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BOB HOPE CHRYSLER CLASSIC

January 16, 2007

Chad Campbell

LA QUINTA, CALIFORNIA

JOE CHEMYCZ: We welcome Chad Campbell our defending champion in to the interview room for a couple of minutes. I'll just open it up for questions and we'll start, just fire away, how's that.

Q. What's it feel like to be back where you played so well last year at the start of the year?
CHAD CAMPBELL: Yeah, absolutely, it's great to be back. It's always great to be back after you've won the previous year and defend. Hopefully I can come out and play some good golf. Played a couple good rounds last week and didn't play too well on the weekend and still trying to get back into things. I didn't do too much during the off-season as far as golf-wise. Kind of got away from it.
So just getting back in, and ready to start playing some good golf. So hopefully I can this week.

Q. Looking back on last year, what is it that you remember, obviously you played well the week before you came here, but what is it that you remember about last year?
CHAD CAMPBELL: You know, I remember just playing good every day, five days. It's tough to play good four days in a row, much less five.
It's nice to be able to come out and play solid every day. And Sunday, didn't play probably my best golf but hit a lot of good shots, hit some bad shots, and probably hit the best shot I've ever hit in my life on 13. I don't know if y'all remember, out of the bunker, actually got that up-and-down for a bogey there.
You know, I think that shot kind of won me the tournament. I could have really let it slip right there, and you know, it's nice to have memories like that. You know, I'll always think back to that shot and you know, it was just overall a great week.

Q. You said you took a lot of time off from golf in the off-season. Can you talk about what you did do and any changes you might have made to your game?
CHAD CAMPBELL: Right, you know, like I said, I didn't play much golf. Kind of got away from it. You know, after a long year, you need to just -- or me, not everybody, some people continue to play. But you know, you get a little burned out and you kind of lose your edge. It's nice to totally get away from golf for a while.
As far as what I did not too much. We moved into a new house right after I got through with the Shark Shootout. So spent a lot of time getting stuff in the house and taking care of all that stuff.

Q. Where?
CHAD CAMPBELL: It's about 30 minutes from where I used to live in Colleyville, Texas.

Q. Can you talk about the mind-set of this tournament, you won it 25-under I think it was and it's been 30 before that. Do you feel a lot of pressure to go out and just start making birdies right away, or do you have to fight back the urge?
CHAD CAMPBELL: It's very easy to get impatient whenever you're out there and you start off with four or five or maybe shoot even on the front nine. You kind of feel like you get behind. You've just got to stay patient, it's hard to do and keep trying to make birdies.
Now that we're playing the Classic Course, it's definitely the most difficult course that we play. So you know, you get a little wind on this golf course, 1- or 2-under is a great score.
So it's a little bit different mind-set out here. You get over there, the wind doesn't blow on those courses quite as much, so you need to make a lot of birdies over on those courses and just try to hopefully catch this course with no wind and you shoot some good scores. You know, in the wind it's a demanding golf course.

Q. What's your relationship with George Lopez like and what do you like him?
CHAD CAMPBELL: You know, I actually just met him for the first time last year. I played with him, I can't remember which round, I think it might have been the third round. I can't really remember.
But I've ran into him throughout the year a few different times, a couple outings in Dallas he came down to play in. I think it's great for the tournament. He's a great guy and I think he'll definitely represent the tournament well.

Q. Did you give him the flowers?
CHAD CAMPBELL: Give him the flowers? Yeah. (Laughter).

Q. The last few years you've played in the celebrity rotation and some guys kind of steer away from that, but you not only played in it but you won in it. Do you have to be looser or more focused or how do you handle that?
CHAD CAMPBELL: I actually enjoy playing in the celebrity wave. I like meeting the guys. I kind of looked at it this year, probably some of the same guys, some new guys.
I think it's great. They know we're out here playing in a golf tournament and they do their entertaining and they have a good time as well, but they don't -- seems like they understand maybe a little bit better what we're doing.
When it's time for us to play golf, everyone's quiet and nobody's messing around or anything. Everybody has their own opinion but I kind of like playing in the celebrity wave personally.

Q. Have you gone on to 10 and have you seen the billboard?
CHAD CAMPBELL: Driving in, I saw the one, I guess there's a billboard. It's pretty cool, the thing is huge. I don't know how tall it is, it's going to be 15, 20 feet tall, pretty big. That's awesome. That's great. I was very fortunate to win and it's nice that they do that, me and a couple other guys up there, that's pretty neat.

Q. Maybe they can give that to you after the tournament.
CHAD CAMPBELL: I went to a dinner last night and they asked me what I wanted to do with it. I said I'd rather just keep it here for another here. That would be me winning again, so that would be the ideal situation.

Q. Two good rounds to start last week; did conditions change or what happened after that?
CHAD CAMPBELL: You know what, it might have got a little bit windier, not much though. It dried out a little bit.
I just really didn't play very good at all on Saturday or Sunday. Saturday I started off and I wasn't hitting the ball very well but I was able to get up-and-down and save pars. You know, it just finally caught up with me. I thought I would be able to start hitting it good finally and it never really happened and it caught up to me. I couldn't get balls up-and-down but when you continue to miss greens like that, you're just kind of waiting for something like that to happen.
You know, I think it might have been a little bit of, you know, like I said, not playing during the break and maybe a little bit rusty and not trusting what I'm doing yet.
So hopefully just learn from that and not let it happen this week.
JOE CHEMYCZ: Chad, thank you.

End of FastScripts

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