FEDEX ST. JUDE CLASSIC

July 30, 1998

Paul Azinger

PAUL AZINGER: Well, just real solid tee-to-green. I drove it good and drove it pretty far and took advantage of the par 5s. I might have made a couple that I didn't expect to make and I missed a few I thought I could make. But, it is a good start. I haven't played here in a while. I don't know how completely comfortable I am on the golf course, but I really did swing good at it today and it does the body good. Kind of like milk.

PAUL AZINGER: It was beautiful this morning. It was reasonable temperature and wasn't until, I don't know, about the 18th hole, or our 9th hole today that it started getting really steamy. By the time we got -- I don't know, three or four holes under our belt on the front 9, it was really hot. I live in Florida and I am used to really hot weather, but this is a little different, I don't know why. I don't believe it is 93, the weather man says that is what it was. It feels like 110 to me.

PAUL AZINGER: Four steady pars and then 14, I hit 5-iron probably five feet. 16, I hit driver, 3-wood, 30 -- 40 feet. Made that. Then I bogeyed 1. I hit it in the left-hand rough and in the right-hand bunker, easy bunker shot, but a bad lie and made bogey. I missed a 15-footer, probably. Hit 3-wood, wedge on 2, 15 feet. Hit driver 3-wood on 3, right short of the green, chipped up three feet. Hit driver 3-wood on 5, 40 feet past the hole, 2-putted. And No. 8 the Par 3, I hit 7-iron about twelve feet.

PAUL AZINGER: I am not totally familiar with this golf course here. I wasn't real sure on a couple holes what to hit off the tee. And I am not really -- I don't have it in my head yet exactly what the greens look like, like if the pin is sticking behind a bunker back left or over on the front right, I am not exactly sure yet. I tried to look around today as I was playing.

PAUL AZINGER: I did. I didn't play 13 through 17. 10, 11, 12 in the loop and the front 9.

PAUL AZINGER: Well, it would be hard to shoot 65 unless I was pretty healthy. (laughs). My golf game is getting better too. It just seems like I have been able to shoot some better scores during the year. I have played some, you know, I played good at the Masters. I played really good the last day of the U.S. Open which turned out to be a decent tournament for me. And all and all, it is just getting to be a little bit better. It is not coming easy to me. Everything is hard work at this point. There is times when you go through spells where everything comes easy. I am not there yet, but I could just see signs have been coming out of the whole thing.

PAUL AZINGER: At times it came easy. There was times when the game seemed easy. I think I have heard Fred Couples say that. It was easy for him for a long time and it may be right now for Freddy the way he has been playing. But sometimes you can shoot 3- or 4-under when you don't really hit it that great and then there is times like I have hit it pretty good in spots the last couple of years, and got nothing out of it. Because it just wasn't that easy for me. I don't know why it is starting to turn around. I am just -- everything is getting better. Driving better; hitting my irons better, chipping and putting much better. I think that has probably been the big difference chipping and putting. My putting was lousy for probably the last three years.

PAUL AZINGER: No. Not since I saw you last. I mean, I have got a different set of irons that I flight lower and that has made a difference. I am not struggling to keep the ball down. I am swinging more instinctively like I used to working to get the ball up again. That has helped me. I did - after Hilton Head I hurt my back at Hilton Head and didn't touch a club for several weeks. So I really trained -- worked out hard, the trunk-stabilization program it is recommended for golfers and that helped me. But my confidence has been restored mainly because of my putting. I move the ball further away from me and got -- more of a relaxed position. I can see the line better with the ball out away from me. That has been the big difference. When I took all that time off, and came back out and played Westchester, I still was hitting it decent, but I still was putting very well, and I have been through the ringer with my putter the last two, three years it has been frightening.

PAUL AZINGER: Yeah, I think tee-to-green I have been pretty much -- I would say I have been very steady for the last year. Certainly this year I have been very steady tee-to-green and very consistent and I would say adequate, similar to where I was before, if not as good. The difference has been that I haven't been able to putt. I didn't putt very well at all until April. Just the facts, but that is changing.

PAUL AZINGER: It has been hard. You want to quit sometimes. You just -- you are not going to quit, but you want to. You just wonder: What is it going to take for me to play the kind of golf that I got accustomed to and it may never happen again is what you start thinking. Eventually I guess if you stick with it long enough, things will start to come around. But you can only take so much mediocrity when you are used to something different. It was really hard. It has been hard.

PAUL AZINGER: Well, I wanted to play -- I took all that time off. I wanted to add a couple of tournaments to my schedule. I wanted to play a few in a row and then take a couple of days off to go to the PGA. Also my brother has moved out here now. That has kind of been helpful for me coming here. I have really tried to avoid the heat. It is really a hard week. It is a hard day - July in Memphis is not that easy. I am glad I came back. I am a Bermuda grass guy anyway.