THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 22, 2001

Paul Azinger

PAUL AZINGER: Listen, I had the solid shirt today. I was holding it up today. I had it ironed. I said, "No, this is Tommy Bahama year." And they want me to wear a printed shirt all the time, but I said, "Well, I've got to get out of this." So I'm wearing one every other week, one day. But I've gotten more compliments on this shirt than anything I've ever worn.

PAUL AZINGER: Well, it actually probably got a little easier this afternoon. You know, it was pretty cold this morning. I was up early and driving around by 7:30 this morning, going out for breakfast, and it was 46 degrees, and there was a little chop on the lake, and I'm glad I wasn't out there. But last week, you know, I was on the other side of it Thursday. The morning I guess was 23-under and the afternoon was 107-over. So the guys who played late got a good break. The course is drying out just a little bit, you can tell from the front nine to the back. I'm sure it's starting to dry out. And by the weekend they will have it just about where they want it. The fairways are soft enough that it was a little easier maybe to keep the ball on the fairway, and there was a little mud on the ball, but that will all change. It's going to get harder, I'm sure, as we go.

PAUL AZINGER: Heck, yeah. I played here the year Duval won and the year Lee Janzen won; and, you know, I've had a decent track record on this course. I've had a few opportunities to do well here and win. Those two years, the course was just so hard; I didn't fix a ball mark even in the practice rounds, the greens were so hard. That favored a certain type of player, and that wasn't me. It just didn't fit my style. I think I might have missed the cut both of those years. I'm not sure, though.

PAUL AZINGER: Except for Gary Nicklaus and Jim Furyk and Andrew Magee ... --

PAUL AZINGER: It starting to catch on. I'm not counseling anybody how to use it, to be honest with you. Guys are inquiring about it. Vijay asked me at the Memorial what I was doing and if he could borrow my putter to hit some putts on the putting green, and I said, "Sure, go ahead." I told him how I thought it was helping me, but I'm not promoting it. I'm not looking to promote it. If I had a patent on it, that would be one thing; you can't patent a long shaft. But I don't.

PAUL AZINGER: It improved me. If you look at my statistics last year versus 1999, there was a huge improvement. I haven't putted very well this year at all, until Sunday at Bay Hill. So it's not foolproof by any means, but it helped me. It just helped me. I don't know what else to say. You can talk too much about it, or if you start thinking too much about it, it becomes a problem. So I'm just happy it improved me. I've hit a lot of putts with the short putter a couple weeks ago, just messing around, and clearly I was better with the longer putter. I haven't putted good, like I said, most of the season.

PAUL AZINGER: I don't care. It's not going to get ridiculous, not like those years. In those years when the ball hit the green, you could hear it from 150 yards out. It won't be like that. No, at this point, I don't think it can get anything close to where it was those two years. It will get harder, though.

PAUL AZINGER: Sure.

PAUL AZINGER: I'd be rich. (Laughter.) But we don't think about the money, do we? (Smiles.) It's clearly the strongest field assembled all year, there's no arguing that. It's a nice feather. Very difficult course to win on. Takes moxie. There's a lot of good players, the list of champions that have won this tournament. It's a hard course. You know that. Where would it rank? I don't know.

PAUL AZINGER: Well, you know, I mean, I don't really notice that I get antsy or anything. Maybe the last day I might be a little antsy or uptight. I felt good last week, and I felt good at Pebble Beach. I hit it really quite well from Friday to Sunday at AT&T, and then I hit it great at the Hope and didn't really get much out of it. Hit it great at Bay Hill and didn't get much out of it. I finished 15th there. So I was confident that my ball-striking, I had the chance to hit the ball well here. It was just a matter of if I could hole some putts. I started out holing them. I hit a lot of good putts today that didn't go in. Yeah, I thought I was capable of doing something special here. I don't know that that makes you more relaxed or more nervous.

PAUL AZINGER: I have no idea how many guys are under.

PAUL AZINGER: I would say because a few of the pin placements were tough. They were not easy pins today, and I think that's possibly what protected the course. And I think they were probably aware the scores could get really low if the pins were easy. You know, I didn't miss a green until No. 16, and I had several putts that I had to be really defensive on. You know, I can see where if I had put the ball in the green on 18, I would have been defensive if it was to the right of the hole there, which is where you would end up. So it was the hole location, as they would say on the network TV.

PAUL AZINGER: Not particularly. Last year I felt like -- it's all about Tiger Woods right now. We all know that. We've all been minimized to a degree. Even, you know, Greg Norman has been minimized, as great as his career was and as much as he was the main guy. You hate to mention anybody's name when you are talking about anything like that, but he's probably the best example of fleeting star power. It's all about one guy right now. And some day, somebody will replace him. For me, last year I played pretty well, and I got, you know , I got my share of interviews last year to feed and stroke my little ego, you know. I got to play on the Presidents Cup team and all that. So, you know, you'd better be aware that one day you're the man and the next day you are going to walk by all of those press guys and they are not even going to look at you. (Laughs.) I've lived it for four years, and it's nothing personal, and I totally understand.

PAUL AZINGER: Sure. And Jack was, too. Jack -- and Tom Watson was there for a long, long time as well. Tom Watson held that position for a long time. But, you know, people come in, and there's a changing of the guard, so to speak. We know it was coming eventually. Didn't know it would come at that magnitude. But it's great for us and great for everybody who plays the Tour, as bad as we want to beat him. We recognize what he's done for us.

PAUL AZINGER: I don't think it has any bearing whatsoever. I've won wire-to-wire before, and I've come back before to win. So I'm not a trend man. I don't gamble, but if I did, I don't think I would bet trends too much. Probably why I don't gamble, because I always lost when I did. (Laughs).

PAUL AZINGER: Not yet. Not yet. I mean, maybe when I'm 44 or 45 or something. I like to look at guys like Raymond Floyd or Hale Irwin who were really successful in their late 40s. Tom Watson was successful in his late 40s. A lot of guys that can do it. I'm not thinking about that at all. Everybody knows that he is there, and especially this year, the scores seem to be quite a bit lower.

PAUL AZINGER: For me, personally, no. I was -- I remember in 1982 we had to Monday qualify -- no, it was 1984. My number wasn't getting in; just out of the Tour school, exempt tour (inaudible). I was trying to qualify every week. If I was an alternate, boy, I was hanging around. But every individual is different. Maybe first and second and third alternates live on the other side of the country, too, I don't know. So I would not judge anybody. It's their decision. A surprise, though. Little bit of a surprise. But at the same time, you would think, "Who the heck is going to withdraw from this tournament?" Could go either way.

PAUL AZINGER: I really like Vijay. We like to play together and I'm glad to see him doing well. I know it's really helped him. There's no question about that. You know, we're buds, so that's good.

PAUL AZINGER: 1, I hit a 9-iron 25 feet, a big breaker and made that. 2, I went for the green and missed it to the left and chipped it, I would say, probably ten feet. 3, I hit 6-iron probably about seven or eight feet behind the hole. 8, I hit a 4-iron 30 feet, maybe 35 feet. 9, I hit a sand wedge four feet. 10, I was in the fairway bunker on the left and hit a 9-iron probably 15 feet.

PAUL AZINGER: Well, there's nothing I can do about it you know. What can I do? I can only control me. I didn't talk him into it. I didn't teach him what to do. He crosses hands; I don't. He's on his own. There's nothing I can do. He was just curious and I said, "Sure, go try my putter." And he was out there at the Memorial, putting around. He was going to do it eventually, you know. (Smiles).

PAUL AZINGER: "Oh my God! I might make 18 straight." (Laughter.) I didn't think about anything. That's a nice start, for a change. One of the things that's been getting me a little bit this year is I've played really great on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and then been very frustrated with the starts to all of my tournaments. And I've been maybe pressing a little bit if I wasn't a couple under after five holes. Today I was determined that I was not going to let my start affect how I felt or change the way I did things, and as it turned out, maybe that freed me up a little bit, I don't know. I got off to a nice start. So, I didn't -- you know, see if you can get in the fairway on 4.

PAUL AZINGER: That was a nice start. You know, 2 might be considered an easy hole, but certainly I think 1 is -- would never be considered easy. And 3, where the pin was today would never be considered easy. So that was a nice little bonus.

PAUL AZINGER: Not yet. "Belly-button putter."