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GINN CHAMPIONSHIP HAMMOCK BEACH RESORT

March 29, 2008

Lonnie Nielsen

PALM COAST, FLORIDA

DAVE SENKO: Lonnie, followed up your 66 today with a 69. Right now 9-under going into tomorrow. Maybe just give us a quick run-down on your day. Looked like you had six birdies, three bogeys.
LONNIE NIELSEN: Yeah, I got a nice start on No. 1. I get it in for a gimme right out of a divot. So it was a nice way to start.
DAVE SENKO: How close was that?
LONNIE NIELSEN: Two feet. I butchered the par 5s today. I really -- you know, I should birdie just about all those. I had a 5 iron into the 6th hole and a 6-iron into the 10th hole, and I was lucky to make par on both of them.
I just hit two of those. And those were my two worst swings of the day, on those two par 5s. I only played the par 5s one under. That's where both Freddy and Bernhard beat me up on those par 5s today.
The way I drove the ball, there was no reason for it. Those were the holes that cost me. I made three other bogeys besides but I didn't have it with the putter today. Yesterday I was unbelievable with the putter, and today I was kind of loose with it.
I actually hit the ball better today. I hit 3 or 4-irons for gimmes. Number 1 being one of them. 9, I made a nice long putt there for my second birdie.
DAVE SENKO: How far was that?
LONNIE NIELSEN: That was probably a 25-footer. My bogey was a 3-putt. I had missed a short putt at 2 and 3 and 5. Finally made a nice - to save my par on 6 after I hit it in the water.
And then 10, I totally butchered that hole. I actually had it in the bunker. I got lucky. I pushed my second shot so far to the right, I hit some trees and came out short of the green but I had a hard pitch and I tried to hit a miracle shot and I dumped it in the bunker and hit a nice bunker shot and a nice putt there to save a par.
And then I had a couple of beauties. I had a great shot on 11. I had a horrible lie about a foot in the right rough, and I wasn't sure where it was. But I didn't have any idea where this ball might go out of the lie. I managed to hit it about 6 feet. I honestly thought I could hit it in the water. I didn't know what was going to happen. I never had a lie like that. And it came out perfect. It went up about 6 feet, and I made another --
DAVE SENKO: What did you hit?
LONNIE NIELSEN: I hit a pitching wedge from 100 yards and swung as hard as I could.
Normally, my pitching wedge goes 125, so it was just -- it was so down and deep and grass almost covered up the ball. I didn't know -- I never had a lie like that. I didn't know what was going to happen. I just made a lucky guess.
The 12th hole all three of us birdied today. That hole is so hard. I hit one about 2 feet there and both the boys hit good shots and good putts and we all three made 2s there. That was some hole.
13, I made a bogey. I played a bunch of loose shots and then hit a beautiful pitch to recover -- for a recovery up about 3 1/2 feet and managed to pull that putt and missed it. But came right back with two nice birdies. Hit it just short and left of the green on 14 and pitched up about 2 feet away. And 15, I hit a 5-iron about 2 feet from the hole.
Couple of nice pars at 17 and 18 -- or 16 and 17. And then 18 is just a hard hole. I didn't hit that bad. I had a great drive and a fair iron shot but, you know, just a foot or two too far to the right and it goes right down to the grandstands. If you have been out there watching, I'm sure there is a lot of balls over there. That's a hard shot from down there.
So anyway, I tried to putt it from there and hit it up about 12 feet and missed that one. So not a good way to finish, but overall, I am pretty happen with a 69.
DAVE SENKO: What did you hit for your second on the 18?
LONNIE NIELSEN: 7-iron just to the right.

Q. Lonnie, wondered when you got on Champions Tour full-time, was there, just by virtue of the scores, a threesome you found yourself with on the weekend? Maybe the best two players you were, maybe like a Welcome-to-the-Champions-Tour moment where you are with a couple -- You are playing with a Hall of Famer today and tomorrow and a guy who's won the Players and had a pretty successful career. Is there a group that you remember that kind of, holy cow, look at the company I'm in here?
LONNIE NIELSEN: I'm trying to remember exactly. It was Raymond Floyd -- I can't remember if it was Tom Watson -- it was two Hall of Famers. They're going on and on on the first tee. It is pretty -- emasculating the right word? To stand on that first tee when they say "Three-time club pro," this, that and the other thing. And here these guys have won 30 tournaments and 10 majors and Hall of Fame and on and on and on.
So that was an adjustment getting by that first tee when I first came out here. But it was Fuzzy Zeller and Raymond Floyd is who I played with. I remember walking off the tee and I told Fuzzy, "I don't think I have heard three rÃ©sumÃ©s so much alike." That's how you laugh and look at it.
This game has always been about "What have you done for me lately?" And our TOUR chaplain, caddied out here for me a few years -- just last year, actually. It was about two weeks before I won.
And after we got done with the tournament, he wrote me a three-page email. And in it he had -- he critiqued my -- the way I was on the course, some of the thinking that I did, some of the comments that I made. And one of the comments that really stuck with me, he said, "I hear you comparing yourself to a lot of the players out here on this TOUR." He goes, "I am relatively new to golf and as far as I am concerned, Lonnie Nielsen can beat the heck out of Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer." It kind of stuck with me when he said that.
Those are days gone by. Let's see what we can do today. I have quit comparing myself to other players; but it is hard on that first tee, I'll tell you.

Q. Overall you are pretty happy with a 69. To listen to you describe your round, you sound like you were frustrated with the par 5s particularly. Is it nice to know you can have a few bad shots and still put a 69 together? Does that give you confidence in the final that you can win this thing?
LONNIE NIELSEN: It does. I would have trouble doing that again, making that many mistakes and shooting 69. It was just one of those days where my good shots turned out great. I hit three or four balls for gimmes, and you don't do that very often.
But my good shots were great today, and it helped me overcome the bad ones.

Q. How long has Gypsy been working for you? And a guy who caddied for Elkington who won a major and a couple Player championships was right there with the best in the world at a certain point. Has he been able to help you with anything from a psychological standpoint or maybe an ego-massaging standpoint to get you -- or to help you with situations like today and what you are going to have tomorrow?
LONNIE NIELSEN: Gypsy has helped me a great deal. He only caddied for me five times last year with this one being the first one. And I didn't play particularly well here last year, but it was the worst tournament that we had together. I finished 23rd here, I think. And we were together for the win and I had a fourth and a sixth place finish in Texas to finish up the year.
And he's going to caddie for me about 15 times this year. He is a great help. He has a real calming effect on me. He will not let me make this too important. He can tell when I am starting to get uptight. He knows when to make me laugh, when to say something crazy.
He also knows when to massage my ego a little bit and say, after a good shot he'll say "great shot" and then he'll stop me. "No, I'm serious, nobody knows how good that shot was." He will go on and on. It kind of gets your chest pumped up there a little bit.
So he's been very good for me. He said he has been on the bag for 18 wins, and the one we had last summer was his most special one, so -certainly was my most special moment.

Q. 11-under leads after 2 rounds, what it's going to take to win the tournament? Is it too early to tell? Do you have to wait to see what the conditions will be like?
LONNIE NIELSEN: Did we hear the wind is supposed to pick up? Is that true?

Q. A little bit. About 10 degrees colder.
LONNIE NIELSEN: You know, it is so tough to tell on this course because good shots are rewarded here. You can shoot a good score here. But, boy, bad shots are penalized.
Fred played pretty dog-gone good today, and he hits that one loose shot on 17 and hits a decent looking chip shot that's just a foot too far to the left and now he's chipping again. Boom, double-bogey. It can happen so fast out here.
So if you can stay away from that, if Bernhard stays away from those tomorrow, he will be awfully hard to beat because he will make four, five birdies. You just -- he can't help himself. He's that good.
But he can hit a bad shot every now and again just like the rest of us. And you just have to -- has to be at the right time. You miss one at the right time, you miss it in a place where you can still play from, then you're okay. But that doesn't always happen. I missed that one yesterday, my one wasn't that bad a swing and, boom, double-bogey on the 12th. So it can happen pretty easy out here.
So it would be impossible to try to predict what kind of a score would win here. It could be less than 11, and it could go to 16. I don't know. It is just hard to tell.

End of FastScripts

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