VALERO TEXAS OPEN

September 23, 2003

Hank Kuehne

Q. You must be pretty pleased with your play this year so far. You've been firing it well.

HANK KUEHNE: It's been good. This year has been a lot of fun. My goal was to have my Tour card in a year, regardless of how it happened. Things kind of came together and it's been good. I've had a healthy year for the first time. Everything is kind of, my golf game is continuing to get better, and things are headed in the right direction.

HANK KUEHNE: Everything is good. Everything is fun. I haven't played quite as consistently as I would have liked this year, but I've played pretty good.

HANK KUEHNE: Just trying to improve all the facets of my game, try to become more of a complete player. I'm driving the ball better now than I have in the past, just try to work on my short game and keep improving, getting to play golf courses. I think one of the hardest parts about being a rookie or first getting your Tour card is coming to golf courses for the first time. It's very hard to play against guys who have played a golf course 60 competitive rounds on a golf course, 50 competitive rounds. They've played almost 100 rounds on a golf course total. If you tee it up on Thursday and if you're not playing in the Wednesday Pro-Am and don't get there Monday, you only get to play it one time. I'm trying to figure out what courses to play next year to set a schedule to figure out where I'm going to give myself the best chance.

HANK KUEHNE: I've played golf courses that don't suit my game and others that do suit my game. I've played well on some that don't suit my game and I haven't played well on some that have suited my game. It will make a difference when I set my schedule for next year.

HANK KUEHNE: I had a difficult time with Westchester. I had a very hard time picking out lines and figuring out kind of what club I needed to hit on certain holes. I really struggled there.

HANK KUEHNE: Basically, yes. There's a lot of shots where I can't see where the ball lands. And when I can't see where the ball lands, I don't know if I go ahead and hit it or if I just hit soft one out there, or whatever, I don't know where it's pitching or where's it has got to hit to finish. If I can't see the fairway, the first couple of times you play, it's very difficult to kind of get around there.

HANK KUEHNE: No. It was kind of -- I ended up missing it by a shot. It was a strange week. I had an outing I had to do on Monday, and I was going to be gone Tuesday, so I wasn't going to play Tuesday. So I actually flew up there Saturday -- or I flew up there Sunday morning. I was going to play Sunday afternoon. The golf course was closed because of rain. I went and did my outing and I came back, it was a Pro-Am. We ended up playing nine holes in the Wednesday Pro-Am. I had never seen the other half of the golf course. So now I'm out in the competition trying to figure out what to hit. My caddie had been around it several times and had a good idea, but I'm still very much based on feel. So for me, I had -- I didn't have anything to go on, so it was either -- there are weeks if you can see where you're going, you'll play great, or if you can't see where you're going you don't know what's going on so you kind of guide it around the golf course.

HANK KUEHNE: Don't play in an event unless you're prepared. That's been a different thing for me this year. I've played like 18 of 21 weeks, I think, at one stretch. I wasn't getting into events until like the Saturday or Sunday before, so I just went ahead and played. The biggest mistake I made all year long was going into -- I decided to play the Buick the week before the International because I wasn't in the I international. I was taking the week off before the PGA. I got into the Buick, which was my third week in a row, and I end up playing in that for my fourth week and the PGA for my fifth week, and I was shot. I played so much golf. I was pretty much just fried for the first time since I've had my surgeries and been back playing. You're out here, you're playing at such a high level against the best players in the world and it takes a lot out of you. I played great the first round. 70 was the worst score I could have shot the first day, and the second day everything that could go wrong went wrong and I was just fried. I went home. And then I actually played another week, and I finally, after Boston, I said I'm going home and went home for two weeks and took a break. I tried to get charged up again.

HANK KUEHNE: I think my technique has gotten a lot better. I've worked hard on my golf swing and worked hard on getting the club head speed to match my body speed and been working with Kevin Snells for almost two years now and we've made a lot of progress. That's been the biggest thing for me. I always hit it far and I've always hit 85 percent of my drivers in play. The problem before is those few, if I hit driver 12 times and I hit nine of them good, the other 3 I might be hitting another one off the tee. Out here you can't -- you make pars out here, you get flown by. If you make bogies, you get flown by. If you make doubles, you might as well shoot yourself in the foot. One or two shots out here make a huge difference.

HANK KUEHNE: Yes, I hit a lot more fairways. I don't know -- I look at my stats. Everybody is giving me grief for my stats. 59 percent of your fairways, or whatever it is. To be honest with you, a lot of holes, I'm not necessarily trying to hit the fairway. If I'm hitting at a green and if you have a 340-yard par 4 or 350-yard par 4, if you play five tournaments that's 20 holes. I might knock it on the green five times and another 15 times I'm either on the fringe or in the rough around the green or in a green-side bunker. Your fairway stats get kind of skewed. I feel like I hit the ball where I'm looking, whether or not it's in the fairway. A lot of golf courses it's kind of irrelevant.

HANK KUEHNE: Definitely. It doesn't bother me in the least. I actually volunteered to have all of my stuff tested when I found out we were going to have this stuff done at the Western, because originally that was supposed to be the first week of the testing. I told Sid Wilson, the guys doing it, hey, test anything you want on mine. I've gone through and TaylorMade, my manufacturing company has done -- every club that I get and every club they put into a player's hands out here has been tested and every one of them passed the test.

HANK KUEHNE: You don't really know. If they come out and bring you ten drivers, you find one you hit good, you take it on the golf course and it hits good and everything goes well. You don't really know what it is. I sat in the trailer and they have the machine there, and I've tested every one of my drivers. When they build me a new driver, all the heads have been tested. To be honest with you, I don't think it's worth -- if a company was putting out hot drivers, it would kill them. I have more faith in the companies and more faith in the integrity of the players and everybody else. There is no way on earth -- is there a hot driver in play somewhere? You know, I would be ignorant to say no. Obviously if you're producing 10,000 drivers, maybe one of them, the face, maybe a very small percentage something might happen that you get a hot one. But that's why they do all the testing they do and they put the heads into the vans and take care of it for you. I don't think there's any way on earth that any player out here would knowingly play hot equipment.

HANK KUEHNE: I hit it 415 off the first tee at the Western this year.

HANK KUEHNE: 415, yes, sir.

HANK KUEHNE: It was like 450 and I hit it right in front of the green.

HANK KUEHNE: I would definitely be one of the first guys they would test. But the way that I am, I would never ever, even though they know the testing, we don't get tested until January, so it doesn't matter what you have. I would never knowingly put anything into play that was borderline. It's not worth it, to be honest with you. And even so, from my understanding, from the engineers and everyone that I've talked to, the COR or whatever it is, you're talking about feet. You're talking about feet, you're not talking 20 or 30 yards. You're not talking about a very significant thing. I think the biggest key to why guys are hitting further is that shaft technology has come a long way, driver technology has come a long way, the sweet spots are bigger, equipment is more consistent, golf balls are better. I think now there are so many options. I can stand on the driving range, and I can choose from one of 150 shafts, so they're going to go through there and find something -- they can set your driver up to optimize your power, to maximize everything that comes out, every combination that you can put together. You can play a ball that spins less, it goes farther, you can play one that spins more that flies further when it's soft. There are so many things you can do now. You have so many options. The technology has come to the point where it's just more efficient, basically, and I think guys are working out there. Guys are stronger. They have more speed.

HANK KUEHNE: It's died down a bunch. You heard a lot about it around the time of the Western. You were hearing a lot of things. And I guess Tiger had said he knows there's someone playing hot equipment. My whole feeling with that, obviously if he knew there was somebody playing hot equipment, one, I feel like he probably, knowing Tiger the way that I do, I think it got blown out of proportion. If he knew somebody's driver was hot, he would have gone to talk to him about it. They would have rectified the situation. And if there is this person, whoever it is, why would he not say who it is. That's my whole issue with the thing. I don't feel like it is a problem. As soon as it started to become an issue, I made sure, I called the guys at TaylorMade and I said, I don't know what machines or if you're going to have anything else, but I said I want everything tested. They didn't have anything on-site. I stuck my stuff in a Fed Ex box, sent it to the factory, they took it apart, did the things they needed to do to it, put it back together, everything was fine, and sent it back to me. They said we've tested them and everything else. I said I want to know what the numbers are. I want to know what it is. So they sent them off and took them apart, did everything they needed to do to them, sent them back to me and everything was fine.

HANK KUEHNE: I think the biggest difference is golf courses. I think golf courses play a lot different. The Nationwide Tour events that I played didn't have quite as much rough, the greens aren't quite as fast. I don't think the setup is as near as hard as it is out here. I haven't played out there this year, but I know in the past a lot of the events that I played on the Nationwide Tour, I wasn't really kind of ready to play. I was just trying to sort of use those events to get prepared to play Tour events. I think the play on the Nationwide Tour is extremely good. If you look at the numbers they shoot, they're ridiculous. 24, 25 under par. 20 under par wins every week. Obviously I think the level of play is very high out there. I don't think the level of play -- obviously there are a few players that I would say -- top players are as good as the players out here. I think if the guys -- if you played PGA Tour events and Nationwide side by side, I think the scoring would be better than it is. It's a great Tour. I think it does a great job, but I don't think the golf courses are quite as difficult. I think it's a lot harder to make cuts out there, because cut is 60 instead of 70. Some of the cuts out there are 6 under par. It doesn't happen all that often out here.

HANK KUEHNE: I feel the biggest difference between here and there, there you don't have to be a great driver of the golf ball to play out there. I don't care if you play the Canadian Tour, Golden Bear Tour, any mini tour you play -- I'm not saying the Nationwide Tour is a mini tour, but any mini tour that you play, everybody can putt. I don't care what tour you play on, all the guys can chip-and-putt. Out here, I think the thing that separates a lot of -- you've got the best players, great drivers of the golf ball and they have fantastic short games. There's nobody in the Top-10 that I can really think of that is not a great putter or doesn't have a great short game and doesn't drive it great. I think the key -- I think that's definitely the key to playing. If you come out here and you're a great driver of the golf ball and have a great short game, you can make a bunch of money.

HANK KUEHNE: There's been a couple. Obviously I played terrible at Pebble Beach. Right there on the ocean when you play 7, 8, 9 and 10, those are absolutely beautiful. As far as some of the shots that stick out, for me it's Houston, where I'm in a position to play to win a golf tournament and basically if I finish Top-5, I make enough to get my card, and obviously the shots on the last four holes there pretty much stick out in my mind, especially the iron shots I hit on 16, 17.

HANK KUEHNE: Definitely. Those are the ones that get your attention. Those are the ones that you fall back on. Things like that, seeing -- watching some of the shots that Vijay did. Vijay had a fantastic year. Other shots that stick out. The putt Mike Weir made -- the putt Len Mattiace made on the 72nd hole at the Masters, and the putt that Mike Weir made to force a playoff. There's a lot of shots throughout the year that are going to stick out in your mind. The putt that Ben Curtis made on the 72nd hole. One of the best shots ever made in a major championship on the 18 hole, Shawn Micheel in the PGA. It seems every week, every time you play, there are shots that stick out. But those are the shots that you look back at. Players in that situation, and you see someone rise to the occasion, those are attention grabbers, they get your attention. You gain a lot more respect for those people, you see what they're made off.

HANK KUEHNE: My misses are better. The statistics can say what they want to say. There are two statistics that count on the Tour, stroke average and money. They can tell you what they want to about anything else. They can say, well, I'm first in this or I'm first in this. There are two statistics that matter, stroke average and money. That's really it. All the other ones are kind of -- I really feel are insignificant. Because the fact is, your stroke average cannot be skewed. Your stroke average is what it is. That's every round that you played. Money is where you finished.

HANK KUEHNE: Everybody has strengths and weaknesses through the game. That's really all it comes down to.

HANK KUEHNE: Basically, that's takes care of itself. It all coincides. You can have guys that are first in total driving or first in fairway saves, first in this, first in that, it doesn't translate to Top-10 on the money list or whatever else.

HANK KUEHNE: Definitely.

HANK KUEHNE: The statistic that I'm most proud of that I have, I lead the Tour in Sunday stroke average. To me, that's saying something. That says something about me, that says something about my game and the way that I play, because there are a lot of great players out here, a lot of great players on the weekend, and I feel my stroke average is 30 something. I don't know what my total stroke average is, but my stroke average, the rate gets better every day. It goes from here to here to here and to first on Sunday. I think the more that I play and the more comfortable that I get, the more I continue to improve. Hopefully I'll be able to basically move everything towards that.

HANK KUEHNE: The day you make the money.