THE TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY MERCEDES-BENZ AND MICHELOB

October 24, 1996

Steve Jones

STEVE JONES: I felt fortunate and I also felt unfortunate. I felt both of those ways today, about my round. It could have gone either way. I just missed on 17, to go to 5-under, maybe would have changed things for me. But hit two good shots on 18 and made bogey. Along with a lot of guys, I guess Vijay was the first one to make par in quite a while. So it was playing tough. The wind was a little swirly, it was hard to judge. But I think of all the winds that -- winds that could have blown, this was probably the easiest direction that it could have blown to help so the course wouldn't have played quite so hard. But if it comes out of -- whatever the direction is going into No. 1, it could really play tough.

STEVE JONES: Yeah, it's different for me to be traveling so much. But I won the Skins game in Taiwan and finished second in Japan and had a week off and went to London for the World Matchplay and got shellacked by Vijay. I'm glad I wasn't playing him today, but he still beat me 1-up.

STEVE JONES: I was hitting the same, but I wasn't making any putts. Today I made the putts. After the first hole today I had made more putts than I had made in 27 holes over there in England against Vijay. So I was thrilled after the first hole. I made a 15-footer.

STEVE JONES: Yeah, I do. The Grand Slam, the World Cup, Sun City Million Dollar Challenge and Diners Club. It's a good off-season.

STEVE JONES: Diners Club was the last one.

STEVE JONES: Sure is.

STEVE JONES: Well, I'm going to try it this year doing this much, because you never know how many opportunities you get to play in a lot of these tournaments. So I wanted to play in a lot of them. Obviously I couldn't play in everything. I didn't want to play seven weeks in a row around the world. So unfortunately the way it fell in the schedule, I had to not play in that one, next week. But I look forward to it. I've got a couple of weeks off, and I've got three weeks off after the Diners Club.

STEVE JONES: No, and the reason I don't like to do that is just because that way you're thinking minimum. And I just put the rest -- I just didn't even think about that, and I went to Taiwan and Japan and I played really well. So I think that was the right way to think. It didn't work in London, but it worked the first two weeks. But, yeah, it's a lot of gravy for the guys that get to play in some of these tournaments. If you don't play well, you don't make that much. But if you play well then you can really increase your bottom line, so that's the key is playing good.

STEVE JONES: Oh, yeah, he got a lot of big appearance fees, like Vijay Singh, he gets big appearance fees to go all around the world. But I don't get those things like he does. Oh, hi, Vijay, I didn't see you back there (laughter.) Beat me again today, you dog.

STEVE JONES: 15-footer on one. 20-footer on 2. Bogeyed 3, hit it in the bunker and missed about an 8-footer for par. 5, birdie, about a foot and a half, hit a wedge in there, foot and a half.

STEVE JONES: Third shot?

STEVE JONES: I had 132 out of the rough.

STEVE JONES: Bogeyed 8, par 3. Tough par 3's out here. Missed a short one to the green, chipped it up and missed a ten footer. Birdied 9, made about a 40-footer uphill on 9. I hit a punch wedge. I was 85 yards, that's how far I hit my drive on 9, lands in the back fringe, spins back 50 feet. How is that one? But I made it and parred 10. Birdied 11; made about a 12 footer. Hit a 6-iron, little 6-iron in there.

STEVE JONES: Birdied 16. Hit a 9-iron about 10 feet. I missed -- 17 was a key, because I had about an 8-footer ball to haul there, and I misread it. It would have been good to go to 5. But I bogeyed, so it's kind of like a 2-shot swing, I missed that and bogeyed 18. Probably hit too much club on 18, a 3-iron from 193. Probably should have hit a 4-iron right at the pin, where Vijay hit it. He hit it in the right spot. About the only place you could hold it. I made bogey. Felt like a good bogey, really.