84 LUMBER CLASSIC OF PENNSYLVANIA

September 17, 2003

Chris DiMarco

TODD BUDNICK: Thank you for joining us today. You were defending champion on a different type of course, and now we have a third different course this year. How difficult is that for a defending champion to come in and play on a new course?

CHRIS DiMARCO: Obviously, you'd like to go back to the course you won on. The good thing about new courses that I like is that there's no advantage for anybody. It's a new course for everybody. Nobody's played here. A lot of the idiosyncracies, nobody really has a grasp upon yet. Really, it's anybody's ballgame out there.

TODD BUDNICK: You're having a great year. You've made your first national team, playing your first Presidents Cup this year. I know earlier you talked about that was a big goal; how much of a relief or joy is that?

CHRIS DiMARCO: Missing the Ryder Cup a couple years ago by one or two spots really lit a fire under me and really was one of my major goals. Obviously we had three years for Presidents Cup, so that lit a fire to me to try to make it. It was good to achieve that goal. I can't wait. Obviously to play with all of the guys on the team, are great guys and Captain Nicklaus as your captain is pretty special.

Q. Alongside the Presidents Cup, are you happy with your success this year?

CHRIS DiMARCO: I am. My goals really don't change every year. It's Mercedes Championship and TOUR Championship. I've locked up THE TOUR Championship, pretty much I would think.

I need to win. That's the only thing I have left. I think I only have three or four left, so I kind of have to buckle down these last three or four tournaments and get a W.

Q. What are your impressions of the course so far?

CHRIS DiMARCO: You know, the impressions of the course are going to be thrown ought the window when the hurricane comes through. As big as it is, we are going to get some type of feedback from it. And I think we are going to get wind here.

And this course is pretty severe in spots with some of those carries and the water hazards up by the greens. You throw a 30 -, 40-mile-an-hour wind in there you're going to have some tough pin locations. There's a lot of hills and mounds and bumps right around the holes.

You know, other than that, it's a great golf course. Even today it was a little windy out there and it played tough. There was some tough holes, but the fairways are very generous. The greens are soft. If the greens were hard, it would really be tough. But the greens are soft, so you are able to hold some shots. If you are coming in from the rough, you can hold the green because they are soft.

Q. Talk about 11?

CHRIS DiMARCO: 11 was two blind shots for me. I hit driver and 3-wood and still had 109 yards. That's a very hard hole. Basically I walked up to the green and told my caddie, "Well, you've got to stack it up by two shots. " Hit the drive where you want it and hit 3-wood where you want it, and if you can do that, you know what, it's a birdie hole; you're going to have a wedge or sand wedge in your hand. So you just have to hit two good shots to put yourself in position.

Q. Talk about the setup here, when you leave here -- can you talk about what you've seen so far?

CHRIS DiMARCO: There's something special about a tournament where you can go and you're on the premises. You can bring your family. There's a lot of families here. Something's neat about that.

Obviously, for everybody, it's beautiful up here. I didn't get up till real late last night, so I haven't had time to check out all the other things. I know my kids have probably putt-putted probably about 12 times today and driving my wife crazy.

Callaway Gardens was a special one for us because we got to stay in cottages and had a lot of barbecues and it was fun to do that. This is the same thing. Usually you have guys staying in eight, ten different hotels and nobody really knows -- you don't really make your plans with everybody, so you don't even know where anybody is.

End of FastScripts.