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FUNAI GOLF CLASSIC AT WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT

October 21, 2004

Jose Maria Olazabal

LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLORIDA

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you for joining us. Why don't you make a couple comments on your round today.

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: I had a good start today, but I've been lacking consistency for the year. I've managed to put good rounds and then follow them with bad rounds, and that has been the problem, so that's what I'm looking forward to, see if I can really be more consistent the next three days and put three more good rounds and get myself out of this situation.

Q. Did I see you were in New York two, three days ago?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: Yeah, it was like three days ago. I had to play there, change a few of the greens, and the owner wants to rebuild the whole 18 greens, so I felt like I had to be there.

Well, I'm here just to give myself the best possible chance, at least the last chance, the last two tournaments of the year for me. As I said before, we'll see what happens.

Q. (Inaudible).

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: It's pretty much been consistency. I have to say that my iron play has been pretty bad all year long. I've missed a lot of greens even from the fairway, and then even a lot of the greens that I hit, I'm quite far away from the hole, so I'm not giving myself really birdie opportunities, and that has been the problem.

My driver has been on and off like the rest of the season, so I don't think that is any different to what it has been the last four, five years. I'm thinking more about how I've hit the irons all year long.

Q. (Inaudible).

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: Well, if you look at the score card, I hit all the par 5s, and the iron play, I manage to give like four, five good iron shots, and I took advantage of those, and then the rest was touch-and-go. I didn't put the ball that close to the hole on the rest of the holes, but that's what I'm fighting anyway.

Q. This is your first time here. Did you even get a chance to play both courses in the practice rounds coming back from Spain?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: Yes, I managed to play them. I got here late Monday in the evening and played Tuesday and Wednesday, once on each golf course.

Q. Do you have a coach that you work with?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: What I do is I see Butch every now and then. When I'm at home, I just videotape my swing when I go to the practice range, and I look at it and work at it.

Q. Have you had good luck in Florida in events over the years?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: Not really (laughter).

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Let's go through your round.

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: 1st hole, 3-iron, sand wedge about two feet.

No. 3, 7-iron about nine feet, made a putt.

Next one was a par 5, driver, 3-wood, chipped with a sand wedge about six feet, made it.

10, driver, 8-iron, holed a long putt from 18, 20 feet.

11, driver, 3-wood, sand wedge about three feet, made it.

Next hole, 5-iron, about 90 feet, made that one.

Par 5, 14, driver, 5-wood and two-putted from 20 feet more or less.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Then you parred in.

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: That's it. I had a good par save on 18. I hit a bad iron shot on 18 from the fairway way right, chipped it about nine feet and made that putt for par.

Q. What would you do -- with Top 125 being the magic number, you're a lifetime member in Europe. You can play there probably as much as you want. Would you go to Q-school here?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: No, I won't go to Q-school. I would have to rely on some invitations next year obviously. I can play San Diego because I won it a couple years ago and The Masters, but I would have to rely on invitations. We'll see what happens.

Q. What did you think about the Ryder Cup?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: I wasn't part of it, so I don't know what happened there.

Q. We got whooped.

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: Well, it was just a shock in the sense of the difference between the matches. The team was pretty strong. I mean, what you need for the Ryder Cup is a team of solid players, maybe not spectacular players but solid players that can hit the ball straight consistently, especially for the four-balls because if you have a partner that is always on the fairway, always on the green, you can play more aggressive.

The team was a team of very consistent, solid players, even though some of them were not very well-known. I thought that the U.S. had a strong team but Europe managed to win it.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you for joining us. Play well tomorrow.

End of FastScripts.

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