BUICK OPEN

August 8, 2001

Retief Goosen

RETIEF GOOSEN: Yeah, it's great to be back. Always a little bit nervous, but I am looking forward to the week, it is going to be great. The golf course is in great condition. So really looking forward to the week see if I can keep my good playing up. I have had a couple of weeks off now to think about it all, so I am here now ready to play again.

RETIEF GOOSEN: Well, I thought this was a good week to start playing again over here. It is the week before the PGA, but I don't think that I want to play the week before the major. It just worked out in my schedule that that is the week that I would like to start over here again. The way the schedule worked out this year, it's a good place to start.

RETIEF GOOSEN: I don't think -- I have had a couple of golf things I had to do and I just had a good time to think about it all, work out my schedule for the year. We decided to join for this year to see if I can maybe get enough money to get into THE TOUR Championship at the end of the year. That was one of my goals. I am going to finish the European Tour off this year and maybe see if I can win the Order of Merit on the European Tour. And then next year we haven't quite finalized the schedule for next year. But if I am going to play over here I am going to play both Tours, the European Tour and the U.S. tour.

RETIEF GOOSEN: Well, both of them is my goal to try to, well, win the one and get into the other one. I am playing here now the next three weeks to see if I can earn enough to get me into that top-30 for THE TOUR Championship.

RETIEF GOOSEN: The course is -- it's good, the greens are excellent. Fairways are great. The rough is probably not as high as I would have liked to be. I know they had a bit of a drought over here. But it is a good driving course. You got to keep it on the fairways, very tight golf holes out there. I like the course. It is very good. I have played here, I think, four years ago, didn't do too well. So I am looking forward to doing a little bit better this time.

RETIEF GOOSEN: I treat it as another golf tournament. I have never seen the golf course before where we are playing next week. I haven't seen any pictures of it either. I will get there next Monday, play a couple practice rounds and have a good look around. I heard somebody say that it is really in good position, playing really long, something like Medinah. Obviously it is going to be very important around there like any major championship.

RETIEF GOOSEN: Yeah, like I say, it's really my first time back now so it hasn't really sunk in yet over here for me, I suppose. There's a lot more people that recognize me now, yeah, which is great. It's a nice feeling and it is great for me to come up and say: "Well done" to me. I really appreciate that. But it hasn't really changed anything in my life winning it. I still do the same things that I used to do. Obviously it is a little bit more expectations to play better. Maybe that will bring the better golf out of me when there's a bit of added pressure on me.

RETIEF GOOSEN: It happened when I was about 17 years old. That's a long time ago. It has been all over the magazines and papers by now. Yeah, it's just one of those things that I was lucky to survive. Not too often you survive a lightning strike. So maybe it's done me good, I am playing pretty good golf - gets me going a little bit, added energy.

RETIEF GOOSEN: No, not any health problems. I had to -- there was a bit of a crack in my heart beat after that. Through good exercising I got my heart beat strong again. I don't have anymore problems from that, no.