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TARGET WORLD CHALLENGE

December 15, 2006

Chris DiMarco

THOUSAND OAKS, CALIFORNIA: Second Round

CHRIS DiMARCO: Today I actually hit a great shot into 1, had a six-footer, missed that.
Birdied 2, made two good birdies on 6 and 7. Any time you can birdie those holes it's nice.
Made a bogey on 8, made a great birdie on 10, hit it about a foot.
11, hit a great putt from about eight feet, almost a 360, didn't go in.
I birdied 12. I hit a 5-iron to about 12 feet, made a 12-footer.
14 made a great up-and-down, made about an eight-footer for par.
15, hit a good 6-iron in there to about eight feet, lip-out.
I was able to birdie 16, 3-wood, 3-wood, chipped it up a foot.
18 had a tough shot, was able to hit a 5-iron just short of the green and then missed my putt. It went right over the edge. I would have liked to have not finished that way.
I think I've had three three-putts this week, which is amazing. I don't three-putt that often, and that's not sitting well.

Q. The three-putt, the result of the greens, the conditions of the greens?
CHRIS DiMARCO: They certainly weren't from like 12 feet. All of them were long putts. On 18 I probably had 65 feet up that slope, so that was one of them. Yesterday, on 10, same thing, hit it right of the hole and it spun all the way down, had a 60-footer coming back up the hill, and I think I three-putted No. 2 yesterday, hit it right on the front edge of the green and had a 75-footer up two slopes, and I had it go through the fringe. I really don't count that one, either.
It's certainly not missing short putts. I'm putting really good. I'm looking forward to tomorrow, keep hitting good shots.

Q. In terms of your year, can you kind of give us some thoughts on your year and what you think up to this point?
CHRIS DiMARCO: Yeah, the first quarter of it was good and the last quarter of it was good. The middle kind of sucked. I got off to a great start, I won overseas in Abu Dhabi, and then on the regular Tour I got off to a good start, finished top 15 in three tournaments or four tournaments, and then I went skiing and hurt myself.
I just got done with Doral, hit a great shot into 18 at Doral, made a great birdie, finished like 20th there. So the first five tournaments I played I had top 20s, I was fine, and I had won. I was looking good, and I hurt myself skiing and I had to miss TPC. I tried to play Atlanta and I tried to play Augusta and struggled through it.
One thing I've learned from that is that I will never try to play injured again. I will just take off until I'm better. The first thing was obviously physically I was hurt and I was doing things in my swing and hitting shots I don't normally hit. Then after enough of that, you lose your confidence. So it was hard to get my confidence back.
The British Open basically saved the year. I finished in 2nd there and it helped me with the Ryder Cup, which was one of my huge goals. It put me back into an okay year. $1.6 million isn't a bad year, it's not up to what I've done the last six or seven years, but for being hurt -- it threw me back about three or four months. I was out of not playing normal golf for 12 or 16 weeks.

Q. Does that make you rethink in terms of you getting hurt skiing, does that make you rethink some of the things you do in the off season?
CHRIS DiMARCO: You know, basically what happened was I had a backpack, and when I fell I had something in my backpack that kind of kidney punched me and bruised one of my ribs. I can still feel it right now. So there will be no backpack basically. I'm going to take it a little bit easier. I have three children, they all ski, and it's just a great family thing.
I know I think Tiger has even been skiing lately. He's got about $100 million in endorsements, so he's got a little bit more to lose than we do. If you do it the right way and you're careful about it and you're not overly crazy, it's a good, fun week, and I'm looking forward to it. It's a great way to relax.

Q. Like Tiger, you had to deal with some personal adversity losing your mom. Talk about that a little bit. Tiger was saying the one place for him that's difficult is on the golf course because he thinks so much of his dad. I know you talked at the British about your mom took you to junior tournaments. Is it difficult for you or has it been?
CHRIS DiMARCO: I think about her two or three times a day. Absolutely if I'm sitting around I'll think about her. I know that she's always with me. It was just such a shock. It just happened unexpectedly. This time of the year is probably the worst time, around the holidays. I know my dad is struggling with it at home.
Luckily we have a lot of family that's real close, and I talk to my brothers almost every day, I talk to my dad almost every day, and we just talk our way through it. We're certainly an emotional family so tears are certainly not held back.
We're not the only family to ever lose a loved one. It happens to everybody, you just have to handle it how you handle it. It's really the first adversity we ever really went through as a family, and it really made us stronger, closer, and like I always say, my mom will never be forgotten, she'll always be remembered.

Q. Where are you going skiing?
CHRIS DiMARCO: We go to Snowmass.

Q. And another question, coming back to that, are you going to play the Middle East?
CHRIS DiMARCO: I am, I'm going to Abu Dhabi and Qatar my first two. Phoenix will be my first one over here.

Q. But we will see you for the first two over there?
CHRIS DiMARCO: I am going to play Abu Dhabi and Qatar, yes.

Q. At Hoylake you went into a lot with your mother. When this type of thing happens in the public, in other words, all of a sudden everybody is writing about it and talking about it, does that bother you, and do people come up to you and express condolences because of that?
CHRIS DiMARCO: I've had a lot of people come up to me and just say, you know what, you've really helped. I've lost a mom or a dad in the last few months, and the way you handled it has really helped me deal with it. That's great. That's gratifying obviously.
Like I said, I've always been a player that wears his emotions on his sleeve and I've never been one to try to hide that. I was hurt, without a doubt. You only have one mother and one father in this world.
I think about her a lot, and she was such a great mom. She was always there for me. She always put our needs way ahead of hers.
It's a great loss to the world, not only as a mother but as a great woman.

Q. Your dad didn't want to go to Hoylake?
CHRIS DiMARCO: No, I made him go.

Q. It was another great run for you in the majors, and I know people keep asking you, do you think you can get over that edge? Is there anything holding you back, the two playoff losses and then another good run at Hoylake?
CHRIS DiMARCO: Yeah, there is one thing holding me back. There's a guy who's named Tiger Woods who's pretty good. Me and him beat the field by seven at Augusta one year, and last year I think third place was four or five shots behind me. I certainly played well enough to win. Obviously Vijay played great at the PGA and I lost in a playoff there, too.
You know, the ball has to bounce your way. If my career ended Sunday and I never got to play again, I'd be happy with the way my career was. Obviously just winning on the PGA TOUR is a great thing, and to be consistently up there the last seven, eight years like I have been is something -- I don't know if 10, 12 years ago if you would have told me that I'd have seven or eight years that I had that I would have believed it. I'm certainly believing that now and I certainly feel like I belong there, and it's a great confidence thing. Comfortability is one of the greatest things we can have out there, to be comfortable on the golf course.

Q. (Inaudible.)
CHRIS DiMARCO: Make the Ryder Cup team, absolutely. Playing for your country is the greatest honor there is in the world, I think. We don't get Olympics, we don't get to do that, and to be a team event and to strap that U.S. flag somewhere on your person is the greatest feeling you ever have, the proudest feeling, and it makes you really be honored to be part of it.

Q. I wonder if you'd have a thought on a general question about golf, the golf industry's place in the world right now, I guess. We've seen sports go through boom periods in popularity, and inevitably they peak and face issues as they plateau and maybe even dip a little bit. Do you see golf facing those issues? Has it reached that point? Is it going to reach that point? What does it need to do to avoid it?
CHRIS DiMARCO: You know, I think obviously everybody thinks that we have reached a plateau, that's why we're changing things next year for the FedEx Cup. I personally thought we were doing okay playing for somewhere between $5 to $8 million a week. I mean, it was okay. I certainly wasn't knocking it.
You know, is Tiger going to play the last six tournaments in a row? I mean, that's what we have to see. If he's going to play the last six tournaments in a row and our ratings go way up, then it's worth it. There's no doubt everybody knows out here where our bread is buttered. It's Tiger Woods, and he is what has made our purses go up, and when he plays a tournament the ratings are better, the amount of people that come out and watch is greater, and we know that. As great as Phil is and as great as Vijay is, they're not the ticket that Tiger is, and I think he knows that, too, and he plays quite a bit of tournaments, but he also likes his life and wants to go out and do things. It's unfortunate he can't be a normal person in this world because of who he is.
I still have a little bit of anonymity, which is good, where he doesn't have any. I kind of like having that and being able to go places and kind of blend in is nice.

Q. Can you talk about were you and Tiger, did you guys ever have a conversation or did you bond over both having lost a parent in the same season? I'm wondering if you guys were able to bond over that at all.
CHRIS DiMARCO: You know, we had a moment where I think that we both -- we gave each other a hug, and we didn't need to have any words spoken, it was just kind of felt, what we were both going through. Right after he won at the British Open I was still in the tent and we just kind of said, "great playing," gave each other a hug and knew what we were going through. He was very gracious at his speech, including my mom in the speech, which I thought was great.
Not only is he the greatest player in the world, but the way he speaks to people is pretty unbelievable, too, and he certainly includes everybody and he always says the right thing.

Q. Could you explain to us what it's like playing with John Daly, and secondly, compare a John Daly gallery with a Tiger Woods gallery?
CHRIS DiMARCO: They're very similar. I mean, you get a lot of people, not to use this the wrong way, but you get a lot of people that don't really care much about golf, they just want to see these two guys play, and people that come out that don't really know much about golf. They're just out here to see Tiger Woods and John Daly.
It's not like going to Augusta where 99 percent of the people are golf fans. Here with Tiger and John, you get guys that don't necessarily know what the object of golf is, they just want to see these guys.

End of FastScripts

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