GREATER GREENSBORO CHRYSLER CLASSIC

April 23, 1999

Jesper Parnevik

JESPER PARNEVIK: I thought it was hard to beat yesterday's round of 65. And I got off to a little bit of a bad start. I hit it into the right bunker on the first tee and got in the left bunker by the green; and then I ended up holing about a 6-footer for par, which kind of got me going. And then the 3-footer on 11 helped to get my momentum back from yesterday. And I think I was 5-under fairly early for the round. And I looked up at the scoreboard, and I thought I was leading by six or seven, and I was only one ahead. I couldn't believe it. No. 11, I hit a sand wedge to three feet; 3-wood, sand wedge to three feet. 13, I hit 5-wood, 5-wood in the bunker and knocked that to six feet and holed the putt. 14, driver, 9-iron to eight feet. Next one I hit driver, 3-wood, chipped it to about six feet and holed the putt. 17, 6-iron to about 25 feet. 2, hit 5-wood just right of the green. Chipped that to two feet. And the eagle on 7, 5-wood, sand wedge on 7, and it was just one of those perfect yardages for me. I wanted to pitch the ball maybe five yards right or five yards past the pin to feed off the slope. But as soon as I saw where the ball pitched, I knew it was going to be close. It was almost like a putt that's in all the way. There's just no way to miss.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I had 115. Then I hit 7-iron on the par 3 to about 20 feet.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Oh, yeah, I'm feeling really good about my game. I just can't believe -- it must have been something special between our group and Maggert and Furyk's and Lehman's group. We must have made close to 50 birdies between the group; and that's pretty hard to grasp. But every player is averaging about seven or eight birdies.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Oh, yeah. I just couldn't believe it. Both Maggert and Furyk were 7- or 8-under pretty early, and Steve Lowery had it going as well. I just talked to Lehman. He must have felt like he played awful. He only shot like 3-, 4-under; didn't he?

JESPER PARNEVIK: Well, the greens were fairly receptive today. I almost felt like I played a little better yesterday. It was almost a little easier today, because you could stop the ball by the pins pretty much on every hole; and yesterday they were still bouncing off pretty good, especially downwind. So I have to say that the 65 yesterday was probably a little bit better than the 63 today.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I had a chance for the course record on the last hole. And I had a downhill chip, and I saw Rocco; his kind of stopped there on the fringe. So I made -- I lipped out from about seven feet.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Well, I just want to keep on doing what I'm doing. But, you know, that's the only danger, I think, that when you have made as many birdies as I have the first two rounds, you go out expecting to do that on every hole tomorrow, because then all of the sudden you can get frustrated when you're only 1-under after six holes. So you have to keep patient, and keep the aggressiveness there, of course. And if you keep your greens as soft as they were today, I think we're going to see a pretty wild weekend.

JESPER PARNEVIK: This morning you could be very aggressive, shoot at every pin and not be worried that it's going to bounce over the green. It was different from yesterday where you had to pretty much feed the ball up to the holes. I don't know what it was, because the greens were really firm on Tuesday afternoon. I would say that probably 4-under would have been leading now if they kept the greens that way.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Oh, yeah. I haven't missed many fairways. That helps.

JESPER PARNEVIK: He's been very good. He's been -- he knows, you know, how to play. He knows whether to go ahead and say: Maybe we should switch, or: No, that's the right club, and so on. And he kind of can tell what shot I want to hit. And that's most of the important thing when you're standing over the ball, picking the club, because if you hit a high, soft cut instead of a hard one, that could be a two-club difference. He has a good feel for the game.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Maybe that's the key.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I thought I made it. Oh, of course, I wanted to make it. But Rocco, he hit it from the same line, and I just hit mine inside right and it stayed there.

JESPER PARNEVIK: That's, like I said, one of the things. When you haven't been playing very well and -- well, I haven't been scoring very well, rather. I felt like the game has been there the last month or so, but then, like you said, you enter the tournament on Friday, which is the last day to do it, and you might come here not expecting as much as you might do. When you're playing real well and everything is going for you, all of the sudden you put too much pressure on yourself. I definitely felt very relaxed going into the first round.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I bet all the guys in my group, I bet Furyk and Maggert do the same thing. Everybody is going to keep a good eye on each other and try to keep making birdies; especially if one guy starts getting on a role.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I'd be in Florida. My wife is expecting in three weeks; so, I probably would have taken care of her and the other two daughters we have.

JESPER PARNEVIK: It was actually cold this morning. I wish I had had a sweater this morning. It's getting warm now.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Warm weather is always, of course, the best if you want to hit the ball far and so on. But I don't think any cooler weather is going to higher the scores or anything. The only thing is maybe if the wind blows real hard and the greens get firmer.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I hope so, because it would be a little bit more of a test.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I hope so.

JESPER PARNEVIK: A couple of weeks, and then I go to Europe, and then I'll probably come back for Memorial and U.S. Open, and then I come back again for the PGA.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Well, I haven't played there. I don't know what is a good number.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I've heard it's a great golf course, yeah.

JESPER PARNEVIK: How many putts I had? Let's see: Not many. Do you know?

JESPER PARNEVIK: Okay. All right.