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CHARLES SCHWAB CUP CHAMPIONSHIP

October 22, 2004

Hale Irwin

SONOMA, CALIFORNIA

Q. Hale, another good day, 69, I guess, to go with the 66 yesterday, 9 under. You birdied the last hole two days in a row.

HALE IRWIN: Well, I had such a good start birdieing the first three holes and didn't make another birdie until the 17th hole, so there was, I guess, a lot of highs starting, a lot of lows in the middle. It got exasperating there at the end because I really struggled once more getting my tee shots in the fairway, which is so important on this golf course. I think I'm just physically in a position where my body is not letting me produce the kind of shots I want to produce, so that's why I keep going back saying it's really laboring out there to get through the day without falling apart.

You know, my iron game was a little bit better today, but my driving still is very questionable. I made some nice putts once again. Whereas I missed a few coming in, I still had a relatively good putting day. Not quite as good as yesterday as attested to by my score, but a much better result than one would think when you saw me play the holes. It was pretty ugly.

Q. Your body is --

HALE IRWIN: I hurt my back last summer. There's just some issues going on there that -- I don't know. Nothing that I'm going to go rushing to a surgeon and say cut me apart and put me back together again. The injury which I sustained was -- I'm saying the muscles, somebody else may say differently. I went to several spine specialists and I went through the shots and the epidurals, and I said no more of that. It wasn't helping. So it's more of a soft tissue.

As you can imagine, when you're in this repetitive motion of a golf swing, and if those muscles aren't working to put some other muscles at task that aren't accustomed, you get yourself going in the wrong direction. That's kind of where I am now. After a full year of play, it's sort of hard to get those muscles retrained.

That's why I'm so looking forward to taking a little bit of a sabbatical here over the next couple of months and letting myself kind of get back to what will hopefully be more of a normal position, that position meaning the golf position, so perhaps by next January I'll be better able to hit the shots that I'm more accustomed to hitting.

Q. Are you getting chiropractic care?

HALE IRWIN: Yeah, I just came from -- the reason I didn't come in earlier, and I apologize, is that if I sit around, stand around -- I wanted to get -- after hitting a few balls I wanted to try to work out something and while I was still fresh get to the trailer and get a little treatment. I apologize for not being here, but if I wait around too long -- that's why this weather, and if we have any delays out there at all, it's kind of tough.

I'm tired of thinking about it, I'm tired of talking about it. Every golf swing I have to think, okay, what do I have to do now to get this ball from X to Y. If not from there, then A to B.

You know, all that aside, too, I've had two good rounds here. I'm blessed with having had some good fortune out there. I've had enough good shots, made enough of those putts on these poa greens to keep me in there, and what could be a better position than -- it could only be one stroke better. As far as I'm concerned, the heat is on him.

Q. You're in a position very similar to yesterday -- (inaudible).

HALE IRWIN: A couple of tees were back a little bit today. Yesterday we were playing a number of forward tees, which you'll have to talk to somebody else about that, but I think that is probably the biggest reason. I think scoring positions were very much the same. Perhaps the hole locations might have been a little more difficult, but on balance, I think they were about the same.

When you have ball in hand and the wet conditions, I'm surprised somebody didn't go a little bit lower. Then it could be that everybody got off to such a bad start. There was a bit of a slow-down, like a caution light.

Q. How much would it mean to win this this year?

HALE IRWIN: It would be fantastic. I was delighted last fall when I won Turtle Bay because when I hurt myself at the U.S. Open it was one of those kind of scary times you think can I ever play again at that level. I sat out a good bit of the summer, and when I came back it was not a very pretty situation. To get through it and win at Turtle Bay, oh, I was delighted. Then to win again earlier in the year at The Legends -- again, the PGA Seniors, we had one of those start-and-stop and walking in the slop and waiting and everything you didn't want to have with a bad back, we had.

I guess I appreciate those wins and those performances a little bit now that they're so much harder to come by, simply not because I feel more pressure or less pressure or anything like that; it's just trying to go through 36 years of doing it one way and then sort of in a very short period of time having to learn how to manufacture something else. Without surgery, as somebody that might have had surgery -- Lee Trevino comes to mind. When he had surgery on his neck, he had to reinvent his golf swing. I don't feel like I'm reinventing, I'm just trying to figure out what I can do.

Q. (Inaudible).

HALE IRWIN: If I could stand up and just hit slices all day long, it probably wouldn't bother me one bit, but obviously you can't do that. Well, I seem to be doing a lot of it lately.

The last several weeks ago, it wasn't an issue, and it wasn't that much last week, either, but we're getting into a little bit cooler situation. I'm at a four-week run here, and playing that many tournaments in a row -- that's one of the things I've tried not to do, but that's the way it's worked out.

With the importance of the Schwab Cup and the closeness of everything, it sort of pushed me in the direction of playing more, and that's why I think I am where I am.

End of FastScripts.

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