VERIZON BYRON NELSON CLASSIC

May 10, 2002

Jeff Maggert

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: I'd like to welcome Jeff Maggert to the media center. Thanks for coming in today. Shot a 3-under par, 67. Good individual round. If you could just talk about your round today and we'll go into some questions.

JEFF MAGGERT: Hit the ball well today. I felt like I hit the ball a little bit better yesterday, but the way I have been playing this year, it's just nice to shoot some good scores. I have been trying to make - I call it a minor swing change, that I worked on this winter that it's turned into kind of a major hassle for me. But I am finally starting to swing the club a little bit better and hit the ball a little bit more consistent. It's come back a little bit.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: We have seen from players - Justin Leonard is one of them - that have made some swing changes. Took them a long time to see some results, and he's seeing them now. You are kind of seeing the same thing.

JEFF MAGGERT: I hope so. I feel like I am. I have been hitting the ball better for probably a month-and-a-half now, but I have lacked the confidence and haven't been able to trust it when I get in position to shoot a good score, have a good tournament. Haven't been able to pull it off. Everything is kind of coming together. Still putting a little inconsistent at times, but certainly getting a little bit better. I am just trying to kind of work back into this kind of slowly. I played pretty well last week in New Orleans the first three days, which kind of caught me off guard really. I didn't expect to be in that position, and had a round on Sunday, but it was a positive week for me definitely last week to get back on the leaderboard in contention on the weekend. I'd like to kind of keep following up on that and hopefully put a few good tournaments together in a row.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: You have one shot off the lead right now. Questions.

Q. What was the change?

JEFF MAGGERT: When I first started playing pro golf, a good friend of mine from south Texas, Carl Espanoza (ph), we traveled together, everything we did, we ate, slept, everywhere we went. He got to know my swing probably better than anybody that I have been around in my life. I don't have a teacher. I am kind of self-taught. And in the late '80s I started working on -- I used to kind of take the club on the outside on my backswing, ala Jim Furyk, kind of. I really wanted to get the club more down the line on my backswing. I worked hard for a long time. Even my first four, five years on Tour, that was the one thing that I was always working on. My golf swing got very good, I felt like, in the early '90s and all the way up to about a couple of years ago. I think I just kind of overexaggerated the things I was working on, and I was starting to manipulate the club a little bit too far on the inside on my backswing, which was something that I'd never done in my whole life.

So it has been kind of a strange process to work, so hard to get the club from going outside and then being on the inside on the backswing. It was a tough change. It wasn't -- most people say, well, it is not that big of a swing change, but it was the things that I had worked on probably for 10 or 12 years. All of a sudden I had to change, and now I am working on something that's a little bit different. It taken me a lot of time to get the confidence back with my irons.

I felt like in 2001 I really started to get really inconsistent with my irons and even my driver wasn't as good as what I was used to hitting it. I really think that the cause of that was just getting the club a little bit too far inside of my backswing. Just basically I was manipulating it with my hands a little bit too much. So I have tried to correct that. It has been very difficult.

Q. Taking it straight back again?

JEFF MAGGERT: Yeah. Just trying to get it, you can call it, on plane or on line or how technical you want to get, but it has been kind of -- I call it a minor change, but it has been difficult to master.

Q. That inside thing just kind of crept up, is that what happened?

JEFF MAGGERT: Yeah. And I just think it was from years and years of trying to get the club a little bit more inside and my hands on a little bit more inside, you know, and probably the last -- in the mid-'90s I was really playing well and I can't say that I was really working on my golf swing a lot. So, you know, maybe some of the bad habits creeped in because I quit working on certain things. Sometimes when you have one swing key that you are working on, it seems to be better as opposed to just hitting the ball well and not having anything to work on.

Q. Did you bring up Carlos? Did you work with Carlos this winter?

JEFF MAGGERT: I went down to see him this winter. We try to get together every few months anyway. He's just a good family friend and very knowledgeable about the golf game. He tried to play for a number of years, and now he's working on a golf course down in the valley.

Q. Which one?

JEFF MAGGERT: Palm View Golf Club.

Q. Guys you talk to on Tour, your peers, are more players undergoing swing changes than in the past? Do you think it is about the same or less?

JEFF MAGGERT: I'd say it's about the same. I see more guys working with coaches a lot more than they used to, and it's always good to have a good set of eyes that knows your golf swing. I found it very difficult to have new people look at my golf swing. I feel like I know my golf swing better than anybody. I use a video camera and normally I can spot little things in my golf swing to improve myself. But I think the big thing about having a coach is to boost your confidence and you know, I think that's a big factor with Butch Harmon and the guys that he teaches, obviously he knows a lot about the golf swing, but on top of that, giving the guys an extra boost of confidence to trust what they are doing.

Q. Obviously the changes have you doing what -- you trust it and comfortable to go four rounds?

JEFF MAGGERT: At times. I mean, golf is a difficult game. You never master it, so if I can get confidence in what I am doing and trust it in the pressure situations, I feel like I am getting real close right now. Hitting the ball in windy conditions and you know, just having to hit the ball solid and hit it in the direction where I am aiming it has been you know, very important the last couple of days, and first time -- first time I can say in a long time that I have played last week and first two rounds this week actually hitting the ball where I am aiming it 90% of the time.

Q. Where were your misses taking it inside, --

JEFF MAGGERT: Pull hooks, mainly. It started with kind of a pull-hook with the driver and with the irons and then you know, after missing shots, I don't know, just -- then the shot pattern just kind of went either way. Trying to do something a little bit different on each swing, trying to correct it. The worst thing you can do is really not knowing what you are doing and then try to you know, you are just searching for different things to work on. Well I hit that one left. I will see if I can cure it on the next swing. Next one goes 20 yards to the right, so, I feel like I have had a game plan all year and I have really worked on one thing and it's finally starting to improve.

Q. How difficult has it been mentally not playing as well as you know you can?

JEFF MAGGERT: I started playing kind of poorly in late 2000. I really wanted to get back on the Ryder Cup team in 2001. I put a lot of pressure on myself to do that last year. With swinging the club poorly and not playing well, I just kind of snowballed and just kind have had an off year. I won't call it a lousy year, but certainly not the way I wanted to play. So this winter I just decided to really focus back on my golf swing and see if I can improve it and make it better and -- I really feel like what I am working on, I feel like I can get my game back to a level or even higher than what it was 4, five years ago.

Q. Do you know K.J. at all or do you practice with him at all?

JEFF MAGGERT: I don't. We live nearby in the same -- close to the same neighborhood, but I think he's kind of a lot like me. When he goes home he doesn't play a lot of golf. So I know I wouldn't see him at the golf course because I am usually not there, but although this winter I have spent a lot more time at the golf course. I joined a new club there; got a really good practice facility and I kind of credit that as remotivating my practice habits, especially when I am not home.

Q. What is your status for the U.S. Open?

JEFF MAGGERT: Non-exempt.

Q. First time in a while for you?

JEFF MAGGERT: No, I wasn't exempt last year. I went through the qualifying. But I am not -- I am going to obviously try and qualify. The main thing is just get my game back in condition where I can compete out here week-in and week-out. Last week was very strange for me, first time I have been close to the lead in a long time. It is almost being like a rookie again, which I guess that's a good feeling to have. I am 38 years old and feeling like a rookie, that's pretty good, I guess.

Q. Were you trying to make a 30-footer on 17 or just get it close?

JEFF MAGGERT: No, our group is strange. We made a lot more 30-footers than we did 10-footers. I told Lee when we walked on the green I said, well, everybody is in the range now, we ought to be able to make one of these. And that was kind of the way it went. It was like could make any short putts, but if we got it 30 feet, seems like everybody was knocking it in. Strange.

Q. You said on 5 the 35-footer you were just trying to lag it up there close. Hal Sutton said a couple of years ago that he used to have that same mentality but he says on the Tour the way it is today, where a couple under you know, you need to qualify on the weekend, he tries to make everything now. Have you adjusted your thinking that way at all?

JEFF MAGGERT: I don't know, there's certain putts that are -- I mean you can get yourself in some positions that you are happy with a 2-putt when you walk out of there. But he's right. You have got to play -- you have got to play some good golf now. I wouldn't say you know, the Top-10 or 20 players each week has really jumped leaps and bounds in front, but I know from struggling and missing a lot of cuts the last two years that, you know, the players that are -- that cut line is very -- that's a difficult thing out here to -- I mean, if you are not playing well, it's a very, very difficult to make the cut out here. I don't think it was that way twelve years ago when I got on Tour. I mean, used to be you shoot even par, 1-under you are going to make every cut out here. Now seems like even par, 1-under you're missing a lot of cuts. I have found that out the hard way last two years. I have missed a lot of cuts by one shot or made it on the nose or missed it by a couple. So it has. It woke me up. It was like you got -- you can't just come out here and go through the motions. I feel like I was -- you know, fell victim to that after playing well for a lot of years out here, it was, you know, you kind of show up and go play and post your score and go on. If you are not working at your game constantly week in, week out, it is very easy to slip down a notch and before you know it, you are gone.

Q. So that realization helped get you to this winter deal --

JEFF MAGGERT: Yeah, combination of a lot of things. I think missing the Ryder Cup was one of the biggest things even though I wasn't close to making it. It was just over time, six or seven months of trying to play hard and trying to play better and getting on the team and then, you know, kind of and I-don't-care attitude probably was my biggest downfall late last year and a little bit this year and I kind of tried to wipe that out of my mind. The bad attitude still creeps in every now and then but it is getting much better. I haven't broken any clubs since L.A., so..... That's the only club I broke on Tour, twelve years.

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