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TRAVELERS CHAMPIONSHIP

June 21, 2007

Chris DiMarco

CROMWELL, CONNECTICUT

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Chris, for joining us for a few minutes here at the media center at the Travelers Championship. It looks like you had a great start this morning, 31 on the back, which was your first nine, and then one bogey back there, and 33 on the front. What's going on? Is your shoulder better?
CHRIS DiMARCO: The shoulder is better. I've been working hard the last couple, three weeks. It's easier when you're out here because the vans are out here, so it's easier to get in there and work at it. And I've really been rehabbing it well, just trying to strengthen it. It helped.
And then I found something yesterday on the range to get more here, and it doesn't hurt as much going back and I was able to hit a lot of really good crisp shots out there. And I putted really good. I made a teeny change in my putting grip, still claw but a little more left on top, a little more here, and I putted really good. Probably the best putting round this year, any year. So it was nice.

Q. Do you have tendonitis in your shoulder?
CHRIS DIMARCO: I have tendonitis in my rotator cuff and I have arthritis of my AC joint and I have a bone spur in there. So eventually I'll have to get rid of the spur. But like I said, I'm really trying to do it working out and doing it that way so I don't have to do that. If I do have to do it, my recovery time, because it's strong, won't be as long.

Q. Did you take a cortisone shot for it?
CHRIS DIMARCO: Two.
JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Discuss a little bit about the timeline here.
CHRIS DiMARCO: I had a cortisone shot at Doral and then about two weeks later I had another one, so two or three weeks after that. I think the first one they didn't get it in the right spot, they put it in the back. Then the second one they put it right in the joint where he was hurting.
It's been hurting me for a while and everybody said why don't you get a shot. Believe it or not, it didn't start popping until I had the cortisone shot. I don't know if the original cortisone shot, if that gave me some freedom, because I didn't have much pain, maybe I had loosened something up in there and it started popping, but it certainly has been bothering me for two, three months.

Q. Swing tinkering, was that?
CHRIS DIMARCO: Instead of my hands going this way back, I have my hands go this way back. If you get to here I'm putting a lot of pressure on it, so if I get it back to here, it feels better. It felt a lot better out there today. Like I said, three weeks ago, every shot I hit, whether it was a 70 yard lob wedge or whatever, it would pop. And it was maybe every third shot today it was popping, so that's good. I haven't had that in a long time.
The problem is, it's not so much the pain, the problem is, is it going to pop. You get here, is it popping is it popping. You're not thinking about the ball, you're thinking about the pop. If you play good, like I did today, you tend to forget about that, it doesn't really even matter, because you're focused on golf. The good rounds I have played this year I haven't really think about it. TPC, it didn't bother me too bad. I played good there.

Q. Is it something you work on?
CHRIS DIMARCO: I always work on it. If you watch my preshot routine, I'm always trying to get it there. It's something I was trying to get there, and yesterday it kind of clicked in place. It felt good.

Q. (No microphone).
CHRIS DIMARCO: Bad putting. Basically, all I did was, I usually kind of get all my hand on top. I just went with two fingers up there and the other one is underneath and my right hand on there as soft as I possibly could, and then I tried to grip it pretty tight with these three fingers and tried to putt with my left hand. That's what I did when I first started putting 11 years ago. That was the concept for me. I think I got away from that, and I think I got my right hand in again. I thought by alleviating the right hand, it was so much smoother and I made a bunch of good little putts today. When you make those, confidence breeds and you make longer ones.
I made a four-footer on the first hole. I was like, wow, this is great. Because you think about it, I've done this for 11 years and now I'm trying to do something a little different. So I was nervous because I was doing something different and I popped it right in the back of the hole. I was like, wow. This is about as nervous as I'm going to be and the stroke felt great and I popped it right in the middle.
JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Go through your round.
CHRIS DiMARCO: Driver, 9-iron on 10 about four feet, birdie.
Parred 11.
12, I hit a driver and a wedge to about six feet, made birdie.
13, I hit hybrid in the right bunker and blasted it out to about two feet.
15, I drove it up to the front of the green and it rolled all the way back. I putted it up to six feet and made birdie.
17, my second shot, I had too much club over the green, putted it up, made bogey.
And 18, I hit driver and 6-iron about 30 feet right and made it up and down the slope for birdie, which is nice?
2, I hit a 3-wood and lob wedge to about six feet, made birdie.
Made two really good saves on three 3 and 4 to keep the round going.
6, I had a good birdie putt and just missed.
7, I made a great up and down. I hit it left of the green there, which is stupid. I ran it by about 10 feet and made a really good 10-footer to keep the round going again.
And 9, I hit 3-wood and a wedge to seven feet, made birdie.

Q. Do you put added pressure on yourself, not having won in a while? And the second part of that, did winning Abu Dhabi alleviate that pressure?
CHRIS DiMARCO: Certainly. Any time you win it's good. I've played well enough up to about a year ago, I played well enough to win more tournaments than I have. I just got beat by guys. You can accept that a little bit. I haven't been playing up to my standards because of injuries, so hopefully I'm getting back in. I feel like that last three or four weeks I've been getting close.
Golf is one of those sports where I felt like I was doing a lot of good things and I was getting nothing out of my game. I was turning rounds like this into 70s. It's nice to get everything you can out of your round and post a good number. That's what I used to do. That why I was on such a high and I was playing so good. I hadn't been doing that for a while, so it was nice to get that done today.

Q. (Talk about the changed on number 4).
CHRIS DIMARCO: Thankfully they changed 4, because I think I would have hit it out of bonds there. I think 4 is a better hole now, I really do, with the tee back. It's a hard hole anyway, but now there's much more room left. You want to hit it up the left so you have a clear shot anyway, but now if you hit it just left you're in the rough, but at least you have a shot at the green, where it was out of bounds years ago, the fence was right there.

Q. (No microphone).
CHRIS DIMARCO: The holes, like I said, I've had great success here. Last time I played here I finished 3rd. The course suits my eye. I think it's one of the funnest finishing hole courses we play all year, not only for us but for the fans. You can sit on that 17th green on that hill and watch 15, 16, 17, kind of unfold.
And the fans here are great, Hartford certainly deserves what they're getting this year with the great field, and Travelers doing what they're doing, I think it's going to get a great week.

Q. (No microphone).
CHRIS DiMARCO: You know for the most part, it was liking the golf course, because this is again right after the Open for me, and I played the thing up in CVS. But timing, the only reason I haven't been back is because it was the week after the British Open. It's hard to play the British Open then come right back and play another week. I always took the week off, and unfortunately this fell on it, which I didn't like, because I really like this place a lot.

Q. After the Open, does that make this course seem easier, after you beat yourself up there?
CHRIS DIMARCO: I really didn't even think about a score at the Open, I really didn't. I didn't know what par was really. The numbers that you were seeing on the boards plus 20s and 23s were so weird to look at. It didn't really make a difference.
This is what golf should be. I played a good round today. There are a couple other good rounds out there, but the course is still holding up. That's what it should be about. It shouldn't be about plus 20s and plus 25s. I think the fans, if we started doing that every week, I think we would lose our fans. I think they want to see us make birdies.

End of FastScripts

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