BUICK INVITATIONAL

February 14, 2003

Marco Dawson

Let's talk about the first two rounds, how was it for you? Long day today.

MARCO DAWSON: Kind of a long day. Once you know how many holes you're going to play, you know how to prepare for it. It's not something that's new.

The greens, that was pretty much the main concern: if they were going to cut the greens, how low they were going to cut them, how fast were they going to be. The greens on the north course were pretty comparable to the ones on the south that were not cut. It was just a little bit different.

MODERATOR: You had your best finish on tour last week. Your game is back in shape right now, looks like.

MARCO DAWSON: Yeah, I hit the ball well at the Bob Hope, putted terrible. Last week I started making a few more putts. Kind of, I hate to say it, but I got a few real bad bounces, made double bogeys. I think I led the stats in double bogeys last week.

But other than that I can see some light at the end of the tunnel as far as my putting.

This week, you know, I started to make some putts and I felt real comfortable on my long putts. Didn't have any three-putts. I don't think I had any bogeys.

MODERATOR: We saw you grab the back a little bit there today. We know you've had some past trouble there.

MARCO DAWSON: It's completely different from the past problem. It's more of a spasm now. I don't know where it came from. It just seemed to bother me just a little bit all day long after the shot, not during the swing, not during the practice swing, but after the shot it would want to cramp up. But there was just enough time in between the shots that it would kind of relax. It would give me a little bit of breathing room for the next shot.

MODERATOR: We'll take some questions.

Q. What did you do as far as straightening out your putting? Putter change? Working at it?

MARCO DAWSON: I lengthened the putter, changed my stance just a little bit. Just went back to the basics. You know, the thing I was doing before just wasn't working, so I figured, you know, I'm not going to keep on doing something that's not working, try something different. It started to work pretty good.

Q. (Inaudible)?

MARCO DAWSON: No, I tried all that stuff last year. I tried the putter, the belly putter, all kinds of grips, weights, lengths, all kinds of different putters. Just got in a bad way last year.

Q. Was the course playing different today compared to yesterday?

MARCO DAWSON: The weather was nice today, but the course still plays the same. It's will wet. The greens are still slow. There's no roll. You have differences: sunshine instead of gray clouds.

Q. Did the greens dry out a little?

MARCO DAWSON: I don't know what the north course greens were like yesterday or this morning, but they were softer than the south course greens. Of course, I don't know how they played this afternoon, the south course greens. I really can't tell you.

Q. Do you think it's an advantage to have the north course on a dry day?

MARCO DAWSON: I don't think so either way. I think the only advantage that I felt was I played the tougher course first. That was about it.

But, you know, I didn't play a practice round, and I hadn't played here since they made the changes. This was played sight unseen.

Q. (Inaudible)?

MARCO DAWSON: The course was closed. We couldn't play Tuesday.

Q. Or Wednesday.

MARCO DAWSON: Or Wednesday. The ProAm Wednesday was canceled. Monday there was a ProAm.

Q. Did you play Monday?

MARCO DAWSON: No, I didn't play on Monday.

Q. Is it hard to do that?

MARCO DAWSON: Well, the basic routing of the course was still the same except for a few holes. It was just the greens that were different. Being that the greens were soft and slow, it really didn't make that much difference. You didn't have to worry about a shot catching the slope and then rolling off 20, 30 feet left or right or short.

Anytime you hit the green, it would pretty much stop right where it hit. That was probably an advantage for me not playing the golf course.

Q. There not being any rain for probably the rest the tournament, do you think it will be a different course than what you played yesterday?

MARCO DAWSON: If the wind picks up and it stays sunny, it's going to dry out. I don't know how fast the course dries out. I'm thinking it's gradually going to get a little firmer. I don't think they're going to turn the sprinklers on this week. They're going to hope it dries out as much as possible. All the players will, too.

Q. Do you want the greens to dry out?

MARCO DAWSON: You know, all I can do is prepare for what the greens are. It doesn't make really that much difference. Obviously, if they're rock hard, no, you don't want to play on those conditions because it's a lot tougher.

But, you know, real soft or medium, you know how to prepare for it. Once you hit a few shots on some of the greens, you know how it's going to react, you know how to adjust.

As long as they're not extreme one way or the other, I don't think it's an advantage or disadvantage one way or the other, it's just a matter of how well you adjust.

Q. How do you prepare for the weekend? You're in contention.

MARCO DAWSON: Well, first thing I'm going to do is go try to get this thing worked out on my back. Hopefully it doesn't get any worse. Then I'll probably go hit a few drives. I hit a few funny drives. I don't know if that was because I was trying to protect something or I was just swinging funny. I'll go hit a few drives, hit a few putts. I don't know what the greens are going to be like.

I'll just hit some drives and putts, that's pretty much it.

Q. (Inaudible)?

MARCO DAWSON: The surgery was three years ago. I took enough time off. I didn't want to have a problem. I didn't want to come back too soon. That was a mistake a lot of athletes make. Since I had the time, the only thing that suffered was my putting. I was putting well before the surgery. For about two years after it, I just suffered tremendously. I couldn't put my finger on why. I tried everything: the long putter, short putter, everything.

Finally, I don't know why it takes so long, I talked to several other players that had injuries, about how they came back, and they said the same thing. They struggled in certain areas that they really didn't think they would.

You know, it just seems to be one of those things. You're just not going to recover as soon as you think you will.

Q. Were you a strong putter before the surgery?

MARCO DAWSON: I was at that time. My history was, no, I wasn't a strong putter, but I had worked on it. The year previous on the BUY.COM, I finished one in putting. I had an accomplishment I made those two or three years I was working up to that. That year I finished third. I come out here, my back starts to bother me. I was playing pretty good, but I was trying to protect my back. 11 weeks later I had to have the surgery. 12 weeks after that, I started practicing again.

My game came around fine after about four or five weeks. The putting was pretty good for about two or three weeks. All of a sudden it just went to hell. I had the yips bad, real bad.

I asked several players what they did when they had the yips. They don't want to admit it. You have to pull them off to the side, "I know you had the yips for a while. What did you do to recover?" They'll tell you. I won't mention any names.

Q. What did you do to get rid of it?

MARCO DAWSON: I just stuck with what I used to do to get me to the point where I was putting really well. I kept the game plan, practiced the same way, tried to figure out on the course why I wasn't making the putts. What were my tendencies? Short? Long? Left? Right? Go from there.

Q. When did you first start feeling better?

MARCO DAWSON: I felt good in Hawaii, I felt good at the Bob Hope. I just wasn't real consistent yet. Last week there was some consistency. This week it's been real consistent. It just keeps on getting better.

Q. (Inaudible)?

MARCO DAWSON: Probably that year '99 on the BUY.COM.

Q. (Inaudible)?

MARCO DAWSON: No. Still with a Callaway driver and ball. I tell you one thing I'd like to say about the guys on the Nationwide Tour, they prepared the players last year much better than I think any other year as far as the course setup. The courses out here don't seem to be near as hard as they once were for me.

The two years that I played out there, the guys out there have really done a great job on setting the courses as far as being tough. Sometimes they go overboard, but that's okay. They really did a good job. I really didn't feel the courses played that tough as they did in past years to me. I mean, maybe the greens were soft, but I played here when the greens were soft, and still I don't think I felt near as comfortable.

MODERATOR: Wasn't it 2000?

MARCO DAWSON: It was '99 that year out there. The next year I played out here and got a medical. Played out here in 2001. I had 20 tournaments, didn't play any good. Last year I played out there again.

Q. What did you find out about your putting?

MARCO DAWSON: It was mostly short. Afraid to hit too far by the hole, hit it too hard. That's always been my tendency ever since I can remember. I was more often than not short. I was afraid to hit it too hard.

Being from Florida, you grow up on slow greens, all of a sudden you get out on the TOUR, you have greens that are twice as fast, you don't feel like you can be aggressive at all because you're going to knock a ball 10 feet by.

It took a while to get used to the speed of the greens when I came out here. Being from Florida, it's hard. It's rare to find greens that are real fast. Nowadays, with the grasses the way they are, you can find any course in Florida now that has real good greens. That's not uncommon anymore. 10, 15 years ago, it was nothing but grain, grain, grain on Bermuda grass.

Q. I would think not being able to putt would drive you nuts.

MARCO DAWSON: Well, it does. I remember in college the guys that used to come down from the north, I went to Florida Southern, the guys from the north were all good putters. After a few months on the Florida greens, they were pulling their hair out because they couldn't putt the greens in college. They became poor putters after that.

Q. (Inaudible)?

MARCO DAWSON: I can't remember the last time.

Q. This is a good time?

MARCO DAWSON: This is a good time, yeah. Valentine's Day. I did it for my wife.

MODERATOR: Go ahead through the six birdies you had today.

MARCO DAWSON: No. 1, driver, 3-wood, 2-putt on the green. 40 feet, 2-putt.

5, driver, 9-iron. Made about a 30-footer there, 35-footer.

8, driver, 9-iron, about 20 feet.

10, driver, 9-iron to about 10 feet.

17 was a 6-iron to about three feet.

18 was a driver, 4-iron, two putts from 20 feet.

MODERATOR: Left one chip short.

MARCO DAWSON: I left 15, 16 and 18 dead in short, I mean a roll and a half short.

MODERATOR: Thank you for joining us. Good luck.

MARCO DAWSON: Thanks.

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