BAY HILL INVITATIONAL PRESENTED BY COOPER TIRES

March 17, 2000

Steve Flesch

STEVE FLESCH: This is only my third time I've ever played this course; so I'm having trouble remembering all the holes exactly. 15, hit a 3-wood down there in the middle of the fairway and a 7-iron about 20 feet and ran that one in. 16, was over the green in two with a 5-wood and was on the back fringe. 2-putted from about 50 feet. And then 2, I hit a good 3-iron in there about 15 feet right of the hole, down the hill; ran that one in. 3, I hit a 7-iron about 15 feet behind the hole and made that one. 5, I had a sand wedge from about 95 yards. I think I hit it about 15 feet and made that one. Par 5, the next hole, I went for the green with a 5-wood. Hit it right of the green and hit a good lob on there from the rough about probably 12 feet; ran that one in. And then on 9, my last hole, I hit a good drive and a 7-iron probably about eight feet and made that one. So I managed to kind of get the putter going out there a little bit.

STEVE FLESCH: No idea. I haven't counted them up.

STEVE FLESCH: No 3-putts. I hit a lot of greens today, kind of how I normally play. Just kind of -- I hit it 20, 25 feet a lot, and if I manage to get a little -- I'll hit it in there a little closer. That's just how I play. If I go out and play my normal game, I'll probably hit 14, 15 greens. If I get the putter going, I'll have a round like today. If not, like yesterday, I hit it the same way and only made three birdies, I think, and a bogey and shot 2-under. So a lot of how I play just depends on how I putt, like everybody else, I guess. That's nothing new. But today I think I might have only missed two greens out there, something like that. I know I missed 10, my first green, and I think I hit them all on the last nine. Yeah, I think I might have only missed one green out there today.

STEVE FLESCH: I saw that, hard to miss . I think he started with five birdies in a row. On the back nine they have the big scoreboard that you could see that he birdied the first five in the row. I said to my caddie, "Look at Mike, he's running away." Because the way -- I've played with him enough to know that he's such a great putter, if he just gives himself opportunities, he's going to make a lot of them. So I don't know if Bay Hill sets up any better for a righty or a lefty, but the two of us today maybe happened to get our putter going a little bit, and it just so happens to be we're left-handed.

STEVE FLESCH: We get that question quite often, but it just depends. If a left-hander cuts the ball and a right-hander draws it, then it sets up well. But just like anything else, if a right-hander like hits a cut all the time and all the holes go right-to-left, then it doesn't set up well for them. It's the same to us, if we hit it left-to-right and the holes go right-to-left, it's just different courses for different horses.

STEVE FLESCH: Other than mentally, no. I came back a little bit too soon from that last year, rushed it. Didn't really have that great of a West Coast. And when the doctors gave me the okay to go ahead, even though it was just two weeks after I felt and broke it, and they -- two orthopedic surgeons assured me I couldn't hurt myself, I was like, all right, I'll go, but the rest of the year I was a little bit tentative. I had a decent year for that, and my clubs getting stolen and all that other fun stuff that happened last year. But this year, I think just kind of got a little bit of rest over the holidays. Just cleared all that out of my mind. Just started with everything new and the arms felt great. Haven't had any residual effects from it, and fortunately, I've gotten off to a quick start.