KEMPER INSURANCE OPEN

May 24, 2001

Stuart Appleby

STUART APPLEBY: I was happy that I got off to a pretty good start. But my first hole -- I birdied 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, something like that. A few birdies there. A bad shot on 18, and had a good 2-putt par. I didn't really get that much of that momentum into the second nine holes. I made a scrambly par on 2. 3 was unfortunately bad shot there, and then dropped a shot there, and I picked it up straight away on the next with about a 20-footer. I made a 2 on 6 -- no, sorry 5. Almost made a 2 on 5, but missed the birdie putt. And on 6, made a great second shot into there, after another great tee shot, made a 2-putt birdie. 8 was a good 2-putt par, after a very poor drive. And pretty poor shot on 8, really, really pretty bad shot. Made a very simple bogey there. And 9 I made probably a 10, 12-footer on my last hole for another birdie. So there was a lot of birdies and a couple of bogeys, but all pretty good stuff, usually.

STUART APPLEBY: I wanted to get it to the flag, definitely. I didn't want to go right at it, because obviously the water is on the right. But in the back of my mind I wanted to hit it left and get the ball to move towards the flag. I didn't want it to really stay way left. I guess it's easy to hit way left, and it's a ballsy play to go right. But I was hitting the ball pretty good, and wasn't really concerned too much. But I felt like I could move it in there.

STUART APPLEBY: No, not really. The swing mechanics is pretty much the same. I guess I'm swinging a little freer than I was last week, just relaxed my setup, relaxed my grip, just relaxed my whole body and let all the good homework that I've been doing on my swing, just let it go a little bit. Trying to play good golf, not scared of hitting a bad shot, trying to play good golf instead of letting it happen. It didn't feel good like that earlier in the week, but when I started to see how good the ball flight was, that was easy to get used to that.

STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, well, I guess -- I disagree in a way, they don't practice anything, except just hitting a golf ball. I guess it's not really -- we're trying to like throw a dart at a target. They're trying to just hit the ball. And I've practiced a lot and worked hard and haven't really, I think, got anywhere near a decent results in my game since PGA last year. But I felt like my game was close, and it was probably just a degree of self-imposed tension in the body that just relates to not quite there results, and that's very frustrating. Again, that just accumulates to a little bit more tension, and a little bit falling short of getting what you want out of a round or a week, and before you know it, you're not playing any good. I just had my coach tell me what looks good, and if it looks good I trust him, and just relax. That's very difficult to do at times, but I tried it in practice, and that's the best thing about practice. I get to give everything a run, and I hit some good shots. I really liked it. That's what I did today, and free-wheeled it, and it's just nice to see the ball coming down to the flag.

STUART APPLEBY: I don't think it was just that much to do with this place. It was just a coincidence that it was here, it really was. I mean, the course is played not much like what it was like when I won here. It's extremely soft this year, really soft and very long. When you're playing poor golf, you can play poorly at a course you played well at before, because that's just the moment and what's going on. It doesn't so much matter. It just happened to be that it dawned upon me that my swing was a little tight, physically, a little controlling, and I let that go. I think I could have been -- at Colonial last week, I think I would have played better if I had that same thought. So I think it's a coincidence, but you guys can write whatever you like. If you think it sounds good to sell papers, do it.

STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, sure. Long ball hitters have an advantage anyway, doesn't matter where. I think no course is set up for a short hitter anymore. Certainly Tiger has proven that. Admiring a straight hitter is certainly what longer hitters love: Gee, I wish I could hit it straighter. One thing a short hitter can't hit it longer, but a long player can hit it straighter. I've got an asset, at the right times when it's in the right frame of mind, it's definitely an advantage. And I would never, never trade -- I would like to hit -- I would say if I was going to get greedy, I would like to hit a few more fairways, and I don't know if that entitles me to hit it shorter. Tiger is obviously terrible in driving stats this year in accuracy, but he certainly -- his scoring average is mind-boggling.

STUART APPLEBY: The course is very soft. It's soft but not wet. There's no real water around. It's doing a very good job. I think with the sunshine, even though it's not hot, with the slight breeze it's helped dramatically. A deluge of water and the greens don't mix well. The greens are getting a little bumpy, but that's to be expected. There's no choice in that. And I've seen this course play really, really dry, too, which is certainly where I'd like to see it go. It's hard to say, one minute it's dry, one minute it's wet, and tomorrow I guess the forecast is nothing great. I'm hoping that I'll see, for my benefit, selfishly, that we can get to 12:00, before it rains.

STUART APPLEBY: I think normally you think about play 3-wood on a few holes, and that was the only weird thing, normally I play driver here. And you think about the 3-wood, if I hit driver it's not going anywhere, it's going right where my normal 3-wood is going. You definitely have got to play air time. And I played with Scott Hogan, and he's normally not a long player on Tour. I don't think Scott is a short hitter by any means now. I don't think short hitters can win many tournaments. I think those days are really gone because now there's long hitters that have touch, so traditionally long hitters didn't have. And I guess it's very difficult for short hitters -- I guess Corey last week at Colonial had some good memories, and he's a short hitter, because you can chase the ball around and manipulate it, and it makes it very controllable for him.

STUART APPLEBY: I don't know -- I think I had six birdies at my home course, it was probably about early '90s, might have been ten years ago, I had six birdies in a row. And I shot -- what did I shoot that round? I can't remember. 67, 5-under. I had six in a row. I remember that very vividly. So that was -- that was the last time -- I think I've had five in a row every now and then, and four and that, but six is pretty cool.

STUART APPLEBY: I won by about a thousand shots that time. We had handicaps. I remember when my stroke score was lower than the next net score. I shot 67, 71. That was at my home course, so I was bound to win it, I guess. That was the last time I had six birdies. I remember -- the people were coming up to watch, we didn't have golf carts. You had to run about a half mile to get out there. By the end it was a capacity crowd. I remember I parred 10, which was a par-5. That's way back a long time ago.

STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, yeah.

STUART APPLEBY: Not even close. I certainly had an opportunity off my tee shot, but I hit a poor second shot. And if I had holed that shot, it would have been fluky, really. Chances are it wouldn't be 20 to 1, if lucky. It was a good 50 feet off. It was an ordinary shot, a good 2-putt. To make six birdies -- I didn't really hole any putts, either. I had really quite -- I almost made eagle on -- what is it, 13? Stiff on

12 --.

STUART APPLEBY: First birdie was 12. I hit a 6-iron to three feet. I hit a 2-iron on the green on par-5, 2-putted from probably 40 feet. I just tapped in the second putt and hit a sand wedge to about three feet on the next. I hit -- what did I hit on the next? -- I think I hit a 9-iron -- I think 9-iron -- I've got to check it -- just write whatever you want. I can't remember. I hit that to 3 feet. That was a tap in. Then over the green I hit a bad shot on 16 and left it right in the rough. Pretty good second shot over the green, took a lift clean and cheat drop and hit a great chip shot that checked up real quick, and it fell in. It was a chip that went in. It was probably the best shot of the bunch, being a 5-iron into 17 to probably about 8 feet, and made that. So there was really -- the chipping was the luckiest part of it and the rest were all pretty easy putts.

STUART APPLEBY: Couldn't have been more than 12 yards, something like that.

STUART APPLEBY: Lift clean and place, I got myself the best lie possible. If I hadn't had to place it, I guess chances of chipping would have dropped dramatically. I was thinking about chipping it in, but -- it was a hard shot. I was thinking get it, get up-and-down, don't leave yourself work. It went in. That's the goal in the end, anyhow.

STUART APPLEBY: Nope. There's no one out here today. It was surprising. There was a couple of people. There wasn't that many actually, certainly coming down to the last, there aren't. There was no more than a few dozen, really. So I didn't get the motivation to cheer me on. There were only a couple of people that knew what was happening out here.

STUART APPLEBY: No, that was pretty nice. That was -- to make it -- I mean, I don't know if it was better to do it, to have it all in a row or break it up, but I guess when you have so many birdies, there's not that many birdies you can tighten up to make pars. Yeah, it was a good, very tight clean 9. The bogey on 10 was a bummer. I felt I didn't get the pin in exactly the spot where it was supposed to be. I felt it was a couple of yards out. I was a couple of yards over the green and paid the price for that. That was a hiccup. That's happened before, bogeying, and flying back into birdies. It's something you can't control; it just happens. I guess there's a degree of luck at the right time.

STUART APPLEBY: It's not a thrill, because -- a thrill is winning a tournament. A thrill -- it's nice to shoot birdie, but it doesn't mean anything unless you come back -- unless you back it up with something half decent the next day. So where I birdie is nice where it's the last 9 holes of the tournament and you win.

STUART APPLEBY: Then you back it off with about four double bogeys and a handful of triples. But you'll only tell your friends about the 1-under after three holes. I won't tell anybody about my scores until I sign the 72nd hole.

STUART APPLEBY: No, it's like leading after five laps thinking I'm leading, I'm leading, at the Indy and you spin out at the next turn and you're done. You can't count your chickens on that one.