home

jobs

	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 25, 2004

Duffy Waldorf

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you for joining us for a few minutes. Great start to the week here at THE PLAYERS Championship, 66 today, and interesting kind of coming in with the birdie, birdie, eagle, double bogey and birdie finish. Why don't you talk about the conditions out there. You're the first person in today.

DUFFY WALDORF: Conditions were, I thought, favorable for scoring today. The greens were holding. Obviously when we got here early in the week, Tuesday, they were very firm and very fast. And today if you hit a good shot from the fairway, you kind of knew what it was going to do, a little hop and spin. So the ball was holding nice. And yet the ball is running nice in the fairway. If you were hitting the ball in the fairway solidly, you were going to get short irons, good birdie opportunities, and I was able to take advantage of that with a lot of good iron shots.

Q. Your last three holes or five holes were quite an adventure. I'm just wondering just from the standpoint of all that can happen, is there a more exciting stretch of holes that you all play here than that 16, 17, 18?

DUFFY WALDORF: I don't think so, I think that's the most exciting stretch we play. When we play in majors, U.S. Open-type courses, British Open, a lot of times they're hard holes, they're just hard, hard, hard. You've got to reach a par-5, a shortish par-3, that can be birdied but can be a disaster, and 18 is a solid par-4. So it's a nice blend of holes where obviously a lot of things can happen, as I proved.

Q. What did happen on 17?

DUFFY WALDORF: Just a little too much hook on the shot. It was right-to-left wind, and I was trying to obviously keep it in the middle of the green and reasonably straight. But the wind was strong enough if you didn't hit a solid shot, if you cut that shot for me, a right-hander, it comes up short. And if you get it going with the wind, it's going too far. And that's what I did, hit it with too much draw.

Q. Did it land on the green?

DUFFY WALDORF: From what I could tell it landed about pin-high but in the fringe, and took a big hop and went over. Pin-high is probably not good with the pin in the back, so that was too far. I wasn't trying to land it pin-high, I was trying to land it five or six yards short.

Q. Playing here in the past, how did you play?

DUFFY WALDORF: I played well last year. Last year was my best finish, 11th. I played well the last round here, too. I finished poorly last year in the last holes, double bogey, double bogey on 17, to shoot even par, and still have an 11th place finish. I've had some success. I had some success the year Duval won, too. And it's always a little hit and miss here. Obviously your game has to be on. The years your game is not on, at least for me, I'm either going to be struggling to make the cut or missing the cut. The course sets up well for me. It's a good course for me; I'm able to reach the par-5s. If you hit the ball in play, it's good. Even a short hitter like me makes some birdies.

Q. I want to hear about the birdies at 7 and 14. Those are hard holes.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Why don't we just go through the round.

DUFFY WALDORF: Well, I started off, I parred No. 1, from the front of the green.

No. 2, I pushed my second shot a little bit from the fairway, I was in the bunker by the green, wedged out of the bunker, wedged out.

4, I had a nice lie, good angle from the pin and hit it past the hole and spun it past the hole about two feet.

No. -- No. 7 was a birdieable pin. I hit a good drive and had only 150 yards. They had quite a few pins, kind of do-or-die, almost Saturday pins, if you don't hit a good shot you have a tough up-and-down. I hit a real nice shot there, hit it about five, six feet with a 7-iron.

Then 10 I had a bogey, drove it in the rough, hit it on the green and two-putted.

1 is front pin, it's kind of a hard pin to get close, but a put it short in the bunker and got up-and-down.

14, kind of a pin on the back right. Straight downwind, about 170 yards, but an 8-iron, just a controlled 8-iron on a down slope, probably 15 yards short of the pin, but the wind was enough behind me, got about pin-high 10 feet and made it.

The next hole I hit drive down the left side, nice approach, hit it about six feet and made that for birdie.

16, I hit a real good approach from the fairway, 220 yards I think I had. I hit in there about 15 feet for eagle, a 3-iron. Made that for eagle.

I missed the green on 17 and made a double.

18 I had good drive, and that was important, and had about 145, right-to-left wind, I hit it off to the right. Pin was down in the bottom of the front, so I hit it off the right, off to the hill and fed it in perfectly, about five -- gosh, it wasn't far, only about three or four feet.

Q. What did you hit your second shot on 18? Could you tell that it almost went in?

DUFFY WALDORF: You go by the -- you know by the crowd reaction, I hit a 9-iron. I had 145 yards, and just right-to-left. So I just went with the wind and kept it out to the right because it feeds off that slope. It took the kick just right. I could tell by the crowd. Because I could tell it was obviously going to roll all the way to the hole. It was a matter of is it the right distance. I could tell by the reaction that is almost went in.

I did it with a white ball, because Miss Joan, here, borrowed some of my balls -- it's like borrow, if you borrowed like -- if you give a caddy something, they want to borrow some money, it's not like borrowing, you're not going to get it back. So she had a couple of balls, I gave her yesterday. And well, I ran out of balls. It was dark this morning, I grabbed the wrong sleeve. I had six, but I grabbed the sleeve of white ones. I had to play a white ball the last hole.

Q. Can you talk about that commercial you made with Jesper and the reaction you get from that?

DUFFY WALDORF: People love it. They showed it at the player meeting last Tuesday night. Everyone who hadn't seen it saw it and got a big laugh, I tell you. It was a fun idea. I thought it was -- they were shooting all four of those, they had four PSA's to shoot at once. Ours was -- Jesper and I are two funny guys, and it worked out great. That was kind of Jesper's idea at the end. There's got to be some kind of ending where I'm fishing around -- I'm coming in, he's done, he leaves, and I come in. I've got to be doing something kind of goofy at the Salvation Army. I was hoping to get the jacket on, because it's small. And I was kind of acting like I was sizing it up. And I shot a lot of different kind of reactions, it was just kind of two seconds in the mirror. And I just did a lot of funny things in front of the mirror, I didn't know what they were going to use, but that one worked out great.

Q. Your whole colorful clothing and things, how did you start that?

DUFFY WALDORF: The clothing, well, let's see how we started. First off I was wearing flowered hats. I started that about, gosh, it was probably around 1990, 89. And I just

started -- we had a club that I was representing, and they had Hawaiian flowered hats. I was wearing a solid shirt then. And then I've always worn the hat, and it was -- I decided to go with kind of a more casual -- I was with Cutter & Buck. And they kind of didn't need me anymore, so I was wearing flowered hats and solid shirts.

I always liked wearing Hawaiian shirts. And these are Hawaiian golf shirts. It's a real golf shirt. So I decided to wear those. And it's always a challenge to integrate the hat and shirt and make it look nice. Half the people can't believe it when I match. Oh, you don't match, what's wrong with you. And the other half, oh, wow, you look terrible, you don't match at all. Some want me to match and others don't. So some days I do, and some days I don't. I like a little different style. I went to UCLA, so I wore a blue shirt all the time, beige slacks.

Q. How much of an identity did that create for you?

DUFFY WALDORF: Not enough with you, it would appear (laughter). You're the only one that doesn't know me. I think it's my identity. It's great. I go out, people won't know me when my hat's off. I've got a T-shirt on, they don't know me until the hat is on. This is my most tame hat I have. And most people know me by shirt and hat, certainly at the golf course.

Q. Is this the best round you've ever had here?

DUFFY WALDORF: I'm sure it is. I won't even go in the record books, but I'll go out on a limb. I'm positive 66 is my best round.

Q. You said you had to chip out of the rough at 10.

DUFFY WALDORF: Yes.

Q. (Inaudible).

DUFFY WALDORF: That's the interesting thing. A lot of holes have a bunker on one side and the rough on the other. A lot of times you can play out of the bunker and play on the green. Out of the rough, most of the time unless it's a short hole you're going to be chipping out.

End of FastScripts.

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297