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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

May 10, 2007

Chris DiMarco

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you, Chris, for joining us for a few minutes here in the media center at THE PLAYERS Championship. Nice, solid start to the week. Two bogeys in there, but a pretty solid round under some really, really tough conditions.
CHRIS DiMARCO: You're going to make bogeys out there. The course is playing really difficult with the wind directions. It's not so much the strength of the wind, it's the swirling of it. You can get shots and it's downwind and go right-to-left on you, so solid golf shots is what you're looking for out there, and I was able to get a lot of those today.

Q. Just you're starting to play better than you were. What was going on?
CHRIS DiMARCO: I started out all right, and my shoulder was bothering me. I had a couple of cortisone shots here in the last month, and it was just bothering me. And the pain's gone, which is good. I've still got a popping there in my swing, but it's not painful anymore, which is nice.

Q. Every swing?
CHRIS DiMARCO: Every swing, unless it's a 60-yard sand wedge without taking it all the way back, but for the most part all every swing. It was right at the top. I would get to the top and it would pop and it would throw all my timing off.
I've got it to where it's not so bad anymore. It doesn't hurt, which is nice. And I've just tried to forget about it. Either I need to forget about it and play on or get it fixed, so I'm going to forget about it and play on.
But I felt the last two weeks my game is coming around. I haven't shot good scores, but it's been close; as a player you can tell. I've started making putts, I've hit good golf shots, but I haven't been scoring. I've turned rounds, like a 68 today, last week would have been a 73. Shooting as high as I could possibly shoot. Today I got pretty much everything I could out of my round today.

Q. What would fix it, surgery?
CHRIS DiMARCO: Just arthroscopic. I've got some bone spurs, and arthritis of my AC joint and tendinitis of my rotator cuff. I had an MRI and they diagnosed that. It runs in the family. My dad's got a bad shoulder. I've been strengthening it. I've been going and getting therapy on it and doing as much as I can. And that's helped, obviously strengthening it. But I didn't realize it, but it was raised so much, because it was hurting so bad I was protecting it.

Q. Will you get it done at the end of the season?
CHRIS DiMARCO: Yeah, probably get it done hopefully October or November, somewhere in there. It's going to take about a month and a half to be fully back to where I need to be. Right now with the run of majors coming up, I can't really take any time off. So resting it and strengthening it is the biggest thing. I might strengthen it enough where it stops popping and I might not even need surgery.

Q. How did you blow out your shoulder, drinking Newcastles?
CHRIS DiMARCO: No, because that's 12 ounces, and I've got that down real well. Like I said, I think it runs in the family. It's been bothering me for years now, whether it was my right or my left. Both of them are not good. Like I said, I had a cortisone shot and I think it felt okay, but I think I did some things in there that because I didn't really feel it, because I wasn't feeling anything, I might have tweaked something and that's what happened.
So then I had another cortisone shot right in the AC joint and that helped. It was tough to get in, couldn't get it in; it was really painful.

Q. Compare the course now to the way it was.
CHRIS DiMARCO: I like it a lot better. For me it plays -- it's more playable for me, because I can actually hit shots again out there. Before it was so wet and so soft, it was a bombers' paradise. You'd hit it as far as you can. You'd have mud on your ball and hit a shot with mud on your ball, and trying to see what you can do.
No. 2 I can hit a 3-wood. I hit 3-wood, 3-wood on the green today. No. 7, you don't have to hit driver off the tee. No. 10 is not a driver -- is another driver hole. There's a lot of holes I can hit driver on and I can still be out there far enough to be on the green, whereas before it was so soft you couldn't do that.

Q. Watching on the front nine, I didn't see you hit a driver.
CHRIS DiMARCO: I hit driver on 1, perfect drive on 1. And also on 5 and 9. That was it.

Q. How about the back?
CHRIS DiMARCO: The back I hit it on 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 18.

Q. So you didn't bury it completely?
CHRIS DiMARCO: The holes on the back set up perfectly for a driver. I think I hit 11 fairways today; that's the key. If you can hit it in the fairway, you can be more precise out there. I birdied 14. I don't know how many guys birdied 14. I birdied 8. That helps. You do good on those holes and it kind of helps your score a lot.

Q. Can you talk about your injuries over the last year and a half?
CHRIS DiMARCO: Yeah, they suck. I've been pretty much injury free my whole career. Give me 20 minutes before my round, I'm ready to go. I don't need to hit balls most of the time.
Last year was a fluke. I got injured skiing, it took me four or five months to get over that. The back ribs. I got over that, was doing great, and then my shoulder started hurting me early in the year. And I played actually okay over in Abu Dhabi and Qatar. I finished 11th over there.
In Doral it started hurting. I had a cortisone shot and it started popping after that. But the last month it's been popping.

Q. What's been going on with your putting? That's always been the one thing in your game that no matter how you were hitting it, you could always find a way to scrape it in the hole, and that's not the case?
CHRIS DiMARCO: Without a doubt, I came in and said finally I made some of those big momentum putts, to keep the round going. I did that a lot last week. I missed a few, but I hit good, solid putts on all of them. And I felt it really coming around.
The putter I've been using for the last eight years, the one that I wouldn't -- thought I'd never switch from, it had gotten -- the hosel had gotten really weak. If I tapped down spike marks, it was changing it. I'd go the next week and it would be off a degree here or there, where it was open in the loft.
I have a new putter that I used the last few weeks. Having the same loft and lie every round helps, because you can set up the same way.

Q. You had the other one for six years?
CHRIS DiMARCO: Since '98.

Q. What kind of putter is it?
CHRIS DiMARCO: It's the Ping, the Answer F. It's got the pixel insert. It's a great putter, I've got it at home. It's just like you take a -- what is it called -- a paper clip and you bend it back and forth, eventually it's going to break, and that's about where it's at.

Q. What is a bigger thrill, shooting 68 or meeting Tim Tebow?
CHRIS DiMARCO: You know what? Normally I'd say meeting Tim Tebow, but the way I played this year, 68 is very good (laughter). It's very welcome now.
He's a great kid. At one point I looked at him and said, when were you born? He said, 1987. I said, oh, God. I was in my sophomore year of college in '87. So I was like, wow. Really got dated with him. He's a great kid. He's got a lot of pressure on him, but he seems like he can handle it.

Q. When you were born?
CHRIS DiMARCO: I was born in 1968 (laughter).

Q. How have you kept up your confidence level during the struggles?
CHRIS DiMARCO: You know what, you have to just go out and do it. Really look at this year and I've played 12 tournaments, this is my 13th. I made ten cuts, I missed The Masters by a shot and Heritage by two. Other than that, it's been a round here, nine holes here, that's just kept me from doing something pretty good.
I finally had a pretty good deal going at Tampa, and I think I shot two or three over the last round where I'm shooting even -- I finished top-10. So it's just been a nine-hole stretch here, a nine-hole stretch there that's kind of been getting me.
I really feel like it's been coming around. I felt like yesterday I hit the ball really good, really solid, very rhythmic, and today I had a lot of rhythm out there today. That's what I'm going to go with. That's what my strategy is, is just to stay in really good rhythm this week.

Q. Is Rory Sabbatini really cocky or really misunderstood?
CHRIS DiMARCO: I think he's really misunderstood, I really do. I don't think that he -- he's very confident, there's no doubt about that, which is a good thing; you need that. If you talk to him, he's certainly a well-wisher for everybody. He doesn't want anybody to do poorly. He wears his emotions on the sleeve and sometimes says things he shouldn't say.
He's a good guy, and like I said, he's a caring guy and he does care about the other players. He just comes off sometimes the wrong way, kind of Scott Hoch-ish where he says things he probably shouldn't say but says. And sometimes if you're truthful, the truth hurts, and sometimes the truth will stab you in the back. I think he means well, just says some things that maybe come out the wrong way.

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