THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT

June 3, 1999

Dennis Paulson

DENNIS PAULSON: Chipped it to about a foot and a half, made birdie there. 6 was pretty basic, fanned on the right side of the green, 2-putted from 50 feet. Par 5 I had a so-so drive, far enough, hit it about 290. I hit a 2-iron from 250, flew in the middle of the green, right in that first cut, that real nasty first cut we had this week, it's brutal. Chipped it up to about 2 feet, made that, maybe 3 feet. Had a real good 8-iron on No. 8 to about 12 or 14 feet maybe, made that. Line down the middle, hit it on the green. Hit a really good putt that hung on the right edge. That was just a really solid. The back nine was just the opposite. It was real loose, didn't drive the ball very well at all. Hit two fairways. Didn't hit many greens. Drove at the right rough on 10. Hit a 9-iron out, laid it up. Got me a really good up-and-down from 50 yards, made about a 7 or 8-footer down the hill, really tough putt. Probably the toughest putt I had all day. 11, I hit it in the right bunker off the tee, had a lay up short of the creek. Hit 230 to the hole and we decided to hit a 2-iron and cut it up against the wind. I ripped it right out, never moved, went right in the front bunker, got that up-and-down for par. That was a good par there. 12 (inaudible) He hit it in the back bunker, I went and did the same thing. I hit an 8-iron trying to keep it down a little bit. I really got lucky, it flew in the back portion of the back bunker. Came back down on the fly, real good bunker shot, up about 5 feet, made that. 13, I got a good break, hit a bad 3-wood off the 3, fanned right. I didn't think it would have been that bad, the rough over there where the gallery's at. I'm sure from 200 yards I could have hit the same shot anyway, hit an 8-iron and knocked it on the front of the green. 2-putted from 45 feet or 50 feet. I hit 4-iron on the 14, made 101 to the hole, hit a double edge, real good shot there, spun it back to 3 and a half, 4 feet and missed it. Hit a good putt there. It was a tough putt to read. One of the ones if you put it on the left it looks like it won't break, I put it inside the hole and it broke real good. 15, drive down the right side. Thinking the wind was out of the right and into us and it just kind of cut a little bit, just in the rough. Then kicked a little left. Only got it in the first cut, that's just dead over there. The reason why we had a bogey on that hole, I wasn't playing golf -- I played it two other times, middle of the fairway, knocked it on the green. I took a ball and dropped it on the practice round to get an idea of the yardage from that fairway, it's a little uphill. He said we got 120 of the 95... I hit a pitching wedge, straight up in the air, over the tree, landed 5-yards short. Took the biggest bounce and released it and went down into the creek. I should have just hit a sand wedge there. It's not like if I don't hit it that far I'm not going to be able to get to the green for crying out loud. So took the drop and had a real tough shot and after that on the rough, up on the back left portion of the green, hit a good 2-putt for bogey. 16, hit it, 6-iron on the green, 25 feet right, 2-putted. 17, good 3-wood and 9-iron right at it. It just landed short. Pretty good putt there, lost it low. 2-putted. 18, I drove it. I'm kind of being somewhat aggressive off that tee there. I don't understand why some of these guys are hitting irons off the tee, 3-wood's easy down the left side. The bunker is not a bad spot. The green is diabolical. The areas around the ball are really, really small. We try to be more aggressive off the tee. I even attempted driver downwind to trip it over the bunkers in the practice round. I had 142 to the hole and hit it about 2 feet, I guess, behind the hole. That was really the only long putt I made all day. Pretty, you know, I putted real well today. Even the putts I missed I hit pretty good putts. Questions?

DENNIS PAULSON: Actually, I'm probably not playing as well as I did last year on the Nike Tour yet. I played pretty solid last year. I'd say if anything I'm playing about the same, except my weekend rounds out here haven't been all that great. I think I've led the TOUR last year or was second on the Nike Tour and third round's on Sunday and I was in the top three or four on Saturday. So I probably led the TOUR weekend rounds. This year I've been very average. I've had some good ones and some bad ones. For the most part, I haven't been too good on the weekends. So I'm not disappointed the way I've played by any means. I made 400,000 this year, kept my cars, there's a lot of positives to take with it. If I played a little sharper and not quite as loose, I'd be doing a lot better.

DENNIS PAULSON: Well, of all the golf courses on the PGA Tour, this golf course probably shows the best on TV of any of them. I was really surprised to see how similar the golf course is to television. It really is, I mean you watch a lot of these -- I got my card in '94. I go all right, we're playing so and so, I go there, all right, this hole's really like that? This course, it's pretty much just the way it is. The only difference I think is 15 looks a lot wider off the tee playing it than it does on TV. On TV it looks like the shadows of the trees go all the way to the other side of the fairway. And it looks really tight. It's really not that tight. For the holes out here it's pretty tight, because the fairways are pretty generous. I really didn't have any expectations at all just because I was looking forward to playing here and I expected to play well here. I played pretty well last week. I love Nicklaus courses. My two best finishes on Tour were courses that Jack did. I play good golf on a Nicklaus course. Back home, where they had the skins game there for a while -- I play about 25 percent of my golf when I'm home there. That's where I go a lot. I like Jack's courses. The driver's important to be long and you have to be fairly straight, but the irons have to be precisely struck, and any well-struck iron will be a good shot. You never are unrewarded or penalized for a good shot where you get some of that stuff a little bit with some of the other designers that we have to deal with. I like Nicklaus's greens because they're flat, pretty easy to read. I don't know why, but I always have a real easy time reading Jack's greens.

DENNIS PAULSON: You're welcome.

DENNIS PAULSON: Thank you.