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JOHN DEERE CLASSIC

July 14, 2006

Daniel Chopra

SILVIS, ILLINOIS

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Daniel, for joining us for a few minutes here in the media center at the John Deere Classic. It's been a good couple of weeks. You were leading with Joe in the first round at the Western last week and then I guess you're the leader the second round, so you've got to feel pretty comfortable right now.

DANIEL CHOPRA: Yeah, it feels good. I've been playing quite well, a little bit scrappy at times this week. I've had a few poor shots, but my short game has caught fire, as well, so I've had some incredible saves.

Q. Joe talked about what lessons he's going to try to apply from last weekend. Is there something you learned?

DANIEL CHOPRA: You always learn. You know, the most important thing is comfort level, being in that situation often enough, eventually you'll be comfortable with it. It's the same with everything.

For me it's always taken me a little bit longer to get comfortable with my surroundings because I've always been a huge fan of the game, and I guess I put it more on a pedestal than what other players might do, and I maybe make things a bigger deal than what they really should be just because I love the game so much.

Growing up in India, you dream of playing on the PGA TOUR and having chances to win events. I guess when you get there and have the opportunity to do it, you maybe overemphasize the importance of it a little bit.

Q. Was that leaderboard intimidating last week with Tiger?

DANIEL CHOPRA: No, that's one good thing that I was very proud of is a lot of my good events that I've played on the PGA TOUR and my high finishes have come with Tiger, Phil, Vijay in the field. It's actually been kind of nice, a lot of times I'm playing and I'll look on the leaderboard and I'll see Woods, Chopra, Mickelson, and just to see my name on the leaderboard with those guys, I mean, not just in the smaller events when they don't play. I've actually played well when the fields have been strong.

So no, intimidated, no. I've been around, playing professionally all over the world since 1996.

Q. Is this course a lot different from what you faced last week? Even though it's a much newer course, some players say it's got that older classic style design to it that's in a lot of ways similar to Cog Hill. Do you find it the same course a little bit?

DANIEL CHOPRA: I think it's totally different from Cog Hill. I mean, Cog Hill here it's a lot easier to put the ball in the fairway, and then the second shots, everything narrows in from there on in. You hit it to about 300, 310, from there it gets really narrow to holes. The greens get not necessarily smaller but the target where they put the pins they have these sections on the greens where they put them, so you have to be more and more precise as you play the hole. Whereas at Cog Hill the greens are fairly large, you've got to put the ball in the fairway, a little narrower fairways, but once you were in the fairway at Cog Hill it was a little easier to dump the ball on the green and two putt, whereas here it's easier to put the ball in the fairway and harder to get it close, I think.

Q. Up to last week it had not been a good year, right? Did something change, something happen?

DANIEL CHOPRA: Well, I mean, I've locked my card up already, so it wasn't really a bad year. I had had a couple of months in the middle where maybe, yes, I would agree with you, but the middle part of the year was not good. The beginning was great, the middle part was no good, and then until a couple weeks ago it started turning around for me. Part of that was the middle part of the year I was working on a few things, trying to change a few things up just to try to get better, and I was I think I had good enough a start to the year where I was I could afford the luxury of experimenting a little bit to try to get better.

Q. The reason I was going that way is I know Arjun started working with somebody new recently

DANIEL CHOPRA: No, I'm not working. My coach is Kel Llewellyn and I've been with him ever since I was 14 years old, and he taught me well enough to where I can go ahead and fix myself and experiment with a few things, and that's what I've been doing.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Can we go through your round? You started on 10 and you birdied 14.

DANIEL CHOPRA: Birdie on 14, that's a short par 4. I had a bit of a scrappy start to the round, so I decided I'd play that hole aggressively just to try to shake out the cobwebs, and I hit a huge drive in front of the green, pitched it up to about 15 feet and made that putt.

16, they had the pin tucked up against the water or the hazard, and I had a beautiful 9 iron in there to about 15 feet again.

17, bogey, I just pushed my drive a little bit and kind of missed I thought the wind was out of the right and it was out of the left and it went down the hill into the bushes, and I was just basically stuck from there and could only hack it out into thick rough and lay up and pitch on, two putt.

18, birdie, yesterday I tried to play that hole a little defensively being 7 under for the day. Today I said, no, hit driver. I felt comfortable and I hit a drive way down there and I hit a little three quarter punch 8 iron right over the flag to about six feet.

No. 2, just hit a drive, really good second shot into the wind and just kicked off the left edge of the green into the left bunker, was actually right at the flag and almost holed my bunker shot.

4, bogey, one of those, I guess, brain melts. I just lost concentration for a moment and hit a bad drive into some thick hay and just had to pitch out.

6, part 2 of the brain melt where I had 9 iron from the middle of the fairway and hit a 50 , 60 foot pull, worst short iron I've hit this year.

Birdie on 8, hit a great drive, almost holed my second shot, spun a sand wedge straight back over the edge of the hole, came back maybe 10 feet short of the hole, made that.

Q. After last night you were pretty excited and you charged up the hill and it looked like you were ready to play another 18 again there. With the short turnaround, did you make any changes in routine at all?

DANIEL CHOPRA: None other than the fact that as soon as we got home we ordered room service. That was the first time we ate at home, only because I wanted to eat as quickly as possible to give as much time as you can for your body to start shutting down and going to sleep.

Q. Joe talked about getting out of his routine last Sunday. Did you find that was an issue over the weekend?

DANIEL CHOPRA: No, I felt good over every shot I played. I didn't feel like I was struggling with anything. If anything, I think I might have pressed a little too hard when things were going the wrong way and trying to recover, aggressive lines, I mean, not routine or anything like that, but I thought that I've got to try and make something happen, and I maybe got a little overaggressive.

You know, sometimes you have to do that. If you want to try and win a tournament, sometimes it pays off. You hit the aggressive shot and it comes off, you make birdie and you get pumped up and get some momentum. You're not going to get anywhere by playing safe when you're behind. Sometimes you have to force your way out of it.

Q. Soft golf course, going to get firmer?

DANIEL CHOPRA: I don't think. I mean, as hot as it is, the greenskeeper is going to have to keep water on the course to keep the greens alive. They might speed up just a little, but I don't think it's going to get hard. The greens will still be soft.

Q. Do you feel like you've got to keep the aggressive mindset?

DANIEL CHOPRA: You have to, around here you do. The fairways are definitely going to stay soft so you've got to be able to put the ball in the fairway, and then from there even if the greens do firm up, if you're hitting out of the fairway you can still be fairly aggressive.

Q. Is it a case of picking your spots, where you want to be aggressive

DANIEL CHOPRA: On this course, yes.

Q. Just overall because you said last week you got a little overaggressive, but today you said on 14 you needed to get aggressive to try and kick the cobwebs out.

DANIEL CHOPRA: Well, yeah, exactly. You feel when you hit basically what happened is I hit one shot left, then I hit the next one right, so I was overcompensating, and I hate when I do that because you're playing a shot off the previous shot rather than a brand new shot. I just got up there and said, no, just go up there and make a good aggressive swing and forget about the left rough, you're not going to compensate for now. That was kind of more what it was. I hit that one good swing, okay, now we can go.

You have to play that way. Sometimes you have to throttle back a little bit and sometimes you have to go a little harder, and people like the Tiger Woodses of the world are the ones that are masters at judging their field at the time as to how they're going to play.

I mean, I played with him the final round on Sunday at Doral this year, and that was one of the more impressive rounds of golf I've seen because he really throttled back. He just put the ball didn't drive it great, but when he got the it in the fairway, it was clinical precision the way he placed his irons on the green. I think he might have gone at one flag with an iron, maybe even a short iron or a wedge, but every other one was 20 feet right of the hole, left of the hole, middle of the green. It was such a stress free round of golf, that really impressed me. You see over the years him hitting shots trying to catch up or whatever and he's firing at flags. So that was the copy book, being able to throttle back still aggressive shots but safe lines.

Q. Joe suggested that Michelle play more PGA TOUR events rather than less.

DANIEL CHOPRA: He suggested she should play more PGA events?

Q. Yeah, because she's great for the Tour.

DANIEL CHOPRA: Well, I would disagree with that only from her own personal perspective. If I were Michelle Wie, if I were a woman, as good and as potentially dominating as I would be, I'd play this game and I think most people would play this game in order to set all time records. Tiger Woods had Nicklaus' list over his bed when he was I don't know how old he was, 12. Michelle Wie has an opportunity to become the greatest woman player the history has ever known. She has the opportunity. She may not be, but she has that opportunity right now. She has to believe, and I think everybody around her believes that she could become the greatest of all time. It might take her a while to catch Annika, but she has that opportunity. I think she's wasting those opportunities by not playing the LPGA Tour.

She may have different goals, but I know if I was a woman, I would be trying to break everything, break every single record ever made, make it unbreakable so nobody else can do it. And then from time to time if you have a little stretch, test yourself against the men periodically. But I would say she's wasting her own time right now.

The one positive I would say is it's going to seem easier playing against the women next week or whenever she plays on the LPGA Tour again compared to playing with us out here, courses will be shorter, so maybe it makes her feel more confident and dominating when she goes back to the LPGA Tour, and if that's the case, that's fine.

Q. You mentioned earlier that growing up you had a reverence for the game and it was always a dream of yours to come and play on Tour and win Tour events. You also told us last night that you felt like you had been punished for some of the good play that you've had with the bad breaks where you felt like you were being punished

DANIEL CHOPRA: Well, you feel that way. You feel like this is only happening because I played so well the first couple days. You know, it wouldn't be happening you know, the higher you are, the harder you fall. So when you're right up on top of the leaderboard and you start making bogeys, it feels a hell of a lot worse than what it would feel if you were just in 35th place. That's just a feeling that you might go through at the time. There's certainly nobody out there with their sights on me trying to punish me for playing well, no, absolutely not. But when you struggle that way, sometimes you feel like that.

Q. Part 2 of that was from these two rounds, do you feel like you've put yourself in as good a position to try to win this tournament as you can?

DANIEL CHOPRA: Oh, absolutely, and I feel like I have an opportunity to I wouldn't say maybe redeem myself, but a second chance, so to speak. It's great that it came the week after.

Q. Pretty much a do over?

DANIEL CHOPRA: And it's not something I ever dwell on. I'm one of the quickest rebounders out here because of the fact that I might feel bad for a day but then I'm as keen and love it and ready to go the next day. It doesn't matter how poorly I play, I'm ready to go the next day.

Q. Do you think Michelle brings money to the Tour? Do you believe in that?

DANIEL CHOPRA: Well, of course. I mean, she brings a lot more people in through the gate this week than if she wasn't here. But you could say the same thing, if you put Michael Jordan in the field here, you'd probably have 100,000 people here watching him play. You have to ask yourself what are they coming out to watch. Are they coming out to watch a celebrity or somebody that's going to perform at the highest levels? And that's a debatable thing, whether you want to get the gate or whatever. That's slightly different because she is still one of the better golfers out there.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you.

End of FastScripts.

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