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OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE PRO-AM

February 16, 2007

David Eger

LUTZ, FLORIDA

PHIL STAMBAUGH: David, 34-33 and 67, 4-under par, I know given the conditions this morning, you're pretty happy to get in with this.
DAVID EGER: The score is great. I wasn't very happy with the way I have hit the ball off the tee. I hit some very good irons but I didn't hit a lot of good tee shots. I seemed to hit the ball from four to eight feet a lot for birdies all day.
On 1, I hit an 8-iron to six feet.
On 2, I hit a 5-iron to six feet.
I missed the green on 6 with a 9-iron and missed a 4-footer.
Wedge to four feet on 7.
And hit a poor tee shot at 9 in the left rough and missed a -- pitched on and missed about a 6-footer there.
Bunker shot to a foot at 12.
Wedge to four feet at 14.
A 4-iron to 16 feet at 17. And that was it.
But as I said, I wasn't happy whatsoever with the way I've hit the ball. And I made a lot of those four to eight footers, but I missed some, as well. Not that you can make all of them but it would be nice one time to make them all.
But I'm satisfied with the score, certainly, not so much how you play, it's what you shoot, it's what you score.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: Traditionally this course has had, 14 through 18, a pretty tough stretch, and Tom Wargo came in and said he thought that was a tough stretch today as well.
DAVID EGER: Certainly we thought -- we being my caddie and the other pro in the group, Brad Bryant, we thought we had a pretty good beat on which direction the wind was blowing, until we got to the 11th hole when we thought it was right-to-left and helping us, it was into us. And then we got on 12 and we thought we would be downwind based on the 11th hole, and it was into the wind.
So the wind is very fickle. You can hit some great shots that will make you look foolish. You can't hit too many poor shots that and that will turn out good, though. It's a difficult day, especially getting the ball close to the green, hitting the right club and getting the ball reasonably close to the hole on the green.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: You're off to a pretty good start this year, tied for ninth last week at the Allianz and played okay in Hawaii.
DAVID EGER: I played real well the first week and putted poorly in the second week.

Q. Just what kind of mind-set do you have to have on a day like today? Do you tell yourself that it's going to be hard for everybody with the weather, or especially when it's going to be a longer round with the amateurs?
DAVID EGER: I guess today with the weather conditions, the first thing you have to do is make sure you were dressed appropriately; that you had the proper layers of clothing on that you could stay reasonably warm. It was hard keeping your hands warm or normal for probably the first nine holes when the cloud cover was in.
But you do go out knowing when the wind is blowing like it is that you're going to -- you're going to hit some shots that aren't too your liking because of the wind, and there's some very key shots out there, such as the tee shot at No. 4 and the tee shot at 15 and the tee shot at 18.
But you know you're going to get fooled by the wind just because of its velocity. For us, it was a changing wind once we made the turn on the back nine. We got it helping only on a few shots. It seemed to be hurting across and a lot of things like that on a lot of shots.
And the amateur portion of it, I happen to be playing with a fellow I've known from Jacksonville for 20-some years. That made things very relaxing for me. But, you know it's going to take a while. There's no sense in really rushing around out there.

Q. The condition of the course, how is that holding up, is it the rain or just the cold make it play any harder or easier?
DAVID EGER: I think it plays longer because they had a lot of rain I guess on Tuesday, and then it may have rained this morning early, coming out here it was raining. So the fairways were on the softer side.
The greens are not -- the greens are just right. However, they are fast. And you really have to watch some of your putts, particularly with the wind. You know, when it gets cool, the grass doesn't grow as much and the green speeds increase. That's my observation about the greens would be the only part that's a little fickle out there. They are quick in spots.

Q. Could you just talk about your expectations coming out on to the Champions Tour when you did, and how you feel like you have lived up to them; are you happy with how you've done, or it's been harder, easier than would you have thought when you first came out?
DAVID EGER: Well, I didn't know what to expect because I had not played with this group of players. I had played with amateurs, top-level amateurs. While they were very good and very young, they are in their teens and 20s most of them, college kids, it took me a while to feel that I was deserving to be out here I guess.
I won fairly quickly. I wouldn't think after my 13th event or something like that -- and a lot of that was luck. I shot like 65 the last day to jump over 12 guys or something like that. I've performed fairly well up until last year when I putted real poorly and didn't do well.
But it takes -- there's a lot of mind -- a lot of things in my mind are saying, well, are you good enough to play out here. I continually question myself about that. I've pinpointed some weak areas in my game and tried to remedy those as best I could with the help of others, David Leadbetter and Dick Coop. So hopefully I'm on the right track.
You have to play aggressively out here. You can't play conservatively except in a few instances. There's only three rounds. If you go out and you shoot -- if you're six back after the first round, if I don't shoot 6-under the next round, then you're not going to stand a chance of finishing in the Top-10. The scoring is phenomenal out here. The fellas, they are very, very good. The good ones don't -- the good ones do everything very, very well and a prime example of that is Hale. He's 61 years old and he's phenomenal.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: David, thank you very much.

End of FastScripts

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