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CHARLES SCHWAB CUP CHAMPIONSHIP

October 22, 2004

Tom Kite

SONOMA, CALIFORNIA

THE MODERATOR: Tom, 134, 10-under, another good day.

TOM KITE: Yeah, it was not as easy a day as it was yesterday. I did not drive the ball well at all.

Today it was a totally different story. I started out by driving the ball in the rough on the first hole, put my second shot in the bunker and had to work hard for par there and didn't make a birdie on the front nine. One bogey on the 4th hole, and I hit a 4-iron in the right bunker and made a great bunker shot out, about 15 feet, just missed that putt.

Then I just kind of struggled all the rest of that nine, and finally I got it going on 10, and even that was fairly fortunate. I drove it in the left rough and hit an iron shot on the green from a fairly decent lie, but I had about a 40-foot putt and made a 40-footer up and over a hill. That kind of got me going.

I did bogey No. 12, drove it in the right rough there, missed the green left and had a tough little pitch and failed to get it up-and-down, made bogey.

Just a short birdie putt on the par 5 that I felt like I should have made, but then on the par 3, the very next hole, I hit a beautiful little 3-iron right at the hole, just one of the few good shots that I hit all day, rolls over the back of the green and into the high rough over the back of the green, and I chip it in. I said, "Wow, this is pretty neat stuff." It was probably 20 feet, 25 feet.

Q. They had 28 on it.

TOM KITE: About 28 feet, yeah. Nice little chip shot there.

16, yeah, I hit it left -- good drive, finally hit a drive in the fairway, second shot just short of the green in the left rough and had a very difficult little pitch with very little green to shoot at, made a nice little flop shot about four or five feet, made that putt for birdie.

Good two-putt on 17 after a mis-club and then on 18 I drove it in the right bunker, played a 9-iron out from 142 yards and had about an 18-footer -- what did ShotLink say? 18 to 20 feet I would guess, and I made that putt to finish up the day on a nice note.

I have a little session ahead of me on the practice tee as soon as I'm finished with you guys. I'm going to try to find a driver swing to use on Sunday, and believe me, I am very pleased with this round in a lot of ways. This was very, very satisfying for me.

Q. An amateur plays a good round, goes out the next day, doesn't understand where the game went. With all the thousands of rounds you've played, amateur and pro, do you ever go out and say what happened to yesterday's game?

TOM KITE: Sure, no question about it. I mean, that's the game of golf. I just was a little off. This morning when I was warming up, I couldn't quite get the feel. I wasn't hitting the ball nearly as solidly as I had been. Even last night, I hit some balls after the round yesterday, and I was just in a groove and kind of stacking them one on top of another, and today nothing was right on. It was just a struggle.

Some days are like that. That's what makes this game so wonderful.

The thing that you have to do if you're trying to win a golf tournament is you have to battle through those days that you're not playing well. You have to hang in there and shoot a good score, and somehow shooting 70 today after playing so poorly from tee to green, you know, that's hanging in there. That's a good round.

Yesterday I got really what I deserved, 64, made some long putts, hit it close a couple of times. Today I probably turned a 75 into a 70.

Q. From the time you were a kid in Texas, you've always been a guy who was a so-called grinder. You've worked very hard and you play the maximum. Did you have to learn to do that?

TOM KITE: You always score better than you play. No matter how you play, score better than you play. If you play great, shoot a really low score. If you play bad, shoot a really low score, but always score better than you play. That's what I did for most of my career. My last couple years on the PGA TOUR and a lot out here on the Champions Tour I was struggling with my putter, and I am putting wonderful right now. I am so confident and feel so good over my putter that I'm able to do that. I am able to score better than I play. If I can keep doing that and play a little better, then I'm going to be able to play.

Q. (Inaudible).

TOM KITE: The wind was a little different direction. I don't know, I haven't looked at the scores. I didn't really pay any attention to it. I was so busy trying to get out of the rough and out of trees, I didn't have time to look at the scoreboard today.

When you're on the fairway and on the green it seems like there's -- especially yesterday I was hitting it so close to the hole, there was a lot of time while I was waiting on my playing partner, so there was time to look at the scoreboard. I said I think I probably looked at one scoreboard today because I didn't have time. I was always my shot and I was always out, and it was never from a good place, so I have no idea what the scores were like, but I would think with the wind condition the way it was today, the two par 5s on the back side playing into the wind as opposed to downwind, I would think that those scores were probably a little bit higher today than yesterday. I could be wrong.

Q. Do you score better than you play when you make putts or does it mean a lot --

TOM KITE: It means a lot.

Q. Do you set your mind --

TOM KITE: Every shot you've got to do what you need to do to do it. No, it's not just make putts.

Q. Morris Hatalsky is a guy who played the Tour, and you'd see his name, never won any majors, won a couple of tournaments. Had you ever played with him and did you know much about him at all?

TOM KITE: I played with him some, sure.

Q. Do you expect he ought to be playing better than he is?

TOM KITE: I don't put expectations on people. That's y'all's jobs. Y'all have the right to sit there and say this guy would be doing better or this guy is an overachiever or an underachiever. To me you just play and total it up and the guy who shoots the low score wins most of the time. I never get into evaluating of who's an over and underachiever because I think those are very often -- all that you can see is the physical, and that's so little a part of this game.

THE MODERATOR: Just as a note, Tom has only had one round over par in his last 27 rounds on the Champions Tour.

End of FastScripts.

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