BUICK OPEN

August 11, 2001

Stuart Appleby

STUART APPLEBY: Really good. I got off to, well if you look at the first hole I missed a short putt maybe of 6 or 7 feet there. So par 5, most guys I think you can probably birdie there. So I walked away with par. I felt like I had one slip there, but still I guess I had 17 more holes and hit the ball really solid today, drove it really nice, probably only hit two ordinary drives and did get fortunate on one and started back in the fairway. But hit some great iron shots today coming into that first nine holes, just really quiet -- I think I had three stiff shots (inaudible) more than two met; missed a couple of greens, but really nice, the best I have hit it all year by far. Certainly in respect to close and the feeling of my swing felt nice. And the ball was rolling good, you know, just the course is in great shape, it's very susceptible at the moment based on no wind and no real heat.

STUART APPLEBY: Haven't -- I guess consistency, you'd like to be consistent, but I guess you'd like to be consistent in majors. But really the goal to play is to get out and play well and play really strong maybe five times a year where you are in absolutely -- five or six times a year where you are in contention if not winning. I would have to say so far my year has been pretty ordinary; haven't been really happy with the way I have played. Probably lacked a bit of confidence all year, just you don't have confidence; doesn't matter what sport you are playing, you find it very hard to get into that zone to where you just have a round like I did today. So I got some good things last week from Denver, just swing things and brought them here and knew that that's what I can do and try to stick with it and I hit some respectable shots. So to answer your question it's not as simple maybe going from one week to the next, it is weeks and weeks of making mistakes and then getting gloops of the right stuff and losing it and getting it and losing it and all of a sudden grabbing it and saying right now how do I make this work. Most players at this level aren't going to have to re-build their swings, they are going to have to go back to basics a little bit, what makes them swing it bad and what makes them swing it good so for me, try to get back into that zone of what Stuart Appleby does to swing the ball properly and it might take sometime, might take two months. Here I am. Hopefully this sort of round can swing my year into something gone from ordinary to something good.

STUART APPLEBY: I would think you would have to shoot that to be in the Top-10. I had 1-under yesterday which was just - the ball was just flying backwards and when I looked at the cut I couldn't believe it, I only made the cut by a shot. So that just shows you that this course is very susceptible to low scores and there is no day where you can ever back off. You can't have a slack day, so hopefully tomorrow I can have another one of today to try make up for the soft Friday round I had.

STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, didn't -- hit a really poor tee shot. That was one of the two -- well, actually 3 drives I hit ordinary. But it was a bit disappointed because I wanted to bum one down the fairway. Obviously that thing was probably an iron for me if I really got one down and probably got a little too much carry on that one and hit in the rough. But had a hot lie, squashed the grass down and got away with a good, I guess, a good 10, 12-foot putt after a poor chip. No, that was the only real scrambling I did, I guess, on 18, three holes were scrambling; two were for pars and one was for the up-and-down on 16. Then again the course, it's sitting there and it's not presenting any huge, huge challenges at the moment because there's no wind and no heat.

STUART APPLEBY: I struggle with my alignment sometimes. Not all the time. I struggle with my alignment and when it gets wrong my downswing tries to compensate for my poor alignment; not that I really know that, but it tries to and usually, you know, I guess I can get it around, I can shoot something under par, but I can't do it for four days, can't do it for four weeks. So if I get my alignment good and get myself almost open a little bit and make sure I swing and get enough power into the right side because as soon as I find guys I normally keep up with on driving length and I am behind them, it's straight-a-way I have got a power leak, so establish descent alignment and then try to get a good bit of power in the backswing and once I get those two together all of a sudden the swing unfolds, doesn't matter if you are under pressure or whatever the swing will always go down the fairway. So those two things is what I have looked and once you lack those you are trying to hit it just with some talent and that really doesn't cut it out here all the time.

STUART APPLEBY: No, I don't -- I mean, you look at it now and you could say that -- but there's a lot of guys that are pretty confident even if they don't have quote, unquote track record or whatever, multiple Tour victories, I don't think that really matters. I think it helps to have some experience, no doubt. But you have seen, I guess, David Gossett is a good example of a guy who has always been a good player for years but come out and play on the pro Tour and get out there and win it's not an easy thing; he did it just beautifully. So there's guys that don't have huge track records that are coming out to win. That's happened in the last few years. So I don't -- you can't say, oh, it's only a 4-man race or a 5-man race. This is anybody because I came up today, someone could do the same thing tomorrow and shoot a 62 come from six shots behind or 8 shots behind.

STUART APPLEBY: Didn't really take a lot of notice. It's funny because holes cross back and forth so you get some that jump into you and jump off and go somewhere else. I could tell there was a lot out there because you could hear that someone was making some birdie putts or eagles, you could hear the roars, I guess. Me starting at 5-under par and sneaking up the leaderboard I sort of snuck in without too many people watching; most of them the last 3, 4 groups will be watching. But they linger around and jump around groups.