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VERIZON HERITAGE

April 16, 2010

Stuart Appleby

HILTON HEAD, SOUTH CAROLINA

JOHN BUSH: We'd like to welcome Stuart Appleby into the interview room. 6-under par through 36 holes of the Verizon Heritage.
Stuart, it's been a while since you've been here at Harbour Town, but it doesn't seem to be having an effect on you. Talk about your first two days.
STUART APPLEBY: I haven't played here since maybe the '90s. Tight golf courses have never been something I've been good at. I avoided it. The bugs probably have also driven me away most of the time. I didn't play last week. I haven't missed Augusta since '96, so that threw my schedule a bit. Playing here became an option.
But, yeah, it's nice this week. Maybe the claustrophobic feel of the course makes it a bit sharper with your targets. Hit the ball well, putted well. Very few mistakes. Haven't dropped many shots, and making just enough birdies to have a round on the card. Overall very good golf.

Q. Seem to follow the standard formula, early rounds are the ones you can take advantage out here?
STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, and certainly very swirly golf course. If the breeze gets beyond 10 miles an hour, it gets very difficult. You can be quite out on your yardages, your distances, but, yeah, once it's quiet around here you can score, but it's only going to happen if you keep the ball around the hole. The greens are small, which is something we never seem to bump into anymore. But yesterday I hit ten greens and had 11 one-putts in a row. You can have your rounds, but ultimately, if you're going to keep going, you have to keep the ball on the smart side of the greens when it's tight on the sides and capitalize on any of the short holes, if possible.
It does require -- traditionally you see a lot of the guys up in the leaderboard very striking hitters, very controlled hitters. I've never been that kind of player, but it works so far.

Q. When you came out here the first time, this year, was your reaction like, okay, now I know why I don't come back here or was it, hey, this is a little different, it's a little fun?
STUART APPLEBY: There are a few marks on me that maybe reminded me maybe why I didn't come back. I've been dousing myself in something that will probably create cancer, but it keeps me alive for the week.
I didn't know what to expect. A pretty tight golf course. This is a golf course where if you followed it on Shot Tracker or whatever it's called you'll see 500-yard par-5s, where the players hit a hundred yards off the tee. Because you can clock it in the trees very easily.
I feel comfortable around here. It's a tough course to remember, but just trying to really feel a bit more relaxed on the golf course, a bit easy. Whether it's a tight course here or an open course next week in New Orleans, but I feel comfortable.

Q. Can you go over maybe your best shots of the day? I think Bryce Molder was talking maybe it wasn't the birdies that were the most exciting shots all day, maybe it was some of the saves. Did you have a shot that you particularly -- that was dramatic?
STUART APPLEBY: I didn't have any dramatic -- nothing you put in a movie. But, you know, no, I felt like I hit a lot of greens. Hitting greens has never been my strength. Around here especially you want to have that as your strength. But I made a good up-and-down, hit it in the water on 8 second shot. Dropped from about 85 yards I hit it to about two feet there to stop a double. So I ended up taking a bogey there. So that was sort of nice to keep a double off the card.
But otherwise it was just consistent, you know. I made a lot of putts. Didn't miss too many. I did, but you can't make them all all four days. It's just good, solid golf, I have to say.

Q. What was it like, I mean last week, following Augusta, not being there, since you've been there so many years in a row?
STUART APPLEBY: A little sad in a way, you know. Obviously I've been at that tournament since -- '97 was my first year. It was a bit sad. I wasn't playing really good, either, so what chance do I have of making the cut? Really I didn't have my game from my head to my game really in shape. So the chance of making the cut were going to have to come very quickly. And so, yeah, but I didn't really watch much of it on the weekend. Didn't really watch much of it at all. I don't really follow tournaments much when I'm not playing. Certainly the Majors I don't, because I've been in them all since '97, so if I'm watching it on TV, I got finished very early and missed the cut. I'd like to be in the hunt a bit more. But it was a weird feeling.

Q. Did you spend the week working on your game? Did you spend the week just taking a break from golf?
STUART APPLEBY: I wanted to take a break, but I've sort of been practicing a lot. So I stuck with practicing a lot and just probably not getting too wrapped up in what's going on in my game, just trying to play a bit more natural golf. And I felt like I probably shut down my natural abilities, talents, whatever, it is to play golf just a little bit through too much hard work, and just trying to play a bit more natural golf and my feel that I have. Yeah, trying to be a bit more relaxed about things. And probably mostly with my putting. Just put too much pressure on my putting and tried to relax a bit more and just get in the zone a bit. I was trying to watch some footage of me when I was playing well last, but the movie room was busted. So I couldn't watch anything. I was getting excited about watching me play when I played good. I just saw all these tapes and couldn't get to see anything. So get that fixed and maybe it might help a bit more.
JOHN BUSH: Let's go through the birdies a bit. How about any that stand out.
STUART APPLEBY: None of them, no bombs. Nothing long out there at all. There was no 25-footers. Everything I made was quite short, I think, maybe 15, 12 feet, maybe. A couple of drop shots out there. I had no drop shots yesterday, so today you're going to bump into them now and then. Just if you watched the round you'd say it wasn't spectacular, but it was tidy. It was along the lines of what you'd expect from someone like Jim Furyk, to be doing that sort of golf. Not so much myself, normally, but if you play proper golf and you make a couple of putts, it looks easy.
JOHN BUSH: Thanks for coming by.

End of FastScripts

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