GREATER GREENSBORO CHRYSLER CLASSIC

April 22, 1999

Jesper Parnevik

JESPER PARNEVIK: I think it's my lowest round of the year. I have not been playing really the way I wanted this year. It's nice to be up in the lead again, and definitely my eagle on No. 2 got me started. You know, I missed a short putt on 1 for birdie and got the eagle on 2. Birdies on 6, 7, 8, 9. 5-under on the front; was not really what I expected around here. When we saw the wind was going to pick up to 25 miles, and with the rough being as high as it is, I thought the score was going to be high in the afternoon, and it seemed like everybody played well.

JESPER PARNEVIK: No.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I mean, I love to play in the wind. I mean, like, I love the British Open, for example, where the wind is a little bit stronger than this. It's a lot of fun, I think, to play. I think they set the course up very nicely. I think it was on Tuesday afternoon, the greens were very baked, and there were some of the greens you cannot even hold. I think they watered the greens because they were scared it would be too firm this afternoon. They were still very firm, but with this wind, it would be very hard to score at all in the afternoon if they would not have watered the greens this morning.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I fooled around a little bit at Augusta. I had one new set at Augusta because I wanted to try to get the ball flight higher. They didn't feel the way I wanted. I changed last week to a low kick-point shaft to shoot it up a little bit more. I've seen Norman around there, and he hits it pretty high. But it just didn't feel right; so I got some new heads and went back to my old shaft and did some grinding to it, and now it feels great again.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Let's see, I think it was when Per-Ulrik Johansson came over. He wanted to play here, if he can. And I think he was asked last week if he wanted to play this week, and that's when I decided to come here as well. Because we're good friends and it would be fun, you know, for him to be not be on his own this week. And like I said, I felt like I haven't played as well as I wanted to the last three, four weeks. And it was a good opportunity to end on a high note, and I'm going to have a few weeks off because we're expecting our third child three weeks from now.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Oh, yeah. I love to play here. I haven't been here for a few years now because the pollen is usually pretty bad, and I struggle some with allergies. But this year I just brought with me a lot of, what do you call, echinachea, Vitamin C, so on, to boost up my immune system. And it seems like it's helped.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I missed a 2-footer. It was just a bad putt. It actually lipped all the way out. It made about a 360 and came all the way back again. I just lost my focus for a little while.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I missed a 5-footer on 10 and 3-footer on 11, and about a 4-footer on 12 for par. So that was a big putt to hole that one. And then birdie 13, 14, 15.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Oh, yeah. This game, you can always be better. But I'm pretty pleased with my 65.

JESPER PARNEVIK: It's hard to accept it's your fault when you've missed a putt; so you're looking for that magic one that might turn your career around and work every time. I haven't found one yet. I don't know what happens. Putter, you know, you pick one out, and, of course, you pick it out because you like it. But it seems like it disappears after a while, and I don't know where it goes.

JESPER PARNEVIK: It's always nice when you can keep the momentum going in a round like that. You can feed off birdies and make more. The worst momentum killer you can usually do is make a birdie and then follow it up with a bogey, and then nothing happens. But I was able today to make birdies when I had chances and keep on making birdies. Always helps.

JESPER PARNEVIK: It was great. It's not very often you get a guy, like I said, who has played this tournament probably 10 times on his own; and he's actually active playing this year as well. So, I mean, he knows the game and he knows this golf course -- how should I put it. When you play yourself, you can see other things maybe that, you know, a friend of yours can see when he caddies and so on. It's good.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Some with the clubbings and so on. You think your way around the golf course and where the wind is and so on. He knows what holes play uphill because he's played here so much; what plays downhill, and what side you don't want to be on and so on.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I hope so, but you never know. I mean, I'm playing well; put it that way. I feel good pretty much about all aspects of my game. I've been feeling good the last three, four weeks. Just I haven't done anything really the way I wanted. I had to go to Atlanta and I made quadruple bogey on the last hole there and took the momentum off. I came back with a 68 the next day. Last week, the same thing. I made two triples and a double, I think, the first two rounds. It was just bad things that you don't want to happen.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I played a lot of golf with him. He likes to bet and so on. We had a lot of fun down in Florida. He asked me earlier this year if he could caddie for me in Florida and it didn't happen because I brought another friend from Sweden. And so now he just called me up this weekend and I thought it was a fun thing to do.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Yeah. I mean, I feel that way. I mean, you never know. He was good.

JESPER PARNEVIK: The DQ did not bother me that much. When I was disqualified, I actually thought I missed the cut. I thought the cut was going to be 1-under par and I was 1-over; so, I didn't think it was that big of a deal. The bad part was what happened afterwards, all the rumors about me and my caddy having a big fight and this and that; that we were very upset with each other. One rumor was that we had a fist fight in the parking lot and security came to separate us and so on. So he called me that night and was very bothered with all the rumors and that came around. He just wanted to make sure that he knew that he didn't start any of them and so on. We are such good friends, me and Duncan. Just felt bad that something like that got spread around.

JESPER PARNEVIK: When we started working, we pretty much had a week-to-week relationship. He's worked for me for many years, but usually just one week here, a couple weeks there and so on. This was a long run for us, so to speak. And we kind of decided after Augusta, if nothing big happened, that he was going to go back to Europe. Like I said, I didn't play as well as I wanted. And you're always looking for a change. Sometimes, even though, you know, you're very good friend, it's better to just depart.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Eagle on No. 2. Driver, 5-wood to 30 feet. 7, I hit the 5-wood, wedge, 30 feet again. So that was my range today, 30 feet. 7, I had 4-iron to four feet. 9, I hit a sand wedge to about 12 feet. 15, I hit driver, 3-wood over the green to the bunker. Hit the bunker shot to six feet. And on 18, I hit a driver, sand wedge just over the green and holed it from the fringe, which was, I don't know, behind it about 13 feet.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I putted from the fringe, yeah.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I think it was four paces behind the hole.

JESPER PARNEVIK: No. I never played with these before. Everything is new, actually. The only things that's still there, my woods; and my putter I got last week, actually. Other otherwise, like I said, the irons feel very solid. The only tough thing on some shots is I didn't really know how far they went. We bent them and tweaked them around after the Pro-Am yesterday. So I had to get on, on a few shots. And a few times I came up a bit short and other times long. But most of the day, they went pretty much where I wanted them to go.