BUICK OPEN

August 10, 2001

Ian Leggatt

IAN LEGGATT: I had a lot of chances for birdie again today. Finishing off with a bogey doesn't really spoil anything that happened good out there.

IAN LEGGATT: I played pretty good; didn't drive the ball today as I did yesterday. I don't think I missed too many greens. Probably hit fourteen or fifteen greens today again and putting well. David Frost gave me a putting tip at John Deere and finished fifth that week so I hope he is not thinking he is getting any of my earnings. He helped me out a lot, it's really got me good with my speed hitting the ball solid on the greens.

IAN LEGGATT: He just noticed my left shoulder was riding a little high. I was kind of coming up on it. He tried to get me to level my shoulders off and tried to sort of hit down into the ball a little bit more. It's really helped me with my speed lot.

IAN LEGGATT: I had laser eye surgery done last year right before the buy.com Tour Championship. Then right at Christmastime my eye started to go bad. And lost some of the peripheral vision in my left eye and I was trying to play the beginning of the year with contact lenses over the top of the eye surgery and was having all kinds of problems seeing. T so I went back and got it fixed and I have only missed, I think, two cuts since I have had my eyes fixed, so...

IAN LEGGATT: In April, sometime.

IAN LEGGATT: Yeah, they re-lasered it in the left eye. They cut a flap on there so that the flap was a little bit more level so that it would heal up better. And I haven't had any trouble since so it's worked out.

? IAN LEGGATT: I had both of them fixed at the same time back in April.

IAN LEGGATT: When was THE TOUR Championship -- November -- in October.

IAN LEGGATT: Yeah.

IAN LEGGATT: That's how I got out here. Fifth on the BUY.COM Tour last year.

IAN LEGGATT: I grew up in Toronto so a lot of the courses are a lot like this, so getting away from the West Coast even though I was having a lot of trouble with my eyes I have never been good on poa annua greens so getting away from poa annua and Bermuda and getting back to bent I definitely feel a lot more comfortable. And this course it's a great course. It sets up good for me. I think definitely favors somebody that hits it far. It makes the par 5s a little bit more reachable. So, you know, if I am driving it any good I hope I can get to most of the par 5s.

IAN LEGGATT: Longer than average, I would think so. Yesterday I had iron into every par 5. Today with the wind switching, the two -- 7 and 16 weren't really that reachable today. I had iron into all the other ones though.

IAN LEGGATT: I wasn't even sure whether it was my eyes or not. I was having a lot of trouble seeing with just blurriness and so I was -- it led into a lot of bad problems I was having with my golf swing as well. And so getting it fixed and then literally you know, within days after having my eyes fixed everything started to come back where I could seed undulations again and that sort of thing. And all of a sudden my swing started to feel more comfortable and everything started to come back together again pretty rapidly.

IAN LEGGATT: I was like in the third last group, I think, on Sunday. I was, I think in the Top-10 pretty much the whole week. Pretty close to it any way. I shot 66 the last round to finish fifth. But everybody was shooting pretty low.

IAN LEGGATT: It did. I think the way I finished the last round at John Deere was a big confidence booster. I finished 4 under the last 5 and you know, just you know, playing a couple of tough holes coming in really got me going in the right direction where I sort of left off last year.

IAN LEGGATT: Yeah, I was having all kinds of trouble at the beginning especially I would be out there 100 yards I would hit a shot and I would, you know, I'd think I hit a pretty good shot, fly it over the green or land it 30 feet short, this sort of thing. I had a lot of trouble with undulations. I could feel it, but I couldn't see it. Any time the ball was above my feet I was hitting it fat, below my feet I was hitting it thin, these type of things, and normally I have been a pretty decent bunker player and my bunker game was just awful. So it was amazing how quickly after I got my eyes fixed how everything really started to come back again. Little disappointing that pretty much because of the problem I missed about the first three months of the year, but you know, I am not too worried bit. I am just happy to be playing well again.

IAN LEGGATT: Same doctor, and he is a very good doctor -- actually the guy that does all the Tour players, actually Dr. Herzig (phonetic) taught Dr. Whitton (phonetic) how to do laser eye surgery so he is a pretty good eye doctor. I didn't go for the do one get one free. (Laughs).