NEC WORLD SERIES OF GOLF

August 22, 1996

Paul Goydos

PAUL GOYDOS: Thanks goodness I finished. Looks like the weather got a little bit ugly. Played pretty good. Pretty happy. Birdied the second hole. Par 5, knocked it up by the green in 2. Hit a really good chip shot up about three feet. Very happy. What else did I birdie - 4. Probably hardest, slowly on the course, fourth hole. Drove it in the short rough on the left. Hit really good 3-iron in about two feet; tickled that one in. Bogeyed the 6th hole. Drove it in the fairway, hit -- pulled an iron just little left of the green. Had about a 20-foot chip and hit it exactly about eight feet, so I had a 12-footer for par and miss that. Hit a bad chip. Birdied the 8th hole. Drove it in the right rough, hit 8-iron pretty good and let it short of the green. Actually rolled up and lipped out for eagle. Had about a tap-in birdie there. Bogeyed the 9th hole. Drove it in the bunker right. Hit it short and left of the green with a 3-iron. Hit a good little chip out of the rough up about three and a half feet. Then shanked it. Birdied 10. Hit good drive, 9-iron about ten feet, made that for birdie. Good putt. Birdied 13. Drove it in the left rough, got pretty good height. 5-iron 180 yards. Landed about 20 yards short of the green rolled all the way up about ten feet past the hole. Made that. Skipped along until 17, hit a 3-wood and 7-iron about 20 feet right of the hole. Made that. So, putted pretty good. And the key was, I think every time I drove it in the rough, I caught a pretty good lie, you know, three of my birdies were from the rough, and I don't think many other people are going to do that, so I played well and got some luck, and those are the things you need.

PAUL GOYDOS: None.

PAUL GOYDOS: Nice for me today. It is pretty thick in spots. If you hit it far enough off-line where the gallery has been, it is not too bad. I was fortunate enough, the ball sat up a little bit. I was able to get some club on it but I played with Tim Herron. He drove it in the rough. He is a big, strong kid. He drove it the rough a couple of times where he couldn't move it very far. It is pretty thick.

PAUL GOYDOS: I putted good. The greens are perfect. Good speed to make putts. I was fortunate enough to play in one of the first few groups, where there aren't many spike marks. I don't think with 43 players the last group is going to play with many spike marks either, but every little bit helps, but the greens are perfect.

PAUL GOYDOS: I was probably the last group that finished, maybe. Probably the last group that finished. Maybe ten minutes.

PAUL GOYDOS: It looked like it was getting a little ugly out there. I am not a meteorologist, but it didn't look very good. Obviously it isn't very good.

PAUL GOYDOS: It wasn't very good for about four months since I won. Lately, it's gotten a little better. I played reasonably well at the PGA and made a lot of really dumb mistakes. Played pretty good last week, top 10, obviously, played pretty good today. So it is starting to get a little better. I just kind of fell into a funk there for about four months. Not a big surprise. My career hasn't been something to write a book about yet, but, you know, we are getting better.

PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah, amazing.

PAUL GOYDOS: Not yet. Ask me that question if I am sitting here Saturday. No, just trying to shoot a good score, just trying to do, you know, work on the things that I am working on right now. I am not really thinking scores as much as I have got some things in my golf swing that I am trying to work and stay disciplined and work on those things as opposed to worrying -- one of things that someone told me recently, golf shots can't have consequences, you just got to go in and hit them and whatever happens, happens from that point, I am trying to work on that.

PAUL GOYDOS: I am a little bit more comfortable. I don't know if it is being last week I was in pretty good shape; I hung in there very good. It doesn't bother me that much to be near the top of the leader board as it might have before, or whether that comes from winning, or from just being out here now for four years. I don't know, but, yeah, it is just something, you know, I try to actually not worry about it too much, just know where you are, and again go back to what you are trying to do with your golf game.

PAUL GOYDOS: Last year was a very trying year; I had that problem. But if you play well enough, those things will take care of themselves. If you don't, they won't. I am trying to -- that comes from maturity on this Tour and if you see a veteran struggling to keep his card he is probably not too concerned about keeping his card as much as he is concerned about trying to improve his golf game and trying to slowly get into that mindset as opposed to the other things.

PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah, golf course is pretty straightforward. Key is to hit it straight; don't want to hit in the rough. It is very long. Long courses, in my opinion, tend to favor straight hitters because the rough is thick and if you drive it on the rough on long par fours you can't reach greens. So you look at the champions here. They are probably all good drivers of the ball as opposed to really long drivers of the ball, I would think; I haven't had the list of champions. Longer the golf course the straighter hitter is going to have an advantage, I think.

PAUL GOYDOS: I think I won and I got a little out of what Paul Goydos does best was to kind of just hang around and plug and hit in the fairway and on the greens, and if you have a good week putting you are going to - you got a chance to have a good finish, and I got into the - probably trying to win the golf tournament from the first tee. I am sure you guys have all heard that from first-time winners before. And I got a little - I got away from being Paul Goydos, and then I have a certain way of playing that I think I need to play, and I kind of had a little talk with myself after going over to trying to qualify for the British and playing in the Scottish that we need to get back to, you know, what I do best, and I hadn't done. I didn't do that. I didn't play, you know, the way I need to play to play well. I am trying to do that now.

PAUL GOYDOS: Well, I am a guy, like I said, who, you know, who just kind of plugs and tries to make pars. The tournaments I play well generally are the ones where the scores are a little bit lower as opposed to trying to, you know, I need to be under par, I need to be in the lead, I need to be this, I need to be that as opposed to letting things happen. I was trying to force things to happen as opposed to letting things happen.

PAUL GOYDOS: It is not more of that. More of a patience factor. You need to understand you just got to go out and play and hit the shots that you are capable of hitting and not worry about results. Last thing I think you should be doing is trying to I need to do this or I need to do, that you just need to go out to do your work, play your own game, let the results happen as opposed to force results. I think I was trying to force things a bit much especially after a couple of months after I won.

PAUL GOYDOS: Well, I figured it out myself, but it took four months, so what does that tell you? It is just something I finally realized. It is probably something about last week, last couple of weeks. About 10 to 15 people have asked me if I was playing Vancouver, you know, this week, so that is kind of a reality check, too.

PAUL GOYDOS: Any of the players, friends, whatever.

PAUL GOYDOS: It is just like a starting point. I had fallen to the point where I was laying on the ground and it was just trying to -- just a starting point, kind of starting over like the year was starting over after, you know, basically at the Buick Open in Flint, and go back to doing all the things that I do when I work, and play well, and not necessarily discomfort or intellectual thing. It was just, you know, a realization of the facts. And I need to stay playing the way I play.

PAUL GOYDOS: No. I don't think that it is that heavy of an idea, really. It is just kind of -- I had to sit down. I had took two weeks off after missing the British. And you know, I had two weeks off. This is what I am going to do. I have tried everything else. Let us try this.

PAUL GOYDOS: Yes, I did. I missed the cut there; shot 72, 85. But that was, again, a function of not handling things very well and a function of not sticking to what I do well and a function of 50 mile an hour winds. All put together means 85, baby.

PAUL GOYDOS: Missed by two shots. Missed the playoff by two shots by bogeying a par 5. My second shot was a 4-iron so that was a nice finish also. I am a closer, I guess.

PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah.

PAUL GOYDOS: No, we didn't. We thought about it, but that is a jinx, so I didn't do it.