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MERCEDES CHAMPIONSHIPS

January 7, 2006

Stuart Appleby

KAPALUA, HAWAII

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: I'd like to present our AstraZeneca Charity Challenge winner Stuart Appelby. In the name of the Mercedes Championships and Stuart Appleby, $100,000 will be donated to the American College of Gastroenterology.

Thanks for joining us. You're in great position to win your third straight Mercedes Championships. A lot of golf to be played. Talk about your day today, a good one for you.

STUART APPLEBY: Same days as the others in weather. I missed probably too many opportunities for birdies. Greens were a little bit slower. I think I just didn't quite tend to grasp that all day. That just left two or three shots out there, at least. I think on a Saturday, you want to make sure you have a good, clean round and move you into Sunday.

Overall, I'm happy with where I am. I know tomorrow I just have to play a better round of golf than I played today. I think today was nice, but I think just another notch or two up would be just what I need.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Questions.

Q. Do you think at all about winning the same event three times in a row and the history, that that would add you to the list of 15 other guys who have ever done that?

STUART APPLEBY: I think that would be a great list to be on, no doubt. I won't be -- I hope I'm not thinking about that tomorrow. I'll just be playing my game, knowing that I'll do my best. I believe my best is enough to finish first and be a three-peater.

I know there's enough opportunities out there for that not to happen, too, based on my performance or somebody else's. I'll be really feeding on the vibe I've had for the last nearly three years.

Q. 56 holes in a row here without a bogey. How important is that tomorrow, to keep that string going?

STUART APPLEBY: Is that me? Have I done that? Must be another guy. Sounds good. Should be ahead by a few more (smiling).

Q. If you left two or three shots out there and still had the best round of the day, what does that tell you?

STUART APPLEBY: I think everybody left two or three shots out there. I don't think I was the only guy. I had opportunities to do better today. I guess I signed for the lowest score I could shoot today, and I guess that's golf. I've got to move on with that, go on into Sunday.

I think we all know how the course is going to play, how the winds are going to blow, how the pins are going to be located. It's just a matter of executing, executing and executing.

Q. Do you think there's something to be said for having played a lot in the off-season - you, Campbell, Furyk - up till mid December?

STUART APPLEBY: I guess you'd ask the guys that haven't played and see if they feel rusty. If they said they do, then, yeah, probably. I never had any time to get any rust on me basically after leaving Australia. I finished playing a tournament sort of early-ish December, so within two weeks I was back on the range. So, no, I never had to spend that ugly day or days getting back into golf after a big break.

Is there an advantage? There may be. There may be. Maybe the motor's a bit warmer.

Q. But your last tournament was early December? You went a month without a tournament.

STUART APPLEBY: No, I took -- yeah, it was about three weeks I had off, and the final week of the three was practice. It wasn't a definitive break in a sense of a good cold month.

Q. Some other guys played the Target with Tiger.

STUART APPLEBY: Not many of those guys.

Q. Furyk and Michael did.

STUART APPLEBY: Couple guys. The rest are all rusty.

Q. Do you think you're in a position where pars are good enough with a two-shot lead?

STUART APPLEBY: No, not at all. How many under am I now?

Q. Six.

STUART APPLEBY: I would like to get to 10. That would be a good number. After seeing day one and two, I think double figures would have been a good number. That may not be safe enough. It may be definitely good enough.

I will have to maybe -- maybe five is good enough. That's the beauty of this game. You guys can write as much as you want, you won't ever know what you're going to write about till we end on Sunday. That's the cool part about it.

I think if I can go out and play here like I've played consistently for nearly three years, I really hope I can get under par and not just 1-under or 2-under, I hope I can sneak 3 or 4. That's a good position to be in.

Q. Even if the conditions are similar to today, just the idea that people are now getting some familiarity with the slope, with the conditions...

STUART APPLEBY: You're right. That's always a factor. That's why I'll really have to knuckle down and use all the resources I have from previous experience here and then just go out, play golf, do my best. The cool thing about all this wind and difficult conditions is that, you know, we're all in it. We're going to not hit shots where you want, we're not going to hit chips where we want, we're not going to make all putts where we want. You've just got to be not too greedy and move on, get over mistakes or really milk the stretches where you might make some birdies.

I know there's some good players behind me. That will be not on my mind, but that's there to know that I got to play good golf. I can't really afford to make too many mistakes, otherwise I need to make them back up very quickly.

Q. Obviously with the conditions, the numbers are a lot different than last year. As far as the quality of golf fields, does it feel as good, better?

STUART APPLEBY: My golf?

Q. Right.

STUART APPLEBY: No, I don't feel it's as good as the previous two years. But I think because there's a lot of birdies flying around those two years, I think you'd have to think it's better.

I think it was better the last two years. I think my play was better, my putting was better the last few years. But this is the type of conditions that don't allow you to play golf like that, otherwise I would have a huge lead. This is the reality of this golf course right now and what these greens are allowing, just not allowing the fun factor as much for making birdies.

Q. Vijay last year was halfway at 15-under.

STUART APPLEBY: No chance this week. 15-under would have been unbelievable golf after four days here. It would just have to be flawless, almost flawless.

Q. Do you miss the fun?

STUART APPLEBY: No. I don't care. As long as I win on Sunday, that's when the fun is, I guess.

Q. The scores that have been here every year, do you think this is a good way to start the year? Some things are out of your hands.

STUART APPLEBY: In what way do you mean?

Q. Do you think the start of a season should be a little bit lax in terms of poor setup or do you think you should be tested this early right away or do you think it matters?

STUART APPLEBY: Don't think it matters. I can't see either/or being more attractive than the other.

Q. There are a few players today who said their confidence is just shot, they feel like a crap player right now, and they shouldn't feel this way.

STUART APPLEBY: I think they'll get over it (smiling).

Q. Good players play well.

STUART APPLEBY: You're right. There's going to be weeks where it's very easy, and there's going to be weeks where it's very tough. We all know when those weeks are. I think maybe some players thought they were supposed to be 15-under by this stage. If they were, they were going to win the tournament.

You really take what you get. But this is predominantly a pretty windy tournament. We manage to shoot pretty low normally. This is not one of those years. The greens are a factor there. I think the leader of this tournament, with the normal old greens, would have definitely been in double figures, no problem. We're not there. That extra five or 10 miles an hour of wind is a massive difference to how far you're hitting shots. It's scary how far you can hit it some holes and how short you can hit it in others.

Q. Is the softness of the course this week, the rain...

STUART APPLEBY: They must be getting some rain because the course seemed soft in certain areas.

Q. You must be sleeping in.

STUART APPLEBY: No, I'm getting up at 5 to 5:30 everything morning. I'm not hearing anything, but there must be something going on. I had a great drive down 17, and I think it ran like five yards. Hopefully they're not putting water on the course because that would not be the smartest move.

Q. It's rained just about every night. Not a ton.

STUART APPLEBY: You reckon with all the wind and gravity of this place, it would be very easy to dry it out. I guess they're getting enough, it's keeping that first few inches soft enough where the course is not playing very dry at all. To be honest, I've seen it dryer, but at the same time I've seen it wetter.

Q. Can a week like this put a guy in a bad mood - not for you obviously? Jason Gore hasn't broken 80 yet. Six or seven guys double-digits over.

STUART APPLEBY: Put you in a bad mood? God, if look across at the expanse of water out there, pretty hard to be in a bad mood. Playing this tournament, you must have been in a good mood at least one week the year before. I think you'd have to focus pretty hard on being in a bad mood.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Highlights of your round. You hit a nice approach shot on 18.

STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, that was a tricky little pin there. You either have a real tough shot, which could have been shorter for me, or you're going to have a tough putt from 50, 60 feet from the back end of the green. I was happy to be there. I was lucky to be there and unfortunate I didn't get a bit more of a roll to give me something more approachable for an eagle. To walk away with a birdie, it's about time. That hole hasn't done much for me this week except for today.

Q. What did you hit in on 13?

STUART APPLEBY: The uphill par 4?

Q. Yes.

STUART APPLEBY: I hit a driver, 8-iron to about maybe 10 feet.

Q. Under the hole?

STUART APPLEBY: Under the hole actually was a good spot. Probably more like 12 feet.

Q. Good place to be?

STUART APPLEBY: Yeah. I wish I could say I planned it perfectly, but it turned out that way. That's the thing, there's nothing you can really plan out there. We're all saying, I think I'll do this and I hope it does that. That's why this year's especially tough.

End of FastScripts.

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