U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 18, 1998

Jesper Parnevik

JESPER PARNEVIK: I am very pleased of course with 1-under par. The course is playing very, very tough. After my first practice round, I almost booked my flight home actually because I thought it was almost too brutal. Like I said, I am very pleased with 1-under. I think they watered the greens a little bit last night because they felt a lot softer this morning than they did yesterday afternoon.

JESPER PARNEVIK: No, because we don't have the sunshine we had the first few days so I think it is going to stay fairly calm and fairly, you know, spongy, wet, typical for this area, I guess.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Oh, not very good.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Usually I am not the straightest driver on Tour and you definitely need to hit the fairways around here. I don't know what you guys use for fertilizer, but the rough is something else. I mean, it is unbelievable how deep it is.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Yeah, whatever it takes to hit the fairway I am using. It is more of a gripped-down weight, almost down on the shaft swing just to keep it in the fairway. Low ones running down the fairway.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Birdie on 1, sand wedge to about 3 inches there, so that was great. The bogey on 6, nothing to say about it. Missed the fairway, usually get penalized for that. Birdie on 9 was -- what did I hit there? 3-wood, 9-iron to about 20 feet, holed that one. Birdie on 10 was, you could say a pretty good birdie. I was going to hit a cut off the tee. It is a dog-leg right. I duck-hooked it. So I was about 40 yards off the fairway in the trees, and I found a gap through some trees, and I hit the hard 5-iron between two trees and up over another one, up just on to the green, and I holed the putt for birdie. So that was pretty nice. The putt was about 60 feet, maybe. 50 feet. Then the bogey on 14, I hit it in the rough again, knocked a 4-wood with a wedge, chipped it to about six feet and missed the putt. In between there, a lot of good up-and-downs.

JESPER PARNEVIK: That the greens were that much softer was a surprise, I think, for everybody. On the first few holes you could almost spin the ball back with a wedge, 9-irons and even with a 5-iron the ball stopped fairly quickly. I think all of us expected the greens to be a lot firmer.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Yeah, I have this shot with my driver, when I grip down on it, that it is more of a bullet-flight. It goes very straight and very slow and it runs a long ways, kind of used to -- safety shot to find something that you can hit in the fairway. And, usually on the range, I just look for a swing that I would feel comfortable with for this week. It might change tomorrow, whatever. But I want something that you can think of something or feel something so you know you are going to draw a shot, and you know you are going to fade a shot, so you don't get any surprises like I did on 10, when you tried to fade something and you duck-hook it.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Yeah, very much because they had changed the pin in the middle of the round and we were not told. So we thought it looked a little bit strange that the pin was 20 on. I was just about to hit, but I told my caddie to run up there and have a look, and it looked like it was on just a few yards long standing on the fairway. I asked the referee. He said: Yes, they changed it from 20 some on to, I think, 8 on. So it was good though that we found out otherwise we would have pretty tough putts coming down the hill.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Yeah, after some players teed of off, yeah.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Could have been it. A lot of players missed it. That is all.

JESPER PARNEVIK: No, everything has been very normal the last few weeks. No overdosing on the volcanic dust or anything like that. I kept it pretty simple.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Yeah, whenever I need to get comfortable with the bunker shots, I eat a lot of volcanic sand, so.....

JESPER PARNEVIK: It was from about 200 some yards, 210, maybe, from the -- it was a fairly big dog-leg right and I tried to hit a fade, and I hooked it way left over the crowd and into the trees. But I had an angle where I could hit the low, high, around some trees and between it was about -- I had about five feet to aim for. I just came up perfect; pitched short of the green and rolled up. Then I holed the putt.

TOM MORAGHAN: Yeah, that is correct. This morning, when we set the holes last night, we had placed today's location back left, which would have been 19 or 20 front 5 left. This morning, checking the hole location, the ball would not stay up on the back left quadrant so that wasn't particularly fair. So, I guess it was about 8:30, 9:00 o'clock this morning before anybody got to 18, we repositioned the hole to its current location; then Tom Meeks radioed back to our office to make sure the hole location sheets were changed and the walking rules officials knew that there -- for those players that had already started that there was a change.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Oh, yeah.

TOM MORAGHAN: Correct.

JESPER PARNEVIK: We did putt to the same hole, all of us, but some of us thought it was 20 on and some thought it was 8 on.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I was very happy the way I scored, 1-under par, I thought it was AN unbelievable score. I did miss a lot of fairways and a lot of greens on the back 9 but I had some great chip shots that I really saved my score today with.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I mean, it is severely tough. I have never seen anything like this. I don't know the root system or something is different. We never seen stuff like this in Sweden anyway. When you hit the divot and you lash at it, the divot is about six feet wide because it takes everything with you. It is very intimidating. You are standing on the fairway knowing that you have to hit the fairway or you will make bogey. That is the toughest part, you just keep focused and stay aggressive and not get intimidated by the high rough.

JESPER PARNEVIK: As long as I can keep it in play and give myself a chance to make par and birdies I would be fine because I putted nicely today. My short game was great, but when you have wedges and 9-irons in for you to save par, that is when it gets tough. If you can at least get it around the green, you have a chance for par. But if you are too many times in the rough, it is going to catch up with you.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Oh, I mean, like I said, after my first practice round I didn't think it was possible to break par around here. At least I found that out that you can break 70. But I still have to play a little bit better, I think, to have a chance to win on Sunday because like I said, sooner or later the rough will catch up with you. But I definitely got away with it today.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Not really. It is the fall collection, early (laughter). No. But, it is the same clothing, same clothing and everything, it is just, you know, fashion changes all the time.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Could be. Could be. Good point.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Well, it will be -- you will be very tired come Sunday if you do win, I am sure, because like I said, it will still be a long way there and mentally it is going to be very tough. But, of course, you know, it is a major and that would be a dream come true. I mean, what has it been now? 20 some years since a European won, nevertheless a Swede, so it would be big news. I would be very happy, of course.

JESPER PARNEVIK: Yeah, all right.