THE TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY MERCEDES-BENZ AND MICHELOB

October 28, 1996

Brad Faxon

BRAD FAXON: Well, I thought today took forever to get here. I was kind of mixed emotions about whether we should play or not. And we haven't had too many Mondays we've played in the last few years. And with the forecast and the way everything looked it was hard to gear up. And I finally about last night after the Patriots snuck out a win, I said hey, I've got to get ready for this thing; I've got to go out there and play good, because we're going to play. And I was basically playing for second place. If I got to have a 28 start maybe that would make a difference, but on this golf course it's very hard to do. And I played well. I drove the ball extremely well for the first few holes and got it in position, made a birdie, but couldn't get anything going until the back nine; I birdied 10, 12 and 13. But by then Tom had gotten his rhythm back, because he started off a little bit slow. And it was basically playing for second. I saw Steve Stricker was making a good run, and I knew Vijay had fallen off. I tell you what, I think it's harder to play for second when it's just for money, when you start thinking about all the extra stuff, instead of trying to win. It's not my favorite thing to do, but I was pleased the way I hung in there. I was definitely playing for par the last few holes; I checked out the leader board on 16. It's a big difference, first and second.

BRAD FAXON: Tom basically kind of ruined everybody else's chance to win, I think. But for me it's obviously making that kind of money, it's huge money; it's the biggest paycheck of my life. But second place is Ryder Cup points, the chance to move way up on the money list, which this ties my best finish on the money list, I was 8th in '92. It's been a very consistent year for me. It was a good year for scoring average and putting. It's going to be good to build on for the next year.

BRAD FAXON: I think it's going to be a close battle between Mickelson and Lehman. I think obviously those two plus Mark Brooks had a big case, if any of them had won convincingly. I told Tom, playing 18, I was going to give him my vote. I feel like his record with the two majors - he almost won the U.S. Open - he won the British, he won here convincingly, hands down, with his score average on the line and the money title on the line. A lot of players come in here - and kind of unbelievably so - they're not too psyched to play the season ending tournament. But he came in ready to play, and he was impressive. He was very impressive.

BRAD FAXON: Yesterday Sluman came up to me with the whole deal and how much tied for second means. And I added that up and it was 997,000 and change, and I said, geez, it would be nice to get over a million. So I had to finish second on my own. I figured the last hole I had 2-putt for a million dollars. I thought this is for a million dollars, which it really wasn't, but I was almost --

BRAD FAXON: It was a big switch. Yeah, it was $65,000, but I was thinking a bigger number, put more pressure on myself. The greens were excellent today. They were a joy to putt on. I wish we could putt on something like this all the time.

BRAD FAXON: You know, I think a couple of things that I think make him a great player. No. 1, he's a strong player. He hits the ball solidly every time, but he plays one shot. He has a slight draw, and it's a hard draw, and he plays it every time. When he got up to the 14th hole the pin was on the right side, he didn't mess with trying to hit a perfect shot, he hit it in the middle of the green. He's developed into a very good putter; I think he's going to be close to leading the stats this week in putting. He's obviously got tremendous faith in himself and God. And I think he's a strong person. He doesn't let himself get up or down emotionally. And people don't tend to think that's that big a deal, but out here where you have all kinds of distractions - like what I talked about - the money list or the money title, he can handle that pretty well, playing Faldo over at the British Open. I don't think that too many people really look forward to doing that, but he's held his own.

BRAD FAXON: Yeah, he said to me last night, he definitely wanted to play today. He definitely wanted to win the tournament and not have it given to him. And he started off a little shaky and held on and came back and played well. In the middle of the round he played very well.

BRAD FAXON: I was very inspired by the Patriots until they let up the Hail Mary passes; they won by three. It was a pretty good game.

BRAD FAXON: The course was much better than I thought it would be. I think we probably did the right thing, playing lift-clean and place. There would have been a lot of shots that would be affected by mud. I would never have to take a lie by casual water; it was remarkably dry. There was a lot of debris on the ball, because it was wet. There was a lot of mud on the ball which would have made a difference. Actually, I thought today was probably the easiest scoring day. I thought so. I didn't think that the course played as difficult. It didn't play very long. There was never any wind out there, really.

BRAD FAXON: A little bit. I wanted to win badly. I gave it my best shot. I had a couple of tournaments here; where a good break would have made a big difference. Obviously you can't do much about this week when a guy gets super hot like that. I don't know what to say. I don't know if I have to do a whole lot of things differently. I'm this close to having a stand out great year. And I'm just going to use the off season and hopefully play well. I've played great in all these non -- these partner tournaments, so -- I've won a couple of those Fred Meyer's and Skills Challenges, but I've got to get back in the winner's circle here, it's very important to me.

BRAD FAXON: I am.

BRAD FAXON: I'd say 50 feet, probably.

BRAD FAXON: I think it's pretty cool. A million dollars in a year. A lot of people think that's pretty impressive. I think it's nice to see our TOUR has grown so much where -- how many years ago the first guy that broke a million, now you have nine guys, a few guys pretty close to it it. But I think the strength of our sport is our Tour is up there with any sport that we have going.

BRAD FAXON: Finchem said on Tuesday -- he told us on Tuesday, be prepared to stay until Monday. It wasn't a surprise to most of us, and I think it's great that we played a 72 hole tournament. I would have loved to have finished the Buick Challenge where we got rained out with five guys tied after two rounds. And maybe in that situation if we had played at least a final round, even if it were 54 holes, but if you had to go out there knowing this was the final day, rather than just finishing Friday's round and getting washed out. I think that's what he means. And I think we did it at his tournament here. I hope it's precedent setting for the rest of the tournaments that get rained out.

BRAD FAXON: I think most of the players and especially the better players, which I think we have to gear our Tour towards. The better players are what people come out to watch. They want to finish; they want to have the tournament down to the wire. They don't want to have things given to them. And I think the fans want that. I think unfortunately it's difficult to not have a live presentation of the check or the final hole on Sunday at 6 o'clock; getting volunteers Mondays is difficult. They go back to work. But I think we've got to work and strive towards making sure we finish our events.

BRAD FAXON: They are more of a minority. And if you look at our policy board now we have very good players on the policy board, Davis Love, Tom Lehman, Mark O'Meara and Jay Haas. So I'd like to see the better players stay up there so that things like that can be improved.

BRAD FAXON: I think it's a very tough situation because there are certain times in the summer where the next week is very important, whether it's going to a major championship. Obviously you have all kinds of corporate outings that you have booked. But our bottom line is we're playing golf, we're playing to win tournaments. I think we should do our best to finish them. And I like what John said about the taped delay. I'd like to see if you can tape delay an event, you can condense it and make it quicker and easier viewing, watch more shots, probably.

BRAD FAXON: Mixed emotions about --

BRAD FAXON: All right. I was referring to the fact that I'm in second place. I don't have much to gain by playing, because I can't catch Tom, that kind of deal.

BRAD FAXON: Obviously I feel great now that I went out and played well.

BRAD FAXON: I don't know what he had to do. I actually didn't know he left until last night somebody said he took off, because when he handed us our money list, his name was scratched off. He might have had some big corporate day or something tomorrow, I don't know if anybody knows.

BRAD FAXON: Well, maybe he was gambling that the tournament was going to get washed out or something, I don't know. He wasn't going to win the tournament and I know money isn't as important to him as it is to everybody else. Maybe he had something that was going to make more money doing somewhere else.