BOB HOPE CHRYSLER CLASSIC

January 23, 2000

Jesper Parnevik

JESPER PARNEVIK: It was a little bit more interesting the way it happened than I wanted it to be, but that's just the way I do things, I guess. Same thing at Greensboro. This is the first tournament I have won by one shot. Any time I won in tournament in Europe, I think I won by three or five shots. And Phoenix, I won by three. And in Greensboro, I think I had a three-shot lead going into 18. It was a little bit different feeling knowing I have to birdie 18 to win.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I tried to hit some balls, but I didn't know what to do, really. I really wanted to go and watch, but I wanted to hit some 5-woods in case it was a playoff, and I knew I needed another 5-wood to knock it on the green. We couldn't see anything from the driving range there, and I just had to listen. The PGA TOUR guys were there saying, "He's going to putt," and, "Now, he putted." And I just had to listen and see if there was a big scream or not. I think the putt stayed high, and that was it. I never -- I never won a tournament being not in the last group, I think.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Yeah, I was -- I mean, I was cruising along just fine. I was playing great. I think it was 13, I had an L-wedge into the green. I hit a terrible shot. What I was thinking about was, before I hit the shot, I actually thought, "Wouldn't it be amazing if I shot 59 to win the tournament, two years in a row here," and I just chunked a wedge in the bunker to make bogey. And then I kind of pushed my drive on the next hole. We thought it was okay, and then when we walked up there; we heard someone was hit. Oh, he looked -- he was down on the ground, and it looked like a big golf ball was growing out of his forehead. It was a terrible sight, and he was lying there and we asked if everything was fine. I asked him a few times if he was okay he said, "I'm fine. As long as you win the tournament, I'm okay." So that was very comforting in a way. It's terrible when things like that happen.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Yeah, I got off to a great start. I shot 5-under on the front nine, which, of course set the pace for everybody else. I thought I had to shoot very low to win this. I thought it would be around 30-under to win the tournament. You know, my caddie said, what -- after I think three or four holes, I asked him, "What do you think it's going to take?" And he said, "27-under is going to be a lark." And after 8 holes, I asked him, "What do you think now?" And he said, "Probably more like 30." Nobody really did anything on the back nine, I guess.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Yeah, ever since I came over here for the first time, I think in '84, he pretty much asked me to tape everything on TV. You know, Bob Hope has always been one of his favorite guys because he like that kind of humor. He's not a big fan of the new type of -- how should I put it, easy jokes with no -- just dirty jokes. He's more like into when you have to think a little bit and put some mind behind it. And Bob Hope was definitely one of his favorites. I remember Smoothers Brothers were some other ones he really liked.

JESPER PARNEVIK: No, he never did. No.

JESPER PARNEVIK: We just tried to set a very slow pace to start off with. We walked as slow as we could because the worst thing you want to do is wait on every shot. So we had a ruling on the 2nd hole. Rich Beem hit it right, and I think an official touched his ball. So that helped a little bit, put us a little bit behind. And the pace was fine after that. We walked just pretty much as slow as we could though.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Last year I was a full member on the European tour. I think Ken Schofield told me that January 5th was the deadline to join the European Tour this year, and I just didn't feel like I could commit to full 11-tournament schedule. So I haven't joined, so far. I don't know if that's going to mean I can't join this year at all and just play full-time here. But the way things are right now, I'm only a member of the U.S. tour this year.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Ryder Cup is such a special tournament. I mean, it's -- you really can't explain it. It's far different from any other tournament you play in your career, and it's just a thing where it seems like everybody just lifts their game to a new level. And I think it's the atmosphere, the energy and everything like that. You know, of course, I was very happy to play as well as I did with Sergio. We had a great time together. I think that gave me a little it bit of a confidence booster because it helps a lot when you see that you can play that well under that amount of pressure, because I don't think it gets any worse than the Ryder Cup.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I took the last 10 weeks off last year. I had that heart condition -- I still have it, but it just got really bad last summer; so I decided not to play at the end of the year. And I've been working out really hard actually, all winter long with Doug and my sister, at a clinic, Innova Health, down in Jupiter, Florida. I think that helped a lot. Now these three weeks on tour, I've been starting to work out with Boris Kusmic, who also trains Vijay Singh, Tom Pernice, who else does he have? Yeah, Gabriel Hjerstedt. I think Tim Herron is starting to work out with him as well. I've seen him on that bag.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Bermuda Dunes has been a golf course where I've struggled in the past years. I don't think I really shot any low scores around here. I don't know what has been -- I think even par, around there is about what I've been shooting. I've been going really low at Indian Wells and things like that. After three days, I have to stay that I thought I had to go real low, probably lower than I did to have a chance to win. I thought that Rich Beem playing Indian Wells yesterday would run away a little bit, maybe 26 -, 27-under starting today. But glad to see they stopped it at 22 -- 21, actually.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I was just out of the big colors. I wore red already this week, and baby blue, so I had to go with the old-fashioned way.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I'm going to play next week in Phoenix, and then the World Match-play event in La Costa. Between that, I haven't decided yet if I'm going to go to Pebble Beach, or if I'm going to go to L.A. looks like San Diego is definitely going to be a week off. Because when I say over here, I stay in Florida, in Palm Beach; so I have the whole Florida Swing that I would like to play. But now, with so many tournament tournaments, you have to take a few weeks off somewhere. Usually, I actually stay at home during the Florida Swing and drive back and forth, which is a lot of miles.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I think the 10 weeks off helped a lot. I think any time I feel like I have a good time on the golf course, I have a lot of fun, I play well. I did the same thing three years ago. I took more than -- I probably took 15 weeks off, and, you know, you just relax, play for fun with friends at home, practice and so on and I came out and I finished -- I think 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 4th the first four tournaments I played. And it just seems like when I have fun on the golf course, that's when I play my best golf.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I would love to play full-time on the U.S. tour one year, just to see where I can end up on the money list over here. Usually, I've been -- between 15, 20 tournaments has been pretty much my limit, and it would be fun to play like 25 tournaments in one year, just to see how well I can do. I know Tiger can play 15 and win by miles, but it would be fun to challenge him.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Maybe, yeah.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Well, my mind set was just to go out and just try to make as many birdies as possible. I shot 69, 67, 66, 64. I thought if I could go one lower today, I could have a good chance. But even though I was 5-under the front nine, I saw that Sabbatini was also playing very well. So the birdie on 12 and 13, then I kind of felt like I had it in my hands. And I still don't -- I still don't know what happened on the 14th hole. Mind boggling. Perfect drive, too.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Oh, yeah, I'm very impressed. He hasn't won a tournament here yet, but, you know he did a great job. He just needs to do what he did. I know he had a bad lie on the 18th hole. He still hit an unbelievable third shot, I heard, over the walkie-talkies, because they told me it was all over before he hit the shot, but we had a big roar again. But it was very impressive what he did, I thought.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Oh, yeah, my touch has been -- 16 was one of those cases where, in my mind, I wanted to hit a cut 6-iron in there. I asked my caddie, "So, what do you think?" He said "7-iron." I said, "Oh, I wish you didn't say that," because I was hoping he was going to say cut 6, and he said, "No, 7-iron, would be fine." And I felt like it was really not enough; so I tried to hit it a little bit harder, and it hooked a little bit and hit the slope there and just spun way left. My touch has been so bad all week. I don't know what it is.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Oh, terrible touch. Anything outside, 10, 20 feet, I've really been struggling to get the right pace. That's why I was not very pleased to see my putt on 18, you know, end up 40 feet from the hole. I was just actually happy to hit the green with that. I was hoping -- I might as well putt this over the green.

JESPER PARNEVIK: This is one of those weeks where all you have to do is score very, very well. It's not one of those golf courses we play where, you know, really a lot of emphasis is put on your game, because the rough is not very high and the courses are fairly shot. It's not like playing Carnoustie, for example, where if you play bad, you're going to shoot 90. These type of courses, you can get around, even though you're not playing your very best. But I definitely thought Duval was going to go in and shoot a low one today. I didn't see what he did, but he only shot a couple under, I think.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Oh, yeah, I will talk to him fairly soon, I would say. I love to play worldwide. I love to play in Europe. But it just felt like I didn't want to join and have to play 11. It was -- I think I would have joined if I was in the Akron tournament, but the European Tour changed those rules so they don't take the Ryder Cup team anymore. And I felt to play one more tournament in Europe, to get my 11, might be on the edge; so, you know, he was talking about banning me for two years last year when I didn't play in Valderrama. So I said, "Well, I'll wait and see what happens."

JESPER PARNEVIK: Well, that's a very good question. I've been hitting my irons extremely well. I'm probably playing as well as I have in the last three, four, five years, I would say. I'm very surprised, actually, how well I'm hitting my irons. Any time I'm standing over a shot, it feels like I'm going to hit it within 10 feet from the hole, and it's just a very good feeling. And all week, I've had a lot of -- lot of putts within 3 to 10 feet; and it's just when I came outside that range, I really didn't know what to do.

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