GREATER GREENSBORO CHRYSLER CLASSIC

April 26, 2002

Carl Paulson

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: I would like to welcome Carl Paulson to the media center. Good round today round of 70 and 68 yesterday for a 138 total. If you could talk a little bit about your round today as well as yesterday. You played in tougher conditions in the afternoon, shooting a 68. 13 players yesterday shot 68 or better, but you were the only one in the afternoon to do that. If you could, maybe talk about the last two days.

CARL PAULSON: Well, you hit the nail right on the head. Yesterday was tough. I got off to a good start. Made an eagle on 2 and a birdie on 4 and from there it was pretty much just hanging on. I made another birdie on 15. But the course was playing extremely difficult yesterday and it's not all that much easier today. The pin placements are brutal. The greens are starting to firm up. They're not going to -- the guys going out this afternoon aren't going to play in the wind that we played in, but it's firming up out there.

Q. That wind yesterday afternoon seemed to make everybody shots come up short, was it difficult?

CARL PAULSON: Yesterday, the wind did a lot of flip-flopping. Normally you'll get a wind that will switch 30 degrees, but yesterday it was switching 80 degrees and 90 degrees. It was very difficult to pick a club yesterday. Absolutely.

Q. What were you doing, Carl, that made the difference, because obviously the other guys weren't able to score as well?

CARL PAULSON: I made a bunch of pars. Par is a good number when the wind is blowing like that. That's really what I had my mind set on, and take the birdies when they come. Get aggressive only with a perfect number, or a perfect club or a shot that fits your eye, but other than that, it was just trying to get on the greens. These greens have gotten a lot smaller over the last three or four years. Yesterday was really hard to hit the green.

Q. Is that a tough mind set to get in, to think par is good?

CARL PAULSON: Not under those conditions that we were in yesterday. I knew it was -- the thing that's tough is seeing all those good scores up on the leader board, and you're thinking to yourself how the hell did everybody get some many under par, it's playing so difficult. The way I played yesterday was totally dictated by the conditions we played in.

Q. (Inaudible)?

CARL PAULSON: I made about a 12-footer on 16 for par. I had a perfect yardage, perfect wedge, and just miss hit it and came up on the front of the green and left it about 12 or 15 feet short and made it for par. I made a couple of other 5- or 6-footers too, but that was -- I got up and down a bunch, obviously. I think I only hit 10 or 11 greens yesterday.

Q. Do you feel you're playing your best golf right now?

CARL PAULSON: I'm starting to play better. By no means do I think I'm playing as good as I can. I'm scoring well and keeping the ball in front of me and doing a lot of good things. My wedge game has been absolutely brutal this week. I had a couple of sand wedges where I had 50 feet for birdie after I hit them. I'm going to work on that this afternoon and try to fix that.

Q. Why do you feel you're playing better?

CARL PAULSON: I had a lot of stuff to deal with early in the year. Everybody in my family is healthy now and I finally am starting to play and practice a little bit. It's nice to be able to go out for a week and practice hard and know that I'm going to play the next week. This is the first time I'll play more than two tournaments in a row all year. Next week will be the third in a row, and that's the first time all year. I'm happy about getting to play a long stretch of tournaments and just grinding it out.

Q. Maybe some others have heard, but just to recount, can you go over the health problems you've had and your father has had earlier in the year and how you've dealt with those?

CARL PAULSON: In January I got viral meningitis and was in the hospital for three days and it took me about three weeks to get all my strength back after that. It just took a long time, and then came back out and played a couple of tournaments. My dad needed triple bypass surgery so I went home to be with him. So it was a rough start to the year. My dad is doing awesome. That's how you deal with it.

Q. The tough conditions out here, the great performance at THE PLAYERS. That's traditionally one of the tougher courses you all play. Does that help you psychologically, when you know you've dealt with it before and you know you can do it again?

CARL PAULSON: I used to play tough on tough courses all the time. I mean, I used to play very well on tough courses all the time. Over the last three or four years, I seemed to kind of split it up. I'll play really well on some tough courses and really well on some easier courses. I think if the course and the conditions are really tough, it narrows the field down a little bit. I mean, there's 150 guys out here that can win at any time, but you get in conditions like this and you really have to play well to win. You've got to do a lot of other stuff like chipping out of this rough. Sometimes it's hard to swallow that ego and pull the wedge out and chip out.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: If we could go over your score card. You started on the back side and birdied No. 11.

CARL PAULSON: I birdied No. 11. I hit a 3 wood and sand wedge about 15 feet.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: And bogeyed 13.

CARL PAULSON: I hit a 2-iron in the right rough and I hit a 7-iron in the right rough, and then I hit an 8-iron short of the green and chipped it about 6 feet and miss it had.

Q. And then birdied 15?

CARL PAULSON: I hit driver in the left rough, laid up with a 7-iron and hit a sand wedge about 12 feet. Those are my two best sand wedges, by the way.

Q. And then birdies on 2 and 3 on the front side?

CARL PAULSON: 2, I hit a driver and a 3-iron just short of the green and chipped up to about four feet. On 3, I hit a 4-iron off the tee and a 6-iron onto the green and made about a 30-footer.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: And then finally, a bogey on number 5.

CARL PAULSON: On 5, I pulled my 3 wood into the left rough and had a miserable lie, so I wedged it out to the hundred marker and wedged it on and two putted.

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