BELLSOUTH CLASSIC

March 30, 2001

Marco Dawson

MARCO DAWSON: Thanks. I played pretty well. I putted well finally. Hadn't been putting too well this year. I really haven't had too many chances to play this year. The two tournaments that I played previous, I played pretty well, but didn't putt very well. But today I had been working on my putting, so finally today I started to make some putts. You know, I could have made a lot more. Usually when somebody plays well, they usually can make a few more shots. I putted well, but I left a few out there. Actually, I hit -- I can't remember, I think I missed one fairway. But I drove the ball well, so I set myself up well today and hit mostly irons well, hit a few bad irons, but recovered well from them. You know, when you're putting well, it takes a lot of pressure off the rest of your game.

MARCO DAWSON: No. I don't play well on the West Coast. I really wasn't ready to go out to play this year on the West Coast. I figured I'd just wait. I knew I was going to probably get into Honda Classic. So that was my second one this year. I thought I would get into this tournament on my number, but I didn't. I got a sponsor exemption. There is a reshuffle after this week, I believe. Hopefully I play well enough to move up and not have to worry about it the rest of this year.

MARCO DAWSON: Well, I haven't been in this position too many times where I played well in the first round, been near the top of the lead. Usually I'm four or five shots or more back. You know, you just feel like you've got to make birdies, you've got to do this, got to do that. You get caught up in doing that. After about ten holes today, I figured I'd play a little more patient, you know, not try and hit the ball 300 yards on the left side of the fairway and have a short -- I'm just going to try and hit the fairway, take whatever I get, go from there. It just seemed to take a lot of pressure off me the rest of the day. I ended up playing better because of it. I wasn't trying to hit it 300 yards. I wasn't trying to hit it a foot from the hole. Just trying to hit a good, solid shot off the tee, a good, solid shot into the green. I ended up hitting good shots.

MARCO DAWSON: Ruptured disc, L5/S1. I'm not real familiar with all the terms. It was a discectomy, laminectomy where the disc was pushing on the nerve. I had pain all down my leg. About this time last year, it really started to show up because of all the hills here. Being in Florida, it's pretty flat, and it didn't bother me so much. When I started to get to Atlanta, Greensboro, it really showed up. Walking up and down the hills really put a strain on it. Finally last year in New Orleans, I just couldn't bend over to hit a putt or put a tee in the ground. MRI showed I had a ruptured disc. When I went to see a doctor, there was good news and bad news. Bad news was I had to take the rest of the season off. The good news was it's kind of a different injury, a different surgery. The recovery time is real short as far as the scar, the healing itself. It's different from a knee or shoulder injury where there's tendons and ligaments involved, cartilage. The only thing that really had to heal in my back was the scar itself. We had to make sure that the scar, in doctor's terms, lengthens because if you don't do the exercises, it shrinks up and makes everything in that area tight. The more exercise you can do, the longer the scar gets. After four weeks, he told me I could go back and play again. I waited another six weeks after that and went out and played last summer, really worked on it every day, tried to strengthen it. Right now it's really -- it really feels good. I don't think it's ever going to be as good as it was 100%. It sure does feel good right now.

MARCO DAWSON: No. I've got a scar. It's about an inch and a half long. It only took an hour and a half and I was home the next day. 24 hours later, I was home, walking at home the next day. Three days later I had walked -- I live on a golf course, so I walked the nine holes that I live on. That's real quick.

MARCO DAWSON: I played 11 events last year. I requested a medical extension for the following year. How it works is if you -- they take the last three years that you played and take the average over the last three years, subtract the number that you played this year or the previous year. Since I didn't play '99 , '98. The last year I played was '97, so they had to go back to the third year. That's all they could go by. That year I played so bad, I ended up playing 31 events just to try to keep playing and make some money. That was the only good thing about that year, is I played 31 events. They subtracted 11 from that, so I get to play 20 this year. For some reason, if I don't get in all 20 events this year, that just goes on to the next year, the following year, until I complete the 20. I'm not required to play every time that I get in the tournament. If I was in, like I said at the West Coast, I ended up getting in three tournaments, the Tucson, AT&T, and I elected not to go to San Diego and AT&T, so at least I don't have to play.

MARCO DAWSON: Whatever the 125th player was last year.

MODERATOR: The number that Marco has is a combined number. 125 is $390,000 plus change. He gets credit for his 11 tournaments last year, which was $44,000 plus change. You take his 44, subtract it out of the 390, it comes out to about the 346 number that you see in the media guide.

MARCO DAWSON: I don't see any reason why I can't do it. Typically the years that I -- the best years I had, I played 22, 24 events. I feel like I'm playing better now than I did then. I think 20 is plenty for me to do what I have to do. They may not all be the 20 that I want to play in, but I know that I play better in warmer weather just from living in Florida and just knowing my past. When it gets cold, I just don't play as well, although I'm playing better. Today kind of surprised me. Yesterday kind of surprised me. I figured I'll let those tournaments on the West Coast go by. I'll play the meat of my schedule in the summer, give me a chance to work on some things, especially my short game, my putting. So far it's coming along just about right. I've had most of the West Coast off, most of Florida off. I think once daylight savings time comes, this is which weekend, most of the players, 126 to 150, start to get in more tournaments. They start to play all through the summer. There are I think five reshuffles during the year. I'm included in the tour school, so I get reshuffled, even though I have to start in the back. If I have a good finish this week, I should move up and then go from there.

MARCO DAWSON: No, I don't think I'm the ultimate grinder. I think that guy's on the senior tour right now. No, I don't think I'm the ultimate grinder. I'm 37. I've been through probably ten tour schools. I guess the older you get, the more you just figure out that the less pressure you can put on yourself, no matter what it's for, if you have a two-foot putt for $5, $500, $5 million, doesn't matter, you still have to get the job done. If you can kind of remove yourself from that and just play, then I think everything else happens, then you can go ahead and free yourself up to play. I'm not going to worry about the money. I'm just going to try and play well. Two, three years ago when I had to go qualify for the (inaudible), that was pressure. I had nowhere to play. On Monday I qualified twice, finished third at the end of the year.

MARCO DAWSON: Birdie on No. 6, the par 5. I hit driver, 3-iron, a pitching wedge to about eight feet.

MARCO DAWSON: Driver, 4-iron to about three feet.

MARCO DAWSON: 9, I hit a bad iron shot left of the green. Chipped it down in the water. Chipped it up and made my putt for bogey.

MARCO DAWSON: 8-iron to about a foot.

MARCO DAWSON: 9-iron to 35-foot putt.

MARCO DAWSON: 15, an 8-iron to about 20 foot.

MARCO DAWSON: 7-iron to about four feet.

MARCO DAWSON: I missed about a five-footer on 1, 15-footer on 2, 15-footer on 3, 6- or 8-footer on 4, about a 12 -, 15-footer on 12, about a 10-footer on 13, about a 15-footer on 14. Where else? How many holes we got left?

MARCO DAWSON: 17 about a 15-footer. 18, that was about a 25-footer. I had a lot of chances, good chances. They weren't all downhill putts. Some good chances. I'm happy with the way things turned out. It means I'm hitting the ball well if I had that many chances.

MARCO DAWSON: Thank you.