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THE HONDA CLASSIC

March 12, 2004

Brad Faxon

PALM BEACH GARDENS, FLORIDA

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: We'd like to welcome leader in the clubhouse, Brad Faxon.

Brad, great two rounds from you, 68 66, best two rounds of the year for you. Maybe just talk about your day today.

BRAD FAXON: That was a good round today, very solid no bogey, lots of fairways, lots of greens. I drove it well. I got off to a great start. I birdied No. 1 and made a 15 footer. That kept the momentum going from yesterday. Then I birdied 4, 5 and 6 right in a row.

You could actually ask Doug, he followed me all 18 holes, which I've never seen anybody from the press room do. Actually that's probably not that's not a zing. You've done that before. Right?

I putted extremely well. The birdies on 4, 5, 6, the two par 5s, they are all pretty reachable or, you know, if you don't hit a great drive, you can still get pretty close there.

Then I birdied 9, which was that tough pin there, on that green to the left, I hit a nice putt there and birdied 10. Got off to a great start, made a bunch of 4 and 5 footers for pars and got a good up and down on 18 from the bunker. So overall, very pleased.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: If we could go over your off season a little bit. You suffered a knee injury and consequently you didn't start the season right away and missed a couple of cuts but you're obviously playing well now. Maybe go over that quickly for people that are not familiar.

BRAD FAXON: I tore my ACL Tuesday of Thanksgiving week doing a little work out in the gym. It's been an issue. I didn't get to practice near as much as I normally do. I'd say the last two weeks there's been some good progress in my knee. I had not been able to get all the way down to line up putts. To squat, hurt. I actually tweaked my other knee by favoring it so much.

I've been doing lots of rehab and therapy and that's taking a lot of time out of practicing.

Q. Which knee?

BRAD FAXON: My right knee.

You know, actually the first couple of weeks out here, it was so hard to just get that out of the way as an issue because, everybody you walk by, with every good intention there is, has asked about it, and I appreciate, but it's just kind of hard to keep focusing on that.

My game was a mess, to tell you the truth. My head was a mess.

Q. Your head was a mess because people kept asking you about it?

BRAD FAXON: Because I didn't get to practice. I was hitting it lousy. I had not got to do any of the stuff in the off season I normally do. All kinds of things. Actually I had a little lesson. The guy that helps me my swing is Kevin Sprecher, he works down at Doral with Jim McClean and I saw him Monday. First day I've got to see him this year. Everything kind of clicked a little bit.

Q. You had a good single match in Match Play, though?

BRAD FAXON: Yeah, I missed the first three cuts on the West Coast right before then. And then kind of got things where I felt a little bit more comfortable. Played a great match at The Match Play. I think I went through all the scores like a psychopath and I would have won 30 out of the 32 matches that day. That does a lot of good. (Laughter.)

Anyway, that's what you do when you have no knee. But I played well. I putted great against Flesch. I had planned to take Doral off the whole time, I kind of wanted to go play at Doral, but I'm going to play the next two after this. So I stuck to my schedule rather than play eight in a row.

Q. What did he do to help with you your swing and what did he do to help you mentally?

BRAD FAXON: "He", meaning Kevin?

Q. Yeah.

BRAD FAXON: Well, actually my stance had gotten very wide and I don't know if that was a product of the knee, but I had very I had no weight shift at all onto my left side. I was really standing back on my right side. We kind of narrowed it up and worked on getting some weight to transfer over to the left side and it really helped. That's kind of the simple bit of it.

Q. What about on the mental side?

BRAD FAXON: He leaves that up to Bob Rotella and myself. "Keep putting good," is what he says.

Q. What does Rotella say?

BRAD FAXON: What does he say or what did he say to me?

Q. What did he say to you with this issue?

BRAD FAXON: About my knee?

Q. Yeah.

BRAD FAXON: You know, he talks about obviously he doesn't want you to focus on it. He wants you to think about playing great. He's big into you've seen people that have come back to work with Rotella after they have spent a week with him, about being yourself and enjoying playing golf.

I think the people that have seen him come away realizing that most of us get too serious on the golf course. You think about your bad shots more than you think about your good shots and those emotions get to you. He's constantly trying to get people think like the best players in the world think. Seeing your shot, hitting your shot, just like all of us have done once in their life. Everybody who has hit a shot good knew they were going to do it before they did it. He's trying to get you to that state of mind for every shot.

Q. How often do you see him?

BRAD FAXON: You know, if I don't see him every three or four weeks, I talk to him regularly, usually once a week at a tournament. He comes out now. I'd say he's out every four or five weeks. I'd say the list of players he works with is pretty long.

Q. I guess it's no small irony that you hurt your knee when you were working out. What exactly were you doing?

BRAD FAXON: I can't even show you, it was so stupid. (Laughter.) No, I can't even tell you. I had a medicine ball between my legs. I was standing up, and I was with my ex trainer (laughter) jumping up in the air and throwing it with my feet and playing catch with each other. It's an abdominal exercisem believe it or not. Then about the fourth or fifth one, I was pretty excited because I had done some and was zinging it right at him and he was throwing back to me, I threw one and never let go of it and landed right on top of it and went down like a sack of potatoes.

But, you know, everybody has told me, that was the stupidest thing I could ever have done and I was like, you're right. Greg Norman told me when I saw him over Christmas, that's the dumbest thing he's ever heard. I said, "Hey, do you want to play golf tomorrow?"

He goes, "No, I'm jumping out of an airplane." (Laughter.)

Q. Did he make it?

BRAD FAXON: Yeah, he's here.

Q. Didn't hurt his knee at least.

BRAD FAXON: (Laughs).

Q. Any similarities between here and Augusta, some of the type of shots?

BRAD FAXON: I just said to Mike Ritz that if MacKenzie had built Augusta National in 2000, what would the players' comments have been, how similar to the players' comments would they be to here. You accept that because the tradition of the tournament and the greatness of the golf course, Bobby Jones, all of the champions there. And now whenever there's anything new, that's different, it's radically criticized, fairly or unfairly.

I don't know that I would design every green like the ninth green here, but you certainly know you don't want to go long left. You know that before you hit your shot in there. You've got to stay away from some spots here. You have to hit some good iron shots and there's a lot of pins that if you go after it, you're in trouble if you miss. And you'd better know how to get up and down here, I don't care who you are. Everybody is going to miss some greens out here.

It's actually nice. We don't play many tournaments anymore where there's very little rough. There's no rough here that's going to never let you reach the green. I mean, you may get a flyer lie here, but it still let's you play some shots. Around the greens here, if the rough around the greens here was deep, I don't know if you could play some shots. There are holes here when you're pin high and you're pitching downwind, downgrain towards a pin that has something behind it, it's impossible. It's not like you can zip a shot with an L wedge off this stuff or a lob wedge. It's tight. You've got to chip and putt and bump and run.

Q. You had a stretch toward the end there of some good up and downs. What was the best one, like 14, through 16.

BRAD FAXON: I hit a bad tee shot on 14 and I had a long iron in there. That bunker shot was not really that hard of a bunker shot. It was a long bunker shot but that was the best putt of them all.

I thought that the up and down on 15, is that the par 3, 15, I hit a pretty good shot there, I landed on almost the middle of the green and rolled down there, but that was a pretty severe up the slope around of course there's a sprinklerhead in the way if you want to putt around but that was a nice up and down. That was pretty big.

Q. Was putter only option, smartest one?

BRAD FAXON: There's no way to lob that. I think it's so tight, you can't get underneath it.

I've tried it out there. I've taken different wedge, wedge, sand wedge and 60 and the trajectory is just so inconsistent because it's so hard to pick it every time the way you need to. You saw Robert on the par 5, he tried to hit a sand wedge and it's just

Q. Did it go four or five feet, is that the one I'm thinking of?

BRAD FAXON: No. On No. 12, the par 5 to the right, he's down with the sprinklerheads, lots of divots and stuff. You know, you're looking at this kind of stuff if you're putting.

Q. Did you like this course right way? Did you need a couple of rounds to get used to it?

BRAD FAXON: I've played here a lot. Dory's parents live right here at Old Marsh. So I came down over Christmas and gimped around one on a cart, I don't know if you'd call it playing, but I probably played three or four times. I came over last year when we were down before I hurt my knee, and I just thought this was a course that I thought the more you play the better off you are here. I think the guy that comes in Tuesday night and "I'll just play the Pro Am," he's in trouble.

Q. Did you like the setup? Did you like it right away? A lot of guys like Fred were coming in like you just said came in, played it, it's a windy day and he didn't know what to make of it, but seems like you play it a few times, you like it more.

BRAD FAXON: I think you do. You certainly understand it more. You know, do I like hitting the shot into the third green at Augusta National when the pin is to the left? I don't know if I like that shot. I know it's a challenging shot.

There's a lot of those shots out here that the greens aren't as hard here, obviously, and not as fast but they have gotten pretty quick in some spots today. There are just some severe greens, some severe places to miss. I kind of think it's all right. I'm sure that it's not the majority. Fazio's comment yesterday was somebody is going to be happy Sunday.

Q. Did you like it better at 10 under par than you did on Tuesday?

BRAD FAXON: Yeah, absolutely.

Q. Talk about your round putting, I think you said at one point is was almost getting ridiculous when you made it on 9. How good was this putting round for you?

BRAD FAXON: It was pretty good. Did you think it was pretty good?

Q. I can't do that.

BRAD FAXON: I had a great feel today. I was seeing the line nicely. I felt very good. The putts were I hate to say, it they were right out of the middle of the putter. I didn't feel like I missed any. They were going in the middle of the hole most of the time, good speed. Made a lot of nice 4 and 5 footers. The greens are in great shape.

Q. Can you talk about the squatting that you mentioned early on in the session?

BRAD FAXON: Squatting, like to line up a putt? I don't know if you could tell, but it's very hard for me to get all the way down.

Q. Don't hurt yourself?

BRAD FAXON: Without pressure on my knee, so I'm kind of like, gimping around like an old guy.

But I'm getting closer. Two weeks ago there was no way I could have done that. I can get down now and do this to the ball where I line it up there on the line and I couldn't do that on the West Coast. I was kind of getting, kind of going like this (standing, reaching down, not bending knees.)

Q. Maybe a silly question, but as much as people talk about your putting stroke, how much of your success is knowing where to hit it?

BRAD FAXON: Knowing where to hit a putt?

Q. Yeah.

BRAD FAXON: It was a little bit of a factor. I don't know if it was a huge factor. I putted well at La Costa. I hit it very poorly the first three weeks and putted just okay. Getting down to line up a putt, I think that's pretty important. I like these greens because when I miss, if I'm on the green, I can get off the shelf. You can always go down and you don't have to get in that squat position.

Q. What can you do when all of a sudden your point of your angle of view is different and there's really nothing that you can do about it?

BRAD FAXON: You get further away, go back further. It not that bad, believe me. I've putted pretty well without lining up putts without trying. So trying to keep that sort of attitude going.

Q. Why do you choose not to have surgery?

BRAD FAXON: I asked every doctor in the country their opinions, being facetious, but very lucky to have known some good doctors in Providence, Boston, talked to Dr. Andrews, and there were a lot of them that said "you don't need to do this, for golf." There's certain things in your life that you might not be able to do for a while. I talked to other players that have had ACL injuries. Jean Van de Velde played for seven, eight years. Calcavecchia tore part of his ACL, Willie Wood. So you can do it.

And I'm glad it's my right knee and not my left. But it doesn't repair itself. This one, it's a six month reconstruction. I was thinking about, if I had the surgery, late December, early January, that effectively ruined any chance to make the Ryder Cup team or to play in the Masters, play in THE PLAYERS Championship, tournaments that I really want to play in.

So, you know, it was kind of an easy decision. And what clinched it was all of the rehab that I was doing to try to get better, stronger, helps if you have surgery. So the doctors said, look, do all of your rehab, if you can't do it, if you can't play I was going to give myself a time frame; if after the Masters if I felt like I couldn't play golf, I would have the surgery. But I think I can do it.

Q. How did you like Providence yesterday?

BRAD FAXON: They have been bad the last three games. I've been to a few games where they look pretty good. They look like I feel bad for them.

Q. How much exercising, fitness stuff are you doing now after what happened Thanksgiving?

BRAD FAXON: I feel like I've been doing a lot. All kinds of leg exercises. And I'm normally a good at getting in the gym, so it's not that much different than what I do, but it's concentrating a lot on my legs. They are strong. I feel like I haven't lost a beat. Strength wise, it's pretty good. Doesn't hurt to walk around the course. I've noticed less swelling, less stiffness this week than any other weeks.

Q. Do you have to ice it afterwards?

BRAD FAXON: I do.

Q. Do you do that in the locker room or at the hotel?

BRAD FAXON: I do it usually both. I can do it in the fitness van that we have and at home, and then I'm on anti inflammatory medicine.

Q. Do you think this course rewards good shots?

BRAD FAXON: Yes, I do. I think it can severely penalize a just barely off line shot, which we have some courses that do that. Would you play a course like St. Andrews and say every shot is fair into a green there? I don't think so. I think we are so accustomed to everything being the way we want, when it's not, sit and complain about it.

But you'd better hit some good shots. But you have to know where to go here. You have to know when to attack.

Q. Back to your putting. Does your caddie become more involved in reading putts?

BRAD FAXON: He says he stays out of the way more and more. I don't use my caddie to read putts very often. He always gets nervous, because when I ask him, he knows it's a tough putt. (Laughter.)

End of FastScripts.

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