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BAY HILL INVITATIONAL PRESENTED BY MASTERCARD

March 19, 2004

Stuart Appleby

ORLANDO, FLORIDA

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Stuart, thanks for joining us. Good round today.

STUART APPLEBY: Today was very much like yesterday. Played very solid. Putted pretty well. Course was playing very much the same, very little wind yesterday, probably a little bit more, and we had a little bit of wind today, but again, not very much.

The course is the easiest it's been based on weather conditions. It's the lowest cut I think on record here for quite a while. The greens are generally very receptive, which is unusual. Definitely taken a little conscious effort to keep the greens softer. It wasn't so much due to rain, even though we had rain the other day. They are probably just a little bit slower. And the rough is not up. So a few factors.

I played good for two days. If I play like that for two more days, that will be a really good tournament.

Q. What did you do the last two weeks?

STUART APPLEBY: I came back from the Match-Play and spent about -- we had about a week doing nothing but catching up on mail, fan mail, just trying to catch up. I had a lot of -- we had probably two full days of mail to do when I got back and then boxes left, shipments left. My wife is always ordering stuff on-line. So there's boxes filling the front door of the house. So that took probably two or three days to get through.

Then just really enjoyed being home. The weather was fantastic. The second week I practiced pretty solid coming in.

Q. So dealing with mail and stuff must be a pretty sure-fire way to get you eager to play again.

STUART APPLEBY: Actually, I don't mind doing it. Sort of like cleaning out the closet, which I also did, spring cleaning. I attacked the closet a bit and packed up another 50 golf shirts and pants and things and boxed them up and will probably post them back to Australia for friends and family.

But now I think I've caught up and it's nice to have had three weeks here in Orlando. We had had a four-month break, was our last time to go back. We had not gotten back to Orlando since around the week of THE TOUR Championship, the week before the TOUR Championship. So it was a big long break between then and just now. So now we get the three weeks here, which is nice.

Q. So how do you keep it real with all of that glamour in your life?

STUART APPLEBY: It's not easy. I'm still learning. I don't know. It's no big deal. People have bigger problems than I have.

Q. What kind of oddball stuff do you get in the mail? Is it mainly from back home or is it all over?

STUART APPLEBY: I get -- it's junk, a lot of junk. Finance junk, trying someone is trying to sign you up an cards, credit cards, financial statements, all of those sort of things. All I'm looking for is a good car magazine or something or one of my subscriptions.

Q. What about fan mail?

STUART APPLEBY: I get a bit of fan mail but I try to push that to my management. I'll pre-sign a couple hundred photo and send them off, and some get to me which is fine; or cards, when I've got to do cards or sign cards or sign a couple more, throw them back in the envelope. I get a little bit. I hate to think what the bigshots get.

Q. What was your wife ordering all this time, stuff for the house?

STUART APPLEBY: Don't even ask.

Q. What was the one that really killed you?

STUART APPLEBY: Well, let's just say that my wife, she's an absolute champion, everything she buys in the house, works fits, really good. She's so far ahead of me when it comes to taste and knowing what --

Q. Hard to believe.

STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, it is, isn't it?

When I have something exciting coming to the front door, something that I know it's coming and I really want it, not golf gear obviously, but something I get excited about, and when I see the FedEx man or UPS man, I'm the first one to get to the door and I always find it says "Ashley Appleby," "Ashley Appleby" every time. Drives me bloody crazy. So all I do is open the front door, shove it in the front door and close it. It's so disheartening.

Q. Is that why you've been playing so well?

STUART APPLEBY: I think really the biggest thing, reason I've been playing well is I've been much more relaxed on the course. Get off to a good start this year, not really trying to do anything else but just play the game and just be relaxed and trust what I'm doing. Work, concentrate very hard on what I'm doing when it's my turn to play. Hit the ball, go out find it and do it again.

Q. If it ended like it is right now, you'd finish ahead of Tiger for the third time this year already.

STUART APPLEBY: I wish that was the rule.

No, this is good. I wanted to watch the race at Sebring. I wanted to head own to the race this weekend and watch that. But I made the cut so that's not going to happen.

Last year it was coordinated where I don't think there was a clash between the two. So if I'm going to make the cut, I might as well being playing well if I can't go to Sebring.

Q. Forgive me for asking you about today's round. Can you assess it for me?

STUART APPLEBY: Did you want to tell him? Just read the script. That's what you do every other time, isn't it? (Laughter.) Come on.

I played just the same -- whatever you wrote yesterday, write it, because I played exactly the same.

Q. I didn't write anything yesterday.

STUART APPLEBY: Then what are you doing here? (Laughter.)

I played well yesterday. I played well today. I putted well. I drove the ball well. I chipped and putted well when I needed. The wind wasn't blowing much for two days. The course is playing relatively easy considering Bay Hill's reputation with the greens being firm and very fast; they are not firm; they are not fast. Two good solid days of golf. I would like to have two more like that.

Q. What's with the sideburns?

STUART APPLEBY: I don't know. I don't know. I really don't know. People ask me and I have no idea why I started. I just up and went. Turned to my caddie because I saw him in a couple photos when he was probably 25, 30 years ago and I saw it absolute looked like road kill on each side of his face. I said, you know what, not that they were any good, but I said -- we were talking about it and I go, "Well, you know, do you think I should do it?"

"Yeah, go on."

So I started it. My fashion consultant, he was. I said, "Are we doing this the right way." He said do this, do that. And here is where we are. I thatched them out this morning. I thinned them, cut them this morning.

Q. You're using Joe as your sounding board?

STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, he used have big burns.

Q. What does Ashley think about them?

STUART APPLEBY: I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. She doesn't mind. She thinks I'm sexy either way. Doesn't matter. She's supposed to, anyways.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: On that note, Stuart, thank you for joining us.

End of FastScripts.

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