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CHILDREN'S MIRACLE NETWORK CLASSIC PRESENTED BY WAL-MART

November 6, 2008

Scott Verplank

LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLORIDA

MARK STEVENS: I'd like to welcome Scott Verplank to the interview room. Scott shot a bogey three round of -8 and currently shares the lead with Kevin Streelman. If you'd just start off with some general comments on your round and then we'll take some questions.
SCOTT VERPLANK: Okay. Today was the first day, I think since the LA Open that I actually felt like I putted good. I putted so poorly.
I've been out here 22 years and this has been by far the worst putting year I've ever had. So I've been working hard on that.
And today I got the feel, hit a lot of great putts, made the ones I was supposed to, which has not been the case most of this year. So I did get the ball in there pretty close. I never got in a lot of trouble, but it was nice to make some three to six-footers for birdies.

Q. At what point today did you realize your putter was going the way you wanted it to?
SCOTT VERPLANK: Well, you know, you never know. It could implode at any time. You know, I chipped it up pretty close on 10, like a 3-footer. Then I hit a really nice wedge on 11, but I had a pretty tough kind of downhill down-grain little left-to-right breaking 5-footer. And I thought, just do what you're supposed to do and forget the previous 10 months, and I hit a beautiful nice, solid putt, rolled right in like it was supposed to. And hit another couple good putts on the next couple holes, and then all of a sudden felt like a kid again. So hopefully that'll stick with me for a while.

Q. Can you talk about this ordeal, when the strength of your game vanishes, you start really second guessing yourself. Did you try a lot of different things away from your basics?
SCOTT VERPLANK: Yeah.

Q. Did you ever think that maybe I'm at that age that you lose it forever?
SCOTT VERPLANK: Why would you bring that up?

Q. Because I've already hit that age. Thank you.
SCOTT VERPLANK: I guess I'm brutally honest sometimes, and to be brutally honest with you, hell, yeah, I thought that. I thought what in the heck's going on, you know.
So it was nice today to hit solid putts and feel like I was in control of my tee and the putter face and all that. So I think it's been more -- it's been kind of a weird -- it's been a tough year.

Q. Have you been doing a lot of tinkering with it?
SCOTT VERPLANK: Oh, yeah. I've tinkered every day.

Q. What have you been doing?
SCOTT VERPLANK: Position, width of your stance, how tall you stand, how much you crouch over, where your left-hand is, where your right-hand is, where your head is. What else is there?

Q. Have you been using the same putter and the same grip?
SCOTT VERPLANK: Oh, yeah. I've used the same putter. I've got about -- I brought about five of them here, trying to scare it. I've been putting with -- I've been practicing with four or five or six different putters, just trying to find anything that felt like I was confident over the ball.
The reason I've always stayed with the same putter is because if I don't putt well, I just figure it's me. I don't ever -- I don't blame it on the equipment. Just I need to fix something that I'm doing, and that has been reasonably successful for 25 or 30 years.
So yeah, there's lots of times when I would just as soon throw that putter in the lake, particularly here in the last six months. But you know, hopefully, like I said, I made a couple little adjustments that felt better, and it worked today, you know, really good.
I've been hitting the ball as good as I've ever hit it probably in my career in the last six weeks, kind of since the playoff deal or whatever. I mean I've just been hitting it really good, lots of fairways, tons of greens and just have not been able to get anything out of it.
So today's the first round probably maybe all year that I've actually kind of got something out of the round, actually have a number to show for how I played.
Most of the time I've been shooting whatever. You know, this fall I've been shooting 69 every round and it should have been 64 or 5, you know. Just whatever. You know how it goes. I mean you've been around long enough.

Q. Longer than you.
SCOTT VERPLANK: Well, yeah. Probably.

Q. Did you start getting unsolicited advice from other players that you had to ignore?
SCOTT VERPLANK: Well, you can, but I'm pretty hard- headed. I'm kind of losing my hearing, so I don't pay that much attention to everybody else, but yeah, I mean I've had Bob Sway watch me some because he's watched me for 20 years, even though he is leading the Tour at putting. He's got it figured out right now, not so much today.
But like I said, I can't re-invent the wheel with what I do, so it's just a matter of getting sharper with it, and like I said, today was the first ray of hope that I've seen in quite a while.

Q. What did you do different today?
SCOTT VERPLANK: Just -- you know what, little grip adjustment and a little -- basically a little bit of adjustment of where I have my hands at impact.
You know, it's so minute when you hit greens -- like when we play out here, the greens are so fast, in general, and pins are always in tricky little spots, and you have to be very precise to make a lot of putts. You can't try and be precise; you just have to be.

Q. Is it hard to say -- I don't want to say motivated, but when you're used to having success like you've had your whole career?
SCOTT VERPLANK: Yeah. It's been difficult.

Q. Probably isn't that much fun to play every week.
SCOTT VERPLANK: It hasn't been, but I've been motivated because this is the worst year I've had in 11 years. But like I said, it's been an up-and-down difficult year off the golf course with other stuff, too. But my health's pretty good. My family's good. If I putt like I did today, my golf will come back pretty quick.
MARK STEVENS: Can you go over your eight birdies real quick for us?
SCOTT VERPLANK: Sure. Number 10, like I say, I chipped it about three feet. 11, I hit a wedge about five feet. 13 I hit L-wedge. 14, I hit an L-wedge six feet. 17 I made a nice probably 15-foot, 8-iron made about 15, 16-foot birdie there. And then got bored for a while, six pars in a row.
Then 7 I hit a straight drive and hit a pitching wedge five feet. 8, I hit a sand wedge three-and-a-half feet, and 9 I hit a nice 8-iron in there about 10 feet. So worked out good.

Q. What was the longest putt you had?
SCOTT VERPLANK: Well, the one on 17 I made was probably 15, 16, I don't know, 15, 16 feet, I guess, but most of them were all the ones that you sweat over a lot of times.

Q. The ones that you just have to hit the ball in.
SCOTT VERPLANK: Those are the ones I've made my whole life and have not been as consistent.
MARK STEVENS: Okay. Thank you, Scott. Thank you for being here.

End of FastScripts

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