my own, not who is trying to catch me, it's the pressure to win. It starts on the back holes and give yourself a chance to be in the lead. So it's pretty simple whether you're in the lead or chasing.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Take us through your birdies real quick.

JERRY KELLY: No. 3, I needed to get that one after those first two holes, I let two slip away. I hit a driver, 6-iron into the wind there to about 10 feet, might have been less. I think it was more like six feet.

5, knocked it on the front edge and good long 2-putt from the fringe there. That was a tough 2-putt from the back left pin.

JOE CHEMYCZ: 10, 11, 12.

JERRY KELLY: It was nice when I talked to my caddie and we really decided the putter was going to start working after missing the short one on 9. It was good.

I had another five, six feet on 10; about 8 feet on 11. I hit a great second shot. It was kind of like making the corner on 16. We were on the 12th hole, once we got to the end of the trees, it was blowing straight in. So we really felt a lot of wind there. I had a 7-iron from about 142 or something like that. And that was about eight feet and broke about a foot. So that was a good birdie, too.

And up-and-down on the next hole from a terrible position. I had to chip it out into the right section of the bunker to hit a long bunker shot to about four feet and made that putt.

And then 15 I had driver, utility wood to the right and thought I was going to have a clean shot, but I had to hit it a little farther and really spin it to get it down there four feet and execute it well, I checked up and four footer straight uphill to make it there.

Q. Does anybody use the driver anymore in hooding it into the wind?

JERRY KELLY: I don't hood the driver. I will if I have a low draw, but not just to hit it straight into the wind. I'll choke down on it, maybe put it back just a hair, which would, in essence hood it.

Q. Did you start with a wooden driver?

JERRY KELLY: I'm old, man. I'm still using wood in college. I don't know if I had a metal driver in college, I don't think so.

Q. Were you more inclined to hood with wood?

JERRY KELLY: I was always a no left, deep face guy, so I didn't need to hood a whole lot. I just needed to put it back a little bit and drill it down.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Thank you.

End of FastScripts.

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