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THE HONDA CLASSIC

February 28, 2008

Jesper Parnevik

PALM BEACH GARDENS, FLORIDA

STEWART MOORE: Jesper Parnevik, thanks for spending a few minutes with us here at the Honda Classic after a opening round 68, past champion, albeit not at this golf course. Good memories of south Florida. You live around here, but coming back to the Honda Classic, good memories of past championships won?
JESPER PARNEVIK: Yeah, I think a lot of guys that live in Florida, of course, are very happy to get back home. But also the greens, get back to the bermudagreens where you can learn how to read the grain and so on. The poa annua we get a lot on the West Coast, I have a very, very tough time dealing with, especially like San Diego or Pebble.
So today was probably one of my better or more solid putting rounds this year.

Q. It's certainly not bad out right now but did the weather affect you at all early teeing offer in the first group?
JESPER PARNEVIK: Well, everybody that lives here knows that this could happen, but how it goes from almost 90 to 43 in a couple days is hard for a lot of people to understand.
Those first few holes played unbelievably long. Even the third hole, the par 5, I had 224 to the front, and I hit my 7-wood pretty solid on my second shot in there and normally I carry my 7-wood about 240. It barely got to the front edge of the green, and I was downwind.
So those shots into the wind, they went nowhere. Like you said, it warmed up a little bit on the back nine, made the ball go a little bit further, but it's tough out there.

Q. Is the course playing any easier this year than last year in terms of rough and just the whole playability?
JESPER PARNEVIK: Well, with this weather, no. I think the wind actually blew a little bit harder last year. It was a little bit of a difference.
The rough is still bad. I mean, our whole group missed the fairway on No. 2. We all had to chip out, no way to go for the green.
If you're lucky you can get spots where you can get a shot in there. I have to say, I mean, I did not play very well. I -- I still feel a little week, I caught that Montezuma's Revenge last week in México, so I had no practice rounds or anything. My preparation pretty much was IV in the medical center here yesterday.
The last couple of days, I didn't think I could play. But sometimes that's good in golf. You go out there with very low expectations, just one goal is to finish the round, and there you go, all of a sudden you start scoring better.

Q. Didn't they tell you you're only supposed to drink beer and tequila?
JESPER PARNEVIK: That's what I did. They said it was the glass, the dirty glass. (Laughter).

Q. Where did you get IVs, here on campus?
JESPER PARNEVIK: Yeah, here, yeah. I felt very dehydrated yesterday. I think my caddie had a rough night before, not from Montezuma's Revenge, but something else, and he snuck in with me and took an IV, as well.

Q. Does living here make it a little easier for you, feeling bad?
JESPER PARNEVIK: Oh, yeah, of course. Feeling bad on the road is terrible. I wasn't sure I was going to make it home Sunday night. Nick Price was nice enough to give me a ride in his plane. Otherwise, it would have been a severe struggle just to get back.

Q. Dudley was just in here; they created that new exemption for he and Duval last year for family related issues. You're a family man, nannies and the whole nine yards, do you think that was a good idea for the TOUR to implement something like that?
JESPER PARNEVIK: I definitely think so. I'm almost at the point where when you play a certain amount of years and always kept your card or whatever, you almost should be allowed a year off to kind of, say your kids are just starting college or whatever and you want to spend some time with them, because we've pretty much gone through our whole lives being away from the family.
I know it's never going to happen, but it would be something. What they did to Duval and those guys I think is very right. But I think it could be a case where it could be open for more players that would like to take some time off without losing their playing privileges straightaway.

Q. Could you see anybody exploiting that for the wrong reason?
JESPER PARNEVIK: I wouldn't say those categories. I mean, medical list, you never know, but of course, you know, how can you tell if someone's back is really as bad as they say and so on.
Being golfers though where cheating is very, very low regarded, you know, as something you should do, I would say most guys are fair about it out here.

Q. Remember that whacky putter that you had when you won the Honda, do you still have that?
JESPER PARNEVIK: Yeah, I have about ten of those. They kept sending them to me for weeks.
Yeah, I mean, that's the amazing thing about putters. That's probably one of the best putting weeks I've had. I think I had -- I was under 100 putts, anyway; I know that. I putted well a couple weeks later with it, but that was it, and then it was done.
Same thing with the putter I used in Texas. It worked for a couple of rounds, and I did not even use it the week after.

Q. What do you have now?
JESPER PARNEVIK: I've got the same old thing now, the amazing Grace, it's a MacGregor putter. I've used it most on and off for the last two years I would say. And it's been misbehaving, but I seem to come back to it.

Q. How much of that is familiarity, when you putt well today, is it familiarity with the greens, the grains?
JESPER PARNEVIK: I think for me it's the grain. I mean, if you -- most of the time in Florida, if you just can know how to read the grain and see the grain, that's pretty much how the putt is going to break.
When you get a little more bouncy surfaces like we get on the West Coast -- how Tiger does it, I have no idea, because there's not -- I would say scientifically that is not possible to putt the way he putts on the West Coast, because there's not a computer or robot that could consistently make the putts he makes on those very uneven surfaces.
So he has somehow developed his putting to step beyond today's science, which is pretty impressive.

Q. When you won the Honda Classic, can you just compare the state of your game now to then, and the state of your confidence and how you play?
JESPER PARNEVIK: I think the state of the game is pretty much the same, because that was right when I had my hip surgery, so it was pretty much one of the first tournaments back.
So I did not play -- I mean, it's weird how people say that they are playing great when they win tournaments, but it seemed to work that way. That week I putted very well.
Of course, I didn't play awful or I wouldn't have won. Then you see guys like Tiger and Phil, the way we feel when we have a great putting week or up-and-down, Tiger does that pretty much every day. I saw his stats from San Diego, I think he holed -- he averaged ten feet per hole, I think it was, which is amazing.

Q. Did Montezuma hit after your round Sunday?
JESPER PARNEVIK: I played Sunday. I got it on Saturday. And it was kind of a stupid decision to play on Sunday, because it was so hot over there, as well.
But I figured I gave it a shot. I drank one full bottle of Pepto and then just teed it off. But didn't really work out too good.

Q. You were pretty consistent first, second, third round here last year?
JESPER PARNEVIK: I just started very well last year. I think I was 3-under until I hit the 18th hole, I think I made 7 or 8 on the last hole with a wedge in.
Played so-so I think the last three rounds. I must have played okay because I played with Wilson on Saturday I think. So I must have been up there. I think he shot a really low round and I shot 1- or 2-over.

Q. Do you remember what didn't work on Sunday, you shot like 74 or 75 on Sunday, right?
JESPER PARNEVIK: I don't know, I usually have so many things that don't work sometimes. It's very hard to pinpoint something.

Q. Obviously as you get later into a tournament it's paramount to be close to the lead, everybody obviously wants that; is that even more so the case here because somebody is not going to make -- somebody is probably not going to shoot 64 on Sunday?
JESPER PARNEVIK: No. This is more of a major setup with major conditions. What gets you, when you start dropping shots on a Sunday, for example, when you have a chance to win, is the feeling that, all of a sudden I have to short going for the pin, and then the mistakes kind of start snowballing and then you shoot a 74, 75, instead of you just forget about the win and just kept going and maybe shot 70 or 72.
You know, so you've almost got to have a major mentality here with the pins and so on that middle of the green is pretty good sometimes.

Q. You've known Tiger about as long as anybody, probably know him about as well as anybody, going to be living right across the Intercostal from him; when you read some of the things that other players say, like what Poulter has said or what Rory has said, do you scratch your head and wonder why anybody would want to antagonize him and make him mad?
JESPER PARNEVIK: I do honestly but I don't think he cares.

Q. Really?
JESPER PARNEVIK: I mean, in a sense. Of course next time he plays Poulter, he'll --

Q. Annihilate him.
JESPER PARNEVIK: Of course. (Laughter) I try to be as nice to him as I possibly can, and maybe that's why my match play record against him is pretty good.
I don't know. I would say there are guys out there that can compete with him on occasions I would say, but with a he's doing, I know people that do other sports and so on, it's hard to explain, but it's almost impossible to be as good as he is in this game. Because to be that consistent is very hard; there's too many variables in this game.
I know Jack Nicklaus did it, and if you compared him, too, they are probably very similar in the game except that Tiger has a short game that is probably the best on TOUR. Then all of a sudden you get a guy that's very, very hard to beat.

Q. Have you had a solid meal since Saturday?
JESPER PARNEVIK: Not really. Not that I need to; I have lost a few pounds.

Q. Did you still get good work in? I saw you out there all day yesterday.
JESPER PARNEVIK: Right. But then I got exhausted and I had to go get that IV.

Q. So you had to get an IV yesterday afternoon?
JESPER PARNEVIK: Yes.

Q. How much weight did you lose?
JESPER PARNEVIK: 11 pounds, which is a lot for me.

Q. You're about 160 now, aren't you?
JESPER PARNEVIK: 161 on Monday, I thought, holy, I haven't been 161 since I was about 14 I thought.

Q. Just going back to when people challenge Tiger verbally and say something, is there part of you or maybe your peers as golf fans and players that would maybe like to see a guy back it up just for the spirit of the game, to actually say something and then actually challenge Tiger on the course?
JESPER PARNEVIK: I mean, I would love to abuse him as much as I could if I felt I had the game for, but I know better. (Laughter) and I think most other guys do, too. There's not much to do about it. You just have to play your absolute best when you play him and hope that he's not having one of his best days. That's pretty much it.
STEWART MOORE: Jesper, thanks so much. Good luck this week.

End of FastScripts

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