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February 22, 2008
RIVIERA MAYA, MEXICO
NICK PRICE: That was the biggest problem today is this course being so narrow, it puts a premium on driving the ball straight and I did today. I drove the ball really well. Hit a lot of good iron shots and I had a lot of birdie putts. When the wind blows like this, sometimes the putting is the hardest of the lot because the ball is affected by the wind on the greens.
But I played very cautiously. I played smart golf today. No real problems except No. 6. I put my ball just a little bit -- I misread the wind left-to-right and it was actually coming a little right-to-left. Went in the water and made a five on that hole. But other than that, I played really well.
Q. How do you feel about the two days?
NICK PRICE: I'm sure like everyone else, I feel like I could have been a couple of shots better. But Brian Gay's score, 7-under for the tournament, that's a really good score for the two days. I've got to pull something out of the hat if I'm going to have a chance. I've got to do something on the weekend.
But to be honest, I'm just happy to be playing here and also to have made the cut. My game the last 2 1/2 years has not been good, and my debut on the Champions Tour last year was not good. And just in the last month or so, I've turned my game around and last week I had a chance to get in the playoff with about a 12-footer on the 18th hole.
So I'm very happy that my game. I've bottomed out and I'm looking to get back up again, and it's nice to be enthusiastic about playing again.
Q. What's been the difference?
NICK PRICE: In an effort to hit the ball further over the last four or five years, you know, I tried to get the ball high up and what happened is I started hanging back and trying to launch the ball in the air, and I was sort of hanging back at impact when my upper body was behind the ball at an angle. I spent some time with David Leadbetter and Kevin Smeltz, who works with David sometime in January and they got me, you know, trying to get my upper body more on top of the ball and getting my spine a little straighter at impact, and it made a huge difference.
I mean, I still think I've got a ways to go but I'm hitting quality golf shots now. And it's not just two or three, it's five or six shots and I'm hitting good quality golf shots that are finishing, even when I hit a poor one, it still finishes in a position where I can save from.
I basically lost my ball flight. I couldn't slice the ball into the wind and a day like today, it was going to kill you. I hit a lot of good shot today into the wind. In fact, I actually hit better shots into the wind today than I did downwind.
Last week, we had breezy conditions for two of the three days, and again, I hit the shots that I needed to. Like I say, I'm probably about 75 to 80 percent of where I know I can be with my swing now but at least I'm on the way up, and you know, I'm on the improvement.
Q. You knew coming here with the wind --
NICK PRICE: Maybe not as windy as it was today. Yesterday there was, you know, a lot of those at 20, 25 but today at the golf course, it was blowing like 35, 35 miles an hour and it's really hard. Some of the par fours that are into the wind are extremely hard. I played solid, and that's what I was really happy about.
Like yesterday, I hit one ball in the water and just misjudged, not a bad swing. I'm happy.
End of FastScripts
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