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BUICK INVITATIONAL

January 18, 2005

Ernie Els

LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA

ERNIE ELS: No. 3. You go over the green there, you're down the canyon. No. 4, the same thing. 3, you're coming in today with a 6-iron, so you're not coming in with short irons.

No. 4 was today for me -- I think I hit 4-iron there. The same goes, a lot of the holes on the back nine, right on the canyon there, you have to be very careful, especially coming out of the rough, not hit getting a flyer and hitting it all over the world.

The golf course is a lot different, especially from the time I played back in the 80s. A little bit more length.

Q. Inaudible?

ERNIE ELS: Oh, it will be huge, a huge change. Last week was perfect for bermudagreens. I found is quite hard to these read the greens at times, but the roll you got was can sis tent. You didn't have too many bounces. Definitely no poa annua. We have a lot of poa annua this week. We've got a big field coming through this golf course. In the morning, you're going to have better greens, and obviously the afternoon it's going to be bouncing all over the place. It's going to be a little difficult on the greens, but at least they are holding so you can come in with those long irons, and the ball is going to hold the green, but the putting surfaces are going to be quite a challenge.

Q. Did the change in schedule for this tournament factor into your decision to play this week or the fact that the U.S. Open will be here?

ERNIE ELS: Well, it definitely does something for your schedule. The Open is coming here if three year's time, but the big factor was the scheduling change, that this tournament was moved forward so far. Normally from here, I think we go to the Bob Hope or Phoenix, one of the two, and I'm playing my last contractual Heineken Classic this year in Australia.

I felt that for my wife, coming here four and a half hours, it's not far the way we travel. The test centers are here, Scotty Cameron is here with his putter, all of my guys that make clubs for me are in town, so that's got to factor in there, too. But definitely moving a tournament forward has really worked for me this time.

Q. (Inaudible.)

ERNIE ELS: Yeah, exactly 1984 was my first time down in South Africa and the first stop was here, San Diego, took us about 30 hours to get here. We flew Johannesburg - New York. We actually spent a couple of days in New York. We went to the Belmont Park. My dad was a big-time horse guy; well, he still is. So we had to go there. And we came here, we had a great time and we spent about two weeks here.

Q. Your impression coming here?

ERNIE ELS: Well, as a kid, I especially a golfing kid you want to come in America. You see Augusta National on television and you see the U.S. Open and in those days, we saw a couple of tournaments, like a World Series where Nicky Price won in '83. You see that and you really want to get there and play and see what the courses are like. It was a great thrill for me to come here.

The course at Balboa, it's a bit of a surprise. I thought we were going to play a normal-length course and all of the sudden we played, I think it was about 6,000 yards. I thought, well, this is easy. But I had a good time there. The whole place was great. We stayed in a lodge here and we had a great time.

Q. Inaudible?

ERNIE ELS: Actually, no, we stayed with a family in Rancho Santa Fe. I remember staying with them. The next year we stayed at the lodge.

Q. Have you kept in touch?

ERNIE ELS: No, we haven't. I haven't spoken to him in probably ten years now.

Q. Did you think at all about how the USGA might set it up?

ERNIE ELS: I don't want to think about that. It will be tough. They will probably change a couple of holes. They might -- I KNOW they don't like finishing with a par 5, so they will probably do something with 18 and probably make that a 500-yard par 4 or something.

You know it's definitely going to be a challenge. And in June -- you know, the golf ball goes a little further. It's going to be 80, 85 degrees. But the kikuya rough will really have been growing by then. It will be just a typical, really tough U.S. Open, like anything, like any U.S. Open.

Q. How many times have you come here?

ERNIE ELS: Yeah, after winning at Balboa in '84, I came here '85, '86, '87. '85, I had a horrendous time. I guess I was going through a bit of a growth little spurt there and my game really went off, I remember in '85 and I didn't have a good time here.

But '86 I played good and '87, I played good again. I think I finished Top-10. It was the biggest tournament in the world for me, you know, so I took it quite serious and I was happy to play well in those last few years.

I had a friend that traveled with me, Manny Zerman (ph) and when he was 14, he played in a 15-17 age group and I think he finished third. That was a hell of an achievement, I thought. It was even a long course back then, the whole course. It was a difficult challenge.

Q. (Inaudible.)

ERNIE ELS: Yeah, any week out here is a good field. It's obviously the guys that people talk about now. It's Vijay and Tiger, myself and Phil; so the four of us are here. But it's taking nothing away from the rest of the players. We are all out here to try and win. They are all quality players. So, you know, whatever the field is like, you've still got to play good golf to try and win.

Q. Any similarities of southern California to South Africa?

ERNIE ELS: There's a lot of similarities. The weather, for one, especially the way it was today, the grass. There's a lot of similarities, the views. The guys that have been there I know probably agree with me. It's very similar. I think that's why you see a lot of South Africans here in the San Diego area, it's very similar.

Q. What has allowed you to do now that you couldn't do -- inaudible?

ERNIE ELS: I think it really started in 2001. After 2000, finishing second to Tiger, I think six, seven times and then 2001 I didn't win. But I felt 2001 was -- immensely, there was a change. I started working with Jos back then in July of that year. At the end of the year, I started really feeling more, you know, sure of myself on the golf course. I also think that technically my game has really come around the last five, six years. My swing's definitely a lot different than it was in the 90s. It's not so loopy and soft. You know, the work I've done there with Lead and the guys have really come through.

But I think the biggest change I think is just growing up, you know, maybe becoming a family man, a father and getting married in '99. I think I've changed a lot. I'm maybe a bit more mature out here and working on the right things and spending the right amount of time on things that I have to work on. I think it's just the maturity process has really come through.

Q. So now you can take a bad week and turn it into a Top-10 or 15?

ERNIE ELS: Definitely, definitely. I think the emotional side is not as -- how can I say -- childlike, almost. You don't always go backwards all the time. So the emotional state is a little different. It's quite a tough game we play. For four days to keep yourself going and going in a positive way about things is quite tough at times. I think through the years, I've learned, you change a bad week and move it around into a Top-10 at the end of the week. I think it just comes with playing this tour a lot and getting to know your game a lot better.

Q. Inaudible?

ERNIE ELS: I think so. I think Tiger definitely had a grip on it there for a couple of years definitely. His record proved it for itself.

But like anything in this game, as we said, it's such a tough game. At the level that he played at, definitely, really it was impossible to keep that up. Tiger, he wants to even get better and he started changing his swing, and it's taken a year and he feels like he's back to where he wants to be again. But in that time that he's been working, the guys have been winning and definitely Vijay and myself, we've had some good years. Retief Goosen has had a great year. The guys have definitely stepped it up, and let's see what happens now. I think guys are a lot more, as I said, sure of themselves with their games and there's more confidence in the guys than in 2000 when we got beat. So definitely a different ballgame.

Q. After what happened last week, some people might say, "here we go again," with Vijay -- inaudible?

ERNIE ELS: Yeah, I think so. You've also got to figure that Vijay played 28, 29 events last year. You know, that's a lot of tournaments on this tour, and a guy with Vijay's quality, you know, you're playing that many tournaments, you're going to start hitting form somewhere, and he did. He, you know, won a lot. A guy like myself, I played 16 times. Now for me to win nine tournaments out of 16, it's going to be hard to do. But it's not taking anything away from Vijay, but guys play different schedules. Guys play different type of tournaments. There's only maybe four or five, six, seven times where we get together in the same event. You know, then the game's on.

But for Vijay to do what he did last year, I mean, he's definitely going to try. He's on his way, he already had a perfect start to it, but it will be very difficult to do that again. The quality of players that are there, the quality of players will be up the leaderboards. For them to win all the time, you know, that's also going to be impossible, but I think those quality players will be in contention for most of the year. Tiger could have won there, I could have won, and then last week also.

Q. Inaudible?

ERNIE ELS: You know what, I think it's great for the tournament, I think it's great for the public and I think it's great obviously for the area. You've got such a quality field.

But to be honest with you, I'm not thinking about them when I stand on the tee on Thursday morning. I'm thinking about trying to shoot something decent. When Sunday comes, we'll look at where we are and then you take it from there. But for us to play against each other, it's going to be just crazy, you know. We're in the same field and that's great, but you play the golf tournament and there's 156 other guys that you've also got to beat. So we go in there not playing each other, but playing the golf tournament, playing the golf course.

Q. (Inaudible.)

ERNIE ELS: Well, I think you know, what happened at Kapalua, obviously missed a chance there. You know, I felt good up until the tee shot I hit because I made a bit of a move, you know, on the back nine. I didn't have it going my way there for a while, but the tee shot obviously killed me. It wasn't very nice.

Last week, I mean, you weren't there, but I wasn't putting all that great and it held me back a little bit. But the finish I had last week, that's more -- that's more me I want to believe. I want to play to the finish and try and finish every golf tournament. Sometimes you're not going to be able to do it. Last week I was able to have a better finish, but you know, let's see how it goes. It's such a long year, I just want to keep positive things going. Already it's been two close losses, but, you know, I've got good feelings for this year and I want to keep going, keep positive stuff going and just keep finishing in that way. I've got to win a couple. (Laughs).

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you, Ernie, for joining us.

End of FastScripts.

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