THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT

May 28, 1998

Andrew Magee

ANDREW MAGEE: I haven't played well lately and I didn't expect anything like this today, which is probably why I did it. And, you know, I hit all the fairways and I hit all the greens today, which is -- when you do that, that adds up to usually a good score and I made some good putts. I didn't make all my 8-footers, but I made a couple 15-footers that sure do help when you're trying to go deep out here. I played in the morning, the morning round, usually you get some good scores in the morning when it's a little softer. The wind wasn't up at all until the last couple holes. If you're going to shoot a good score, it's going to happen in the morning out here. We're seeing some good scores here. I birdied the first hole; I hit a 3-wood and a 7-iron. Made a nice 15-footer from behind the hole and on the 2nd hole hit a 3-wood and a 9-iron past the pin about 15 feet and missed it. No. 3, I hit a 2-iron and an 8-iron to about 8 feet below the hole and missed it. No. 4, hit a nice 5-iron. That's a tough hole. I ended up hitting a nice 5-iron to, oh, 18 feet and I made it for birdie. No. 5, the birdie hole out there today. The wind kind of pushed my drive. I hit a tree, laid up, hit a wedge about 9 feet, and I missed it for birdie. No. 6, hit a 3-wood off the tee and a 5-iron second shot. 2-putted from about 25 feet. And No. 7, hit a good drive and laid up with a 5-iron, hit a sand wedge to, oh, you know, 18 feet, and I rolled it by about 5 feet and I missed it for par. Came back on No. 8 and hit a good 7-iron to 12 feet and I made it for birdie. Had momentum there after making that bogey. I hit a good shot on that tight little green. No. 9, I hit a 3-wood off the tee and a 9-iron to the right edge of the green -- probably my worst shot of the day -- and lagged my putt up to 5 feet above the hole. Made a par putt there for par. Does that make sense?

ANDREW MAGEE: For par. No. 10, I hit a good drive and a -- what did I hit in there, Wes? I hit an 8-iron, and Jay Haas was on the same line as I was on. My 15-footer -- he knocked his in and I knocked mine in on top of his. 11, hit a 2-wood off the tee there, sand wedge up to -- not a very good sand wedge shot, I'd say 20 feet, 2-putted. No. 12, I hit an 8-iron in the middle of the green and 2-putted probably about a 25-footer par, 30-footer. 13, I hit a good 3-wood and a pitching wedge, I'd say about 7 feet and I missed it for 30. No. 14, I hit a 2-iron and a pitching wedge about 7 feet and I made it for birdie. 15, I hit a good drive and a 2-iron about 20 foot for eagle. Lagged it 1 foot short of the hole, tapped it in for birdie. Par 16, hit a good 6-iron, made about a 14 footer. I'm picking different numbers, too boring here. 17, I hit a good 3-wood and a pitching wedge right of the hole about -- let's get creative -- 18 feet. 2-putt it. And No. 18, hit a 2-iron off the tee and a 6-iron over the pin back on the back fringe there. Knocked it by 4 or 5 feet, missed it coming back for par.

ANDREW MAGEE: The first putt was the same as all my other ones, 17, 18 feet, in there. It was a quick putt and I just hit a little harder.

ANDREW MAGEE: It's really satisfying. You know, I haven't played well lately. I withdrew from Colonial; I wasn't feeling well. I went home and worked out a little bit and came here feeling good. That was my main goal is to not feel so tired coming off the course every day, and I think I accomplished that last week. Coming in this week, I feel much better. And all of a sudden, I found a little something on the greens this morning and it carried me through one day. Let's see if I can go two days tomorrow and do the same thing.

ANDREW MAGEE: I was just tired. Just the PGA Tour blues: Playing crappy, hotel rooms, baggage claim, you know.

ANDREW MAGEE: Speed of the game, just like highlight or something?

ANDREW MAGEE: What time is it? Yeah, we've been playing, you know, behind -- we rolled along pretty good out there. It wasn't ridiculously slow. I know it's a big issue on the Tour is the pace of play and keeping things moving, and I don't think it's a big issue myself.

ANDREW MAGEE: I'm not going to tell you. I found a little swing thought, okay?

ANDREW MAGEE: I had a great first tournament, you know. I could have won the Bob Hope. I played really well there. And, you know, had a decent Tucson, a decent Bay Hill. Other than that, it's been pretty blah. I'm trying to find that magic that I had at the Bob Hope my first week out in January. That seems like so long ago now. I had one of the best ball-striking weeks of my life there at Bob Hope. The only problem was we had to play five rounds not four. So I'm trying to find the magic and the love I had at the Bob Hope, and it's been hard to find since then.

ANDREW MAGEE: Well, I took two weeks off before Atlanta and I got there and was worn out. It depends on what I do when I'm at home.

ANDREW MAGEE: You know, I haven't even seen them.

ANDREW MAGEE: Yeah, I do, and that's a good question. A lot of people have come up to me and said they enjoyed the Cleveland commercials. And as tedious and as long as that day was doing those commercials, you know, you always wonder how they're going to turn out. They turned out really good, I guess, because everybody says they really liked them. It's a lot of effort -- my only goal that day was to wake up and try to change the script to make them funny, a little bit humorous, because most commercials are so golf, you know. They're so straight and play these clubs because they're good.

ANDREW MAGEE: That was somebody else's idea.

ANDREW MAGEE: Thank you.

ANDREW MAGEE: I get a lot of comments on those, yes. I hope Cleveland keeps me another year, next year, do it again.

ANDREW MAGEE: The bounce them, spin them, I changed them to other spins and bouncing them. I made Frank scratch his back with his club.

ANDREW MAGEE: I stepped on his ball. That was somebody else's idea, too. It was fun. We need to have more fun in this game. That's kind of my goal. It's everybody's goal.

ANDREW MAGEE: I spent a lot of time with my kids, swam a lot in my backyard, and took it easy, exercised quite a bit, and started taking some vitamins trying to get feeling good.

ANDREW MAGEE: Oh, I probably didn't -- you know, I just didn't practice the right things at home. You know, I went out to play and practice. I didn't exercise as much on those two weeks off. You go through lots of cycles out here on Tour, and my goal is to make the down cycles a little higher and the higher cycles a little higher; and it's a long year. It's a really long year, so you just can't stay up the whole time. So I'm just, you know, trying to keep those lows from getting too low, and I guess I didn't put enough time into my golf those two weeks off. It was like the first segment of the year was over for me and I went home to relax instead of think about the next set, and I paid for it at Atlanta and Dallas, and I didn't feel good enough to play Colonial. My shoulder hurt and everything else, I just went home.

ANDREW MAGEE: Absolutely.

ANDREW MAGEE: Yeah, we all say it and, well, Tiger, I guess he plays two in a row. What did Nicklaus play in his heyday? He only played 20 tournaments a year or 17 or something and won all of them. But I mean, he took a lot of time off and he was fresh and hungry to play. I really don't think you can play 35 tournaments out here and be competitive every week. You know, that's -- I've been out here 14 years and winning is everything. Being competitive is a big deal, you know. I have kids and a wife at home. I don't want to come out here and be a stick in the mud; it makes me feel worse. We all want to be competitive and come back as sharp and fresh as we can. If we don't have our good stuff, it's like a waste of time.