THE HONDA CLASSIC

March 12, 1999

Doug Dunakey

DOUG DUNAKEY: Tell me where my birdies were?

DOUG DUNAKEY: Par 4, I hit a little 50-yard sand wedge, ended up there about a foot and a half.

DOUG DUNAKEY: On 14, I hit a little sand wedge in there again to about eight feet, made the putt there.

DOUG DUNAKEY: Hit 8-iron to about six feet, made the putt. 18 was an 8-iron, about 20 feet, made the putt.

DOUG DUNAKEY: 1 was a sand wedge to about 12 feet, made the putt.

DOUG DUNAKEY: 7, sand wedge to about 12 feet, made the putt. And 9 was sand wedge to about 15 feet, made the putt.

DOUG DUNAKEY: I'm making everything.

DOUG DUNAKEY: It was a little shorter today, I think with the no wind and the fairways firming up a little bit on a couple of the holes, it didn't seem like we hit a lot more sand wedges today than we did yesterday in the afternoon.

DOUG DUNAKEY: Four or five of them, mostly tee shots on the par 5s.

DOUG DUNAKEY: Geez, I would say all three of the tee shots on the par 5s, which would have been 4, 14 and 16, didn't drive it well. It was probably -- in the long run it was probably better because it made myself lay up into, you know, wedge position where I had a chance to make birdies.

DOUG DUNAKEY: I had a 1-under.

DOUG DUNAKEY: No. No.

DOUG DUNAKEY: Started out kind of slow. I was kind of in the slump from the end of last year and then that compounded with, you know, starting a new Tour, not sure if I belonged in this stuff, I started out a little slow, but my game started coming around in San Diego. I missed the cut there, but I played pretty well and then, you know, I'm kind of starting to fall into my own, you know, routine and stuff, so I'm starting to feel comfortable, which is, I guess, helping my game out.

DOUG DUNAKEY: Yes, because as far as I knew I don't think Tiger and Norman were playing any Nike, so it's just one of those things you got a new group of guys, until you kind of establish yourself, until you can see your name on the leaderboard up there with O'Meara, Couples, people like that, it's just kind of a little intimidating.

DOUG DUNAKEY: A little bit of both.

DOUG DUNAKEY: Gee, I don't know, to me -- I have been asked that question a couple of times how much different it is coming from the Nike, but really I guess the perk would be the money. It's nice to make cuts and make 10, 20, 30 or $100,000.

DOUG DUNAKEY: I haven't used any of the phones yet and courtesy cars, down where I'm at I don't get too many of them. They're nice perks to have, the better you play you look forward to that stuff. But on the other hand I don't want to take anything for granted either. It took me a long time to get here, so...

DOUG DUNAKEY: I have been a professional twelve years, so I went through the school I think 10 times before I got to the finals.

DOUG DUNAKEY: Probably only once, and, in fact, it was this year or the year before I got my Nike card I told my wife that I'd give it one more shot. In the back of my mind I felt like I was good enough, but I seemed to be having or I was having trouble with THE TOUR school and managed to squeak through there, but I probably never would have got that far if it would have been, you know, not for my wife and parents kind of pushing me on. Otherwise I probably would have given up a little earlier.

DOUG DUNAKEY: I guess it was more of the fact, you know, when you go through your hard times to keep going, keep playing, because there's times that, you know, after you start playing bad you want to take a month off and, you know, get into other things and they pressed me to go overseas which I think really helped my game, I had the chance to play with Norman or Tiger or Daly when those guys were over there and to kind of necessarily rate my game against theirs and see what I had to learn to improve.

DOUG DUNAKEY: Going on nine years, about 8-and-a-half years.

DOUG DUNAKEY: I wouldn't say she never got tired of it. She's a very independent person, so, I mean she can take care of herself, but I know she put in a long ten years with me as far as with the golf and, I mean I think she wanted me to do well probably more than I wanted myself to do well. So in a certain way it was -- she was pushing me, but also pressuring me, but it was a good kind of pressure because it was a lifelong dream to get here and, you know, I'm glad -- I'm glad she pushed me.

DOUG DUNAKEY: Every week, probably. That's probably something I want to kind of put behind me. To put it in perspective, I mean you know, I didn't get anything for it. I'd much rather have won the lottery, that happens every week, so it's just something -- it's nice to have to put on your resume, but it really comes down to performance and one round out of four rounds is -- it's inconsequential, I guess.

DOUG DUNAKEY: No, I guess the only flashback I had was thinking -- putting myself in that position. I don't think I would have been able to pull the putter back, six, eight footer for eagle. I guess I had that 25 footer for 57, I had different thoughts in my head. I was thinking not to shoot 60 and he was trying to shoot 59.

DOUG DUNAKEY: I think so. There again it goes back to that was my first year on the Nike and I felt like I got some added respect from the players I knew and then respect from guys I didn't know, so it pushed me on the next week where I won the following weeks. There again, it's just again, for me, feeling comfortable out there and sticking to my game plan.

DOUG DUNAKEY: Yes, it was the last hole, I think the hole is about 440 yards uphill. I hit one iron off the tee and right down the middle of the fairway and hit 6-iron up about 25 feet short of the pin, straight uphill, and it's one of those things where you couldn't see where your ball was until you got to about 30 yards short of the green, and when I walked up there and saw where it was, I don't know if it was kind of a lapse, because I felt really at east because I'm thinking, Jesus, I mean, you can't have a better putt at 57 than right here. And I think I just lost my concentration a little bit. I had seen about 25 of the Nike guys coming off the range to watch me, they were egging me on, I just lost my concentration, I left it, I think, two, two-and-a-half feet on, then missed the next putt. It's one of those things. I got the tape of me missing the putt. One night I watched it about 100 times in a row and I think I have learned from it. There's -- you know, it is hard to learn for me, hard to learn from things I have done well, so in a weird kind of way, that one blemish that I had in that round, if I'm ever in a situation to win a tournament or have that same situation, whatever it might be, I think I can learn from that and go from there.

DOUG DUNAKEY: Yeah, it is more the one round in the big scheme of things. It's really not that big a deal. And I don't know if I'm trying to necessarily push it down or suppress it. I'm more concentrating on what I putted that round, what I learned from that one putt. Like I said, it's something I can use later on. If I would have made that putt, I don't know if necessarily I could have taken anything from there, so in a weird kind of way it's probably helped me missing the putt. Plus I kind of like being part of the crowd more than -- I like when there's five of us instead me being the only one.

DOUG DUNAKEY: 57 would have been nice. I guess if I could do one thing over it would have been the 57 putt, not the 58. I think to hit a better putt there...

DOUG DUNAKEY: It would have been, I guess '97 Tour school. It would have been somewhere around July, August, I told her, you know, I'll give it one more try. I had some friends in the golf business that I could have got a club job or something like that, and -- which was hard for me to swallow because I never really worked in my life, so I have been fortunate just to play golf. We had discussed it and she said, well, give it one more try and, you know, don't go into it, you know, thinking you're going to quit before you start, give it a hundred percent. And got in a situation where I had to get -- I had a chance to get my Tour card that year through the school and I played the last couple of rounds bad, but there again probably looking back it was probably the best things that happened to me, get a full year on the Nike before coming out here.

DOUG DUNAKEY: Just another day, just playing golf again. A lot is going to depend on what the wind does, what the weather is. That can change real quick out here if it stays like this, which I doubt, scores will be low, but if the wind blows, I think -- I think it comes back into my advantage of being patient and, you know, taking the birdies when they come and not getting too upset when the bogeys come.

DOUG DUNAKEY: Donna.