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SHELL HOUSTON OPEN

March 28, 2007

Stuart Appleby

HUMBLE, TEXAS

DOUG MILNE: Okay. We'd like to welcome back our defending champion, Stuart Appleby. He won the event in 1999 at TPC Woodlands. Got a round in. Couple comments.
STUART APPLEBY: It's good to get back on the golf course. The course is in beautiful, beautiful condition. Hopefully we can get some -- or keep the rain away and keep it firm. That's probably more susceptible this year to lower scoring with the lower rough, with the rough being cut down, whatever you want to call it.
I don't know. It's like an extended immediate rough, which will make it a lot easier for us. If we can get the greens fast and firm -- they're fast now, but if we get them firm, that will certainly make the players a little more cautious on even hitting it into the light rough. But it's in great shape.
Hopefully the course firms up, the wind plays the normal Texas roll, it is will be very difficult.
DOUG MILNE: Okay. Open it up.

Q. Your thinking is they are trying to Master-rize the course to get guys to maybe show up in the future because it will be a good preparation for Augusta.
Do you see it that way?
STUART APPLEBY: It's not as hilly, so it's certainly not going -- what Augusta is really known for is it's unseasonably hilly knees. You hear about it, but you really can't. Here you're not going to get anything like that. The only real way they can make this somewhat Augusta-esque is to shave around the greens a lot more, no rough. They can make some course change to make it more difficult, to make it more penal and make you get a bit more weary about whether I should go for the pin.
It tempts you at Augusta. If this course stays soft, it will be very easy, which is not Augusta, if it plays firm, fast and windy, it will make us think more like Augusta thoughts, but that's -- Augusta is much -- there's millions and millions of dollars of sucking water out of greens and draining, this, that, and the other, but I would say if we can keep it windy and dried out, it can get close. It will be a flat version of Augusta, I guess.

Q. Do you think it will change anybody's mind as to changing --
STUART APPLEBY: First thing that changes the mind, if the player says the course is a good test and great shape, it's a good golf course, then you can get players. That's the first thing. If you hear players go "It's a terrible golf course," whatever, in any tournament, then the players -- you won't see them. I could never say that here. I've won here. It's a good test of golf. I'd like to think that's my number this year, too, as last year.
The course is in good condition. It's fair. There's nothing Mickey Mouse about it. The greens are beautiful to putt on. Simple solid green design.
So, you play proper golf, you'll get rewarded. It's a tough one to prepare. Sugar Loaf was probably an interesting test for Augusta, but it's hilly and -- but what do you do for the U.S. Open?
Tell your green guys to not mow the grass for a week and hack it out of 6 inches and -- it takes no skill to hit out of the rough at the U.S. Open. Absolutely zero skill. Will it attract better players? It's totally up to the players' mental thoughts, and it helps to hear us say positive things, but it's very difficult when you don't have the topographical viewpoint of what Augusta has. That is the critical part of Augusta.
These greens are quicker than Augusta. If you took Augusta's greens and put them on a big flat piece of land, it would be no quicker than 50 percent of greens we play on Tour. Being they have a hundred percent more slope, they can get phenomenal.

Q. This is at least drawing an international field because of the timing of it.
STUART APPLEBY: It will. It will be a little more favor.

Q. Maybe the fact that there's a lot of international winners here, too?
STUART APPLEBY: Yeah. It's really -- like Doral they had predominantly foreign players in the Top 10. It was really a foreign event. Hardly any Americans in there when you look at it. It should be more than half, but it wasn't even close to half. That's the way it was the whole week.
That might have been the conditions little bit played in the Euro's hands a little bit with that much wind. You're going to get a bit more international flavor this week. You're not going to get Tiger Woods play. No one ever does. I don't wish, but you might wish that he's here playing every week, but -- you don't because you would have too many questions for him.

Q. I see him just enough.
Stuart, you played a couple events in the Middle East?
STUART APPLEBY: We already talked about that.

Q. Has that benefited your game?
STUART APPLEBY: Not directly, no. It was really a breakout, something different. It wasn't really changing my game, just was a fresh feature for me in playing golf, and I won't make that a regular occurrence, but something different, you know, and I recommend that that's something a lot of American players that really never got out of America should do every two, three years and mix it up a bit.
It's good fun.

Q. Has this been a heavier run up than you expect the to the Masters?
STUART APPLEBY: I've played a bit, yeah. This is my fourth event. More than normal.

Q. Why is that?
STUART APPLEBY: I just needed to play. I haven't played any good all year, haven't done anything. I haven't performed -- haven't moved with the herd, you know. Stuck out of the back of the dog nipping at heels at the back of the herd, and I got to get moving some. I'm going to try to work my way into form and play my way into form and I'll put my bag down Sunday at Augusta at the end of that and take a couple weeks off.

Q. So you close or how far do you feel like you're catching up with the herd?
STUART APPLEBY: I've got a long way to go. But I know the quality of my game when it gets on a run is going to be very competitive. You look at how Charley Howell has played. You asked him six months ago or a year ago, "Did you think this was going to happen?" He'll say no. I'd like it to happen but -- some great names this year, really good players that have come up and out of nowhere out of the blocks early, so you've got your traditional guys as well.
But it's a long run to the finish line and I'll be right -- the recipe is there. I've got to get the right mixes right.

Q. It's got to be good to come back to some place you played so well last year and to a city you played well in, period?
STUART APPLEBY: Yeah. It's nice to know my form has been here before, and that's just nice on itself. That means something, especially when you come to a course you've played well on before. You know that you know how to hit the shots, pick the shots. You hit the right club like I did at Kapalua.
I know how to read the greens. The course is more wintery in condition than it has been last year because it was three weeks later, but that in itself is enough to scare people into a better performance.

Q. Will your decision-making process change on the course any this year with the different -- do you have to not go at certain pins now?
STUART APPLEBY: If the greens get firm, that will probably keep you cautious with the way -- where you aim it. Make you aim away from the flag. Lot of shaved-off areas from last year as well. That's the extra bit there as well.
If there can be some wind, that will make it interesting. If you don't have wind, any golf course -- St Andrews is probably the most vulnerable golf course in the world. It's critical. Houston typically brings up some wind, and that will add two shots to the day, but the course is -- it's as good as it can get.
DOUG MILNE: Anybody else? Okay.
Stuart, thank you.
STUART APPLEBY: Thanks.

End of FastScripts

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