home

jobs

	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

CIALIS WESTERN OPEN

July 7, 2006

Daniel Chopra

LEMONT, ILLINOIS

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Daniel Chopra, thank you for joining us, finished with a flurry, seven birdies on the last birdies on the back side including holing out on 18 for birdie. Had to be a great day for you.

DANIEL CHOPRA: It was. Started out being a lot of hard work on the front nine. Didn't play particularly poorly the first four or five holes but just got a couple of iffy bounces and a couple of bad lies. I had one ball that rolled up behind a tree and could barely pitch it out sideways, and it was just left of the fairway. I managed to save par on that hole, and it just kept me going and I stayed patient.

Then as we made the turn, I didn't birdie No. 9 after hitting a pretty good wedge in there. I told my caddie, we've had to work really hard this front nine, and let's see if the patience that we've displayed will produce some rewards, and it did, and I birdied 10, 11, 12, then actually made a pretty decent bogey on 13, probably the only really bad hole I played. Then I just got some real good momentum, birdied the next hole, par 5. I had a couple of mini spurts there in between.

Q. Going into that stretch, did you see that you were ready to do more, and was it just a case of the ball not like yesterday?

DANIEL CHOPRA: Yeah, that's the thing is I felt just as good as I did yesterday, it was just the matter of fact that I didn't it was just that I was just missing the fairway here or just hitting a shot and not catching a ridge and spinning back. A couple times I hit a wedge that went up pretty close to the hole and spun back and caught a ridge and I wound up 20 feet away. The quality of the play wasn't that different from the first day, but the results were.

Fortunately I was able to stay very patient, and I was actually quite proud of that. When the floodgates did open, they really did.

Q. Tell us about your bogey at 13. You said it was a good bogey.

DANIEL CHOPRA: Yeah. It was kind of out of the blue, I just hit a real bad tee shot; it just went straight left. I actually had a reasonably decent lie, but it was way below my feet, and the pin was front left, and there's no way you can miss that green left, and I just kind of overprotected, and if anything I was just trying to miss the green right and give myself a chance to get it up and down from the right side. I overdid it and almost hit it down in a little ravine that kind of kicks down to the right. I was fortunate to get it hung up in the rough, but I actually hit it too hot and I flew it over the green, into the left bunker now. I almost had well, not an impossible but a very difficult bunker shot where I had to just land it in the fringe and let it roll out, kind of similar to the one I hit on 18.

My bunker play has been really good of late, so I felt really confident and I flopped it out and I almost made that one, too. It was a good bogey in the end.

Q. How many times per year do you go on a seven birdie in a nine

DANIEL CHOPRA: It's funny because I do tend to get that way. Colonial this year I was 6 under through 9 and had about a 30 foot putt for eagle at the very first hole, which was my tenth, which would have put me 8 under for the day. There have been a few stretches early in the season, as well, where I'd get it going. I think this is probably the biggest or the longest stretch with seven birdies in nine holes.

Actually when I was on 17, I had about a 15 , 18 footer for birdie there, and I was kind of thinking to myself, well, if I make this and I birdie the last, I've made eight birdies and a bogey, and that would have been kind of neat. I've never seen that done. I just missed that putt, though, but otherwise I almost did it.

Q. You've played in so many different countries and on so many different tours. Does that change your perspective of how you deal with being here and being on the leaderboard with great players?

DANIEL CHOPRA: Well, it doesn't really change anything for me, other than the fact that I know a lot more people. I'm familiar with being in similar types of situations, on stages, maybe not quite as grand as this, but I'm very well traveled obviously, and I've played in different types of climates and weathers and conditions, and that in itself is an advantage in the long run because I don't ever have a problem in the transition say from going from Bermuda greens to bentgrass greens to poa greens where you always hear a lot of talk about players that will never go and play on the West Coast or never play in Florida or players that have never performed very well in those areas because of the different types of grasses on the greens. For me I think that's a tremendous advantage that I'm fairly confident on all surfaces.

Q. You're obviously fairly comfortable with Cog Hill?

DANIEL CHOPRA: Yes. I liked it from the very first time. I'm a huge golf fan myself, and when I was playing in Europe, I mean, if I missed the cut then I was at home and I was watching the golf on the weekends on our televisions in Europe. I knew all the golf courses, and when I came over here, I didn't know them playability wise, but I was familiar with all the holes as you'd see them on TV and had been watching them for years with dreams of one day being able to come out here and play on the PGA TOUR.

This is one of the events that I was very familiar with on television. It was such a great thrill for me to play the holes for the first time when you've only seen them on TV. I really liked the golf course from the moment I got here. It was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. In fact, all the PGA TOUR golf courses were much harder than what I anticipated them being, and that's something, I guess people that don't play on the PGA TOUR don't realize how hard not just the TV holes, but there's a lot of holes that don't get televised that are extremely challenging.

Q. Because you are on such a roll, how do you approach this afternoon for tomorrow morning? Do you lay off practicing as much, hit the range, do some putting?

DANIEL CHOPRA: Only because of the fact that I finished so early, you don't really want to go home and just lie in bed in the hotel room all day. I might go and watch a movie this afternoon. I'll still probably just chip, putt a little bit. I mis hit a few shots today. I didn't miss anything yesterday, so yesterday after the round was over, I told my caddie, that's it, we're done. I'll go out, maybe I'll hit 30, 40 balls, just practice a couple of shots that I maybe wasn't quite as happy with today. I won't be needing to practice any bunker shots today, though (laughter).

Q. Do you feel like at this stage of your career having played on this Tour for a couple years, do you feel on any kind of verge of winning, breaking through?

DANIEL CHOPRA: I feel like I have the capabilities to win. I feel like I have the game to win. The hardest part of winning on the PGA TOUR is the mental aspect, is believing that you can. Of course I believe that I can, but it's that much more difficult when you're in the situation. When you're there on Sunday with a couple shots of the lead with a few holes to go or nine holes to go, you know, it took me a while just to get used to that fact, when you're playing, for instance, and each shot is costing $100,000, where before I'd be lucky if I had made $100,000 in a year. It was kind of hard to get used to that aspect of it. That put a lot of pressure on me.

People always say, well, it's not your money until you've won it so you're not losing anything, but it's hard to think that way sometimes. The longer you stay out here and the more you play, the more you get used to those facts and the more comfortable you get, and I'm still learning.

I like the way that I played so far this week, but there's such a long way to go, and anything can happen.

Q. Do you look at 13 as being one of the hardest holes out there, and what do you look at when you're standing on the tee?

DANIEL CHOPRA: Well, 13 is a very difficult hole, especially if you put the pin on the back of the green because it's wide out the front, which is a shorter club, and then as the hole gets longer, the green gets narrower with more slope to it. That back pin is the hard one, especially if it gets any kind of hurting breeze because you also have to hit the ball in the fairway because if you miss in that left rough off the tee, you're going to have a pretty tough second shot.

Although I will still say that 18 is a much harder hole. 13 if you hit a good drive, if you had to make 4, you probably could. On 18 it doesn't matter how good a drive you hit, you still have to hit a really quality second shot or a good bunker shot.

Q. With a couple good rounds in already, what are going to be some of the keys this weekend?

DANIEL CHOPRA: Just to hopefully I will wake up tomorrow and the day after feeling the same way as I did today and yesterday, relaxed and comfortable. Everybody says it every week and it becomes a cliche, but you have to keep doing the same things that you did to get here right now. You've got to stay patient, trust the fact that you will make some bogeys but trust the fact that you will make some birdies to get them back, and that's all you really can do.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: If we could touch on your back nine, the seven birdies and one bogey starting with No. 10.

DANIEL CHOPRA: On 10, I hit a pitching wedge out of the right rough to about ten feet I'd say.

On 11, I actually hit a really long drive down the left side, but I almost hit it too far to the point where I was actually blocked out by some trees, so I only had a 5 iron into the green but I had to hit a big hook. The pin was on the right side so I knew I couldn't miss it right. I over hooked it and hit it just left of the green in some really thick rough. It was a really thick lie and I actually kind of chunked it out and I came up 30 feet short and I managed to make that. I think that was probably the turning point where something really good happened.

On 12, I almost made a hole in one. I hit a 7 iron to maybe two feet.

14, I hit a 7 iron again, and the pin was on the left side and the whole green slopes from right to left, and I just used the slope, played it out to the right, let the ball run down to the hole. I had about 18 feet and I made that.

Then 15, I hit a driver and a 2 iron into the middle of the green about 35 feet and just a simple two putt.

16, I hit a really long tee shot, actually hit 3 wood, which might in hindsight have been too much club. But it was downwind and I really in the end only had 127 yards to the hole but I hit it in the real narrow neck of the fairway. I hit a pitching wedge there to about four feet.

Then I holed my bunker shot at the last.

Q. What bunker and how far?

DANIEL CHOPRA: On 18? It was the first bunker, the front right bunker.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: It was like 51 feet.

DANIEL CHOPRA: Yeah, it was pretty close. It was actually funny because I did hit practice shots out of that bunker to a similar pin in the practice round. Actually the pin was just on the other side of the knoll, so I knew to get it over the knoll that I actually had to I couldn't just get it out and flop and roll, I had to give it a little speed onto the green. When I realized my ball was in that front right bunker I realized I'd have a pretty decent shot at getting it up and down, and it wasn't going to be an impossible type bunker shot.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Daniel, thanks.

End of FastScripts.

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297