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BUICK CHAMPIONSHIP

August 26, 2004

Corey Pavin

CROMWELL, CONNECTICUT

TODD BUDNICK: We welcome Corey Pavin after an 8 under, 62, just one shot off the course record, which included one eagle, seven birdies and just one bogey today. Not a bad day.

COREY PAVIN: It was a nice day today. After the fog lifted, it was good. I guess that was a good delay for me.

TODD BUDNICK: It's a course where you've had some success before. Back in the early '90s you had a T2 and a T3. Talk about the changes. Is the course something you feel comfortable with.

COREY PAVIN: I've had good success in the past and for some reason I play okay, I guess. It has a lot of good memories for me, which helps. I come back here, and Eric and I were just talking on the last green before I chipped, I've done a lot of nice stuff on the 18th green, a 35, 40 footer in '91 and I holed a shot out of the bunker. We were just talking, and he said, "why don't you just make this one then," and I did. Stuff like that helps any time you get to a golf course you feel comfortable on, you just feel good that you might shoot a good score or things are going to come together, and today was a day that everything seemed to come together.

TODD BUDNICK: From the standpoint of making cuts, you've made 13 of 17 but just one Top 10. Are you happy with the way the season has progressed for you.

COREY PAVIN: Yes and no. I've done more things good this year than I have for quite a few years, but hopefully there's a lot more good stuff in there besides what I've done so far. I'd like to keep improving, in other words. That's my goal, to just play the best I can, play up to my potential, and I don't know what my potential is right now, but I'm going to do the best I can to figure out what that is and attain it. Today was obviously a really good day, things went really well, made some putts, some chips, holed something from the fairway. There were a lot of things that fell into place and I'd like to keep building on it and keep learning. I've worked with Butch Harmon for about a year now, and those things are starting to feel a little bit better and I'm getting more comfortable on the golf course. My iron game has been a lot better the last month, month and a half, and that's been a big improvement.

Q. When you were out at Shinnecock prior to the Open you were saying you didn't know how much time you had left because you weren't playing well the last seven, eight, nine years. Is this the type of season that could give you a little bit more confidence going where you could center your problems and be able to rectify them?

COREY PAVIN: It always helps to see some improvement in your own game certainly, and I have seen some this year. It does give me more confidence that things are going in the right direction. I've put a lot of hard work in. Even the years where things weren't going well I put a lot of hard work in, but it's nice to see some of the hard work come to fruition a little bit. Like I said, I can just keep at it and keep at it, but it's nice to see some improvement and some good things happening. It's been a better year. I'd like to think there's more in me than what I've done this year.

Q. You said you're working with Butch and your iron play is better, but with the birdies and the eagle your putter has got to be working better, too?

COREY PAVIN: The putter has been good this year. Obviously when you putt well everything else looks a lot better certainly. Specifically the last month or so my iron game has been a lot crisper. I've hit some shots pretty close. I holed one today, but even today I hit a 6 iron about two and a half feet out there, as well. I'm giving myself more chances to make birdies out there, and because I am putting reasonably well or have been, that's showing through, as well. I'm making a lot more birdies.

Q. Is there anything in particular you worked with Butch on?

COREY PAVIN: You name it (laughter). Basically when I first saw him, I saw him just over a year ago for the first time, and I was swinging real upright, club face was wide open at the top, my hands were real close to my head at the top of the swing, so we tried to give myself more room with my irons, my iron swing a little wider, my swing a little wider. That helped square my club face a little bit and I'm trying to get a better path, a little more inside out so to speak. I guess that's it in a nutshell.

Q. Nick was talking yesterday about the way the game has gone now, the bombers and distance and there's a few courses left that are really shot makers' courses, which he believes this is. Do you think that's why you might have fit it into your game here with some good finishes?

COREY PAVIN: Yeah, I think this course you do have to do a lot of things with your shots, off the tee and into the greens. You've got to shape them a little bit. On the other hand, too, is it No. 4, I think, the dog leg right, I hit driver and a little 6 iron in there today. I drove it about 300 yards there. When I'm doing things the way I'm supposed to be doing them, I'm hitting the ball pretty far, so it's there. That part of my game has improved a lot, as well. I just need to repeat that and do that all the time.

But my length off the tee is definitely greater than it has been my whole career, so that's helped, but this golf course does suit my eye. It suits my game. I like the way you have to shape iron shots into these greens or even wood shots, and play smart, too. There's a lot of holes where it's important where you miss these greens to chip it. You can put yourself behind the 8 ball hitting a bad iron shot into these greens, but if you hit a bad iron shot in the right place, it's not a hard up and down obviously.

Q. How much have you gained with Butch, yardage off the tee?

COREY PAVIN: I don't know. I'm not sure. It's hard to tell by the stats because I don't do what he asks me to do all the time. If I did it all the time, it would be quite a big change off the tee. I don't ever remember hitting 300 yard drives very often, so I think when I do it properly, I probably hit it 15, 20 yards further than I did a year ago or so.

Q. Is the change in your technique, new equipment or both, equipment improvement?

COREY PAVIN: I've had access to all that equipment for years, so I think the technique is a lot better. That's 95 percent of it is technique or 90 percent of it is technique. Certainly getting the proper driver with the right shaft and right launch and all that stuff is important, no doubt about it, that helps, but you have to have the technique first to make that stuff work.

TODD BUDNICK: If we can just go through the card. Start out with a great eagle on 2.

COREY PAVIN: I hit 3 wood and I hit a wedge in the hole.

TODD BUDNICK: How far was that one.

COREY PAVIN: I'm not sure exactly. It was somewhere around 125 yards.

Q. They had 121 on ShotLink. Does that sound right?

COREY PAVIN: Then it was 121. I'm trying to remember what Eric gave me there. It was somewhere around there, low 120s.

Q. Did it fly in?

COREY PAVIN: No, it landed about 12, 15 feet right short of the hole and I drew it in there to the left pin. I just saw it bounce up. I couldn't see it go in, but I saw the first bounce kind of jump left towards the hole, and then the people that were up there started to cheer it on and it went in. I think it went in pretty casually, too. I don't think it slammed in there.

No. 4, I hit driver there and a 6 iron about somewhere around two and a half feet.

6, par 5, I hit driver, 3 wood, wedge about 12 feet, made the putt for birdie.

7, I hit driver, 5 iron ten feet. You guys can check ShotLink and see how good I am at my footage.

11, hit 8 iron about 12 feet, made that one.

Bogey on 12, drove it in the right rough and hit it short of the green about 20 yards and chipped it about ten feet from the hole and missed the putt.

Birdie on 13, hit driver, 3 wood. It only ended up about maybe just over 20 feet right of the hole. It was on the fringe, and I putted it up and just missed eagle. Just missed on the high side. I thought it might catch the right edge and go in. I tapped that in for birdie.

Then the next hole, 14, I hit driver and I had 4 iron in there and hit a really good 4 iron in, went up there about, gosh, I guess ten feet, and I made that one for birdie.

Then 18, hit a 3 wood off the tee and kind of popped it up and had to hit 4 iron, hit it just short of the green. Pretty straightforward chip, maybe 45 feet from the hole, and chipped it in with a pitching wedge, a little pitch and run shot.

Q. Fred was just in here telling us that to hit it further he's advocating to swing harder. Is that any of your thoughts or

COREY PAVIN: If your technique is good and you're swinging well and your swing plane is good you can swing harder and harder at it and get more club head speed. Obviously the more club head speed you get with the proper swing, you're going to hit it further, so there is some validity to swing hard and you'll hit it further, but your technique has to be correct.

TODD BUDNICK: Fred was talking about his technique.

COREY PAVIN: Swing hard in case you hit it, right (laughter)?

Q. That's the way we play.

COREY PAVIN: Sometimes we do too. Obviously you have to have the right swing going and everything working together. The only thing you have to figure out when you swing harder is to keep your tempo going, your rhythm good.

Q. As you get older and with all the success you've had, is it easier to make changes or is it more difficult to make changes as you get older?

COREY PAVIN: I don't think I have a choice, whether I have to make changes. I think my old swing, so to speak, 10 or 15 years ago wasn't going to cut it, and I had to make some changes. I've been trying to make changes for quite a while, and it just hasn't been happening as well as I would like it to happen. With Butch it's kind of coming together a little bit.

It is hard to change. I think the older we all get, it's harder to change things. I've played a certain way for a long time, a certain feel in my swing, and I'm used to that feel, and I have to change all that feel and I have to work my way through it. It's not an easy thing to do, but I wouldn't be out here trying to compete and doing the best I can if it wasn't something I really wanted to do and try to achieve, so it's worth the effort as far as I'm concerned.

Q. You mentioned a lot of magic on 18 in years past. Can you go a little bit more in depth as far as what you remember doing on that hole and how that familiarity helps you into making those shots?

COREY PAVIN: Well, I remember making it from the front right bunker on a Saturday one year. I was in the last group, and I'm trying to remember what year it was. It wasn't '91, so it was '92, '93 or '94. I holed it out of the front right bunker, and in '91 I made about a 35 footer on the last hole to get in the playoff, being in the last group. That was a pretty exciting moment. All I remember is the whole heck of a lot of people around the green cheering and going crazy just like I was going crazy on the green.

Those type of things obviously I remember very well, and I used it today to help me on the last hole.

Q. How much of a factor was the crowd today, the galleries? Obviously these people are pulling for you, and as you're coming along putting up this score, did you feel a momentum building with them and with you?

COREY PAVIN: Yeah, I certainly felt there was more people that started showing up. At 8:40 this morning there weren't a whole lot of people and by the end of the day there was certainly more. I can feel the people coming out there and watching and cheering me on and calling my name out a little bit and encouraging me. I love that. There's got to be something wrong with you if you don't like that kind of stuff. It's always nice when people are coming out and cheering for you and hoping you do well.

Q. The last time you led after an opening or second round (inaudible)?

COREY PAVIN: Well, I shot 62. I don't mean to correct you.

Q. That's okay.

COREY PAVIN: I guess maybe I did. I would think that it's going to be harder this afternoon just because of traffic on the greens and stuff, but to me, it's not critical where I end up after today. Certainly it's important where I end up on Sunday, but right now the journey is really important for me and what I go through and how I get to the point where I'm playing to my the best of my ability, and that's what I'm shooting for. If I happen to finish in the Top 10 while I'm doing it, great. If I happen to win, great. If I happen to finish 30th while I'm doing it, great too, but as long as I'm making progress and going the direction I want to go obviously I'd like to make some jumps with my progress, but as long as I'm going in the right direction, that's all I'm after right now.

Q. Courses that require a lot of shot making are becoming fewer in a PGA Tour, there's more power now?

COREY PAVIN: I think we've seen that now with who's doing well out on Tour year in and year out. Guys that hit it long, high and obviously straight are going to do very well. We play some courses that do require some shot making and thinking. I think probably the best example last year was the Canadian Open by Hamilton Golf Club or Country Club. I'm not sure how long the golf course was, 6800 yards, something like that, but the way it was set up, the fairways weren't super tight but there was some rough, the greens were firm and fast, and 8 under won, I think. Obviously I'd like to see more of that.

But I think what's the best thing for the Tour is to have a good mix, to have shot making courses, long courses. I think it's good to test all the players on a variety of different golf courses in different ways. I think we could use a few more shot making courses right now. I think the balance is more towards courses that are big and long, that type of deal, but everything goes in cycles. Hopefully that cycle will turn around while I'm still on Tour.

Q. Is thinking on a course becoming less and less of a preview because of the 460 par 4s?

COREY PAVIN: Definitely, I think so. There's a lot of holes we play that don't give you a choice. You have to hit driver, hit it as far as you can. This course gives you different options. You can hit different clubs off the tee here and there, 3 woods, irons, or you can hit driver. 15 is an unbelievable hole. I think it's one of the best holes we play on Tour. You can hit anything you want off that tee. You can hit a 6 iron and a wedge, 3 wood short of the green, try to drive the green. The pin placement today was very tough. It's probably the best pin placement on that green. But it's a great hole. It's fun to watch, fans love to watch it and see what we do on it. It makes us think, what are we going to do, where are we going to put it and what's our strategy on that hole.

There's other holes on the course that you just get up and hit driver, and that's good, too, but it's good to have a mix within the golf course, as well.

Q. The difference between shot makers and bashers' courses, in that vein, do you think courses like Marion are obsolete now?

COREY PAVIN: I think Marion is probably a little short. I'm not sure what it measures out. I remember playing there in '81. Gosh, I want to say it might have been 6600 or something. That's pretty short now.

I think the biggest problem at Marion is there's not enough room for people to come out and maybe some corporate stuff, as well. I think you can certainly set up that golf course so nobody can break par. That's easy enough to do. But I'm not sure if the course has enough room to house a tournament. But it's still a fantastic golf course, just like Cypress Point is a wonderful golf course. You can always set up a golf course to play very hard. It's not that difficult a thing to do. You just grow rough and firm up the greens and make them real fast. It's very simple.

I'd like to see more of that on Tour, but I don't want to see the balance go more towards that than towards the other course. It should just be a nice balance.

TODD BUDNICK: Thank you, Corey.

End of FastScripts.

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