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CIALIS WESTERN OPEN

June 30, 2005

Harrison Frazar

LEMONT, ILLINOIS

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Harrison Frazar, thank you for joining us. Good round for you today, 66, 5 under par, puts you right in the mix after 18 holes. If we could start with some opening comments about your day and the golf course.

HARRISON FRAZAR: It's been a rough couple of months, and I felt okay today starting out. Yesterday I started to see some really positive things yesterday on the golf course. First time in a while I've seen the golf ball moving left to right for me. So that immediately eliminated a lot of the tension and a lot of the pressure of worrying about both sides. It kind of freed me up, I could go ahead and hit at some flags that I might have been a little bit too timid or too scared to hit them at.

Besides that, I rolled a few putts and started hitting some solid putts. You know, it wasn't perfect, it wasn't fantastic, but it'll work, and it's doing nothing but feeding confidence as we go. I expect myself to play well somewhere in the near future. I don't know exactly where, but I'm finally starting to see the things I want to see.

Q. I don't know if you're in a slump or what, but does it take as long to get out of what you're in as it took to get into it? Is it all rhythmic?

HARRISON FRAZAR: No, I'm in a slump. If you kind of look at it, last year I had a couple of weeks of brilliance, but really didn't play that well. How long does it take to get out of it? I have no idea. I'm still trying to get out of it.

You know, it's something that builds. It's a building process both ways. You automatically don't just have a bad day and then you're in a slump. I mean, it's bad habits, it's sloppy practice, it's trying to get the quick fix, it's loss of confidence. There's just a lot of things that happen that cause the downfall over time. But once you finally smack on bottom, you can start looking at really piecing it together, what the problems are.

You know, that's kind of the state I'm in right now, and that's what I realized about a month and a half ago, where I was, and trying to start to build up again. It's steadily getting better. Yesterday and today were two of the best, most positive things that I've seen in a long time.

Q. Have you had to make some major changes? I mean, is it major swing changes? How would you classify what you've had to do, or is it a variety of things?

HARRISON FRAZAR: I almost would say it's the opposite of swing change. It's going back to what I had been doing in the past. You know, years ago you have a little bit of success but not quite where you want and you start fidgeting trying to get better, you tinker a little bit here, add something here, next thing you know you're out of your element.

I've been trying for the last six weeks to go back to what I knew I did well three or four years ago, so it's a combination of hearing the old things that you always heard, a little bit more reinforcement, talking to as many people as you can and getting their ideas on golf swing and things click. Something will hit with you that you realize, oh, I used to do that; oh, I know what that feels like. Getting your equipment back to matching what you want to do, that's a big thing for me this week. I went back to the old specs on all my irons. That's helping quite a bit.

It's just a combination of things that you're just piecemealing all little bit at this things together and hoping you're building a stable enough ladder for you to climb on.

Q. Could you talk about that left to right ball flight thing? Were you like hitting a hook when you least expected it or were you hitting a lot of shots right to left, and is there anything more disconcerting than playing for your standard shot and not having it go where you're expecting?

HARRISON FRAZAR: That's the problem there. Where they're putting the pins now and the rough, you know, the way they're setting up the golf courses now, they've got the flags six feet from the sides, on top of slopes. The roughs are the worst right off the fairways, and what happens when you're just a little bit off, if I'm trying to hit say a 3 wood that I'm used to sliding a little bit left to right, if I aim down the left side and it turns over a little bit or I pull it just a little bit, if it does anything but goes to the right, then I'm barely missing fairways. If the pin is on the left edge of the green and I'm trying to hit it at the left fringe and let it slide just a little bit to the right of the flag, to the fat side, and all of a sudden I hit one straight or take the heel a little bit and turn it over just a little bit, then I'm short sided. Suddenly that causes anxiety, and it's just pure fear.

But when you know that you can sit there and pick a spot and you feel like you at least know which way the ball is going, it just frees you up, your tempo gets better, your rhythm gets better, your routine gets better and everything feeds into one another. I would say the hardest part is knowing what you want to see, and if the ball is not doing it, it just causes a lot of fear.

Q. Is it something inherent with golf that you're always trying to get better and sometimes you're better off just to stay where you were?

HARRISON FRAZAR: Yeah (laughing). We're all trying to get better. Why would Tiger Woods make the changes he's making if it wasn't this constant quest for improvement? There's a whole lot of cliches that are out there like "it gets worse before it gets better" and blah, blah blah, and we try to ride through it sometimes blind to what we think we're doing better when really we're not.

But yeah, I think we're always trying to get better. Golf is imperfectable is that a word?

Q. It is now.

HARRISON FRAZAR: But any ways, yeah, you're going to keep on trying to get better, even when you're doing something well. It's never going to be good enough. If you just get out of your way and just play, yeah, you've got a better chance.

Q. Anybody you're particularly working with on your swing?

HARRISON FRAZAR: Well, Randy Smith is my teacher and has been since I was 15 years old. But I've got a lot of friends that are in the instruction business, and I talk to other players and ask them their advice and what they try to do. You know, like I said earlier, you ask people and you never know when somebody is going to say something that will make sense to you. Yeah, I mean, I played a practice round with Hank Kuehne and Robert Damron on Tuesday, we played nine holes and it was kind of like a constant lesson. The two of them were giving me advice and we were giving advice back and forth. Yeah, it's like a constant barrage of information.

Q. Is there a danger in talking to too many people?

HARRISON FRAZAR: Yeah, if you're not disciplined enough to know what's right for you and what's wrong, yeah, you can get way too much information.

Q. Is there a fear that it's just never going to come back?

HARRISON FRAZAR: Sure.

Q. It's happened to a lot of guys, Chip Beck for one.

HARRISON FRAZAR: Sure. Yeah, it's there. Yeah, I mean, we've all got fears every day about what's going to happen, but we don't know. All I can do is keep working and keep trying to do what I'm doing and realize that no matter what happens, if I turn it around, win five tournaments and three majors in the next two years, I'll be all right, I'll be able to handle it. If it doesn't come back and I never make the cut again, life will still be okay. I can't make it an end all. Sure, that fear is there. I love to play golf and I'd love to keep playing golf. Yeah, I've kind of put my back against the wall this year, and now I've got to find a way to turn it around. But that's all I can do. I can't do anymore.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Okay, thanks.

End of FastScripts.

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