THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT

May 25, 2000

Harrison Frazar

HARRISON FRAZAR: It was bogey-free, wasn't it? I didn't realize that. I was very fortunate to do that. The golf course was tough. The wind is a little gusty; so very much an exercise in patience out there today. You know, you've really got to pick your spots on where you can take a shot at it, and for the most part, you're playing -- trying to play aggressive shots to conservative areas, and you've got to pick your fat spot on the green and try to get it 15, 20 feet. And driving it on the fairway is key as usual. Rough is a little bit longer than it has been, at least my past couple of years. And the greens are absolutely perfect, as usual. Fortunately, I think I only missed one fairway today, and that was on 17 with a 3-wood. I can't think of too many greens I missed. I think I missed 16 in the back bunker then 15 on the fringe, but I think those are the only two I missed all day. So real good ball-striking. My caddy and I today were just very focused on trying to make sure we were not going to pull the trigger until we were sure what the yardage was, where we wanted it to go, what the wind was doing, because you could sit there on the same shot and it will be right-to-left and switch into you and go right-to-left again. So you've just really got to make your mind up, pick a spot and hit it and hope you guess right. Fortunately, I did today; I guessed well. Educated guesses.

HARRISON FRAZAR: Well, I don't know. You know, I grew up in Abilene, Texas, which is in west Texas where the wind blows constantly. But it doesn't make me a good wind player. It doesn't make -- you know it doesn't make anybody anything. All it does really is it just makes you more comfortable when it blows. You are used to hearing trees rattle, and -- well, that's not true. In Abilene, there aren't any trees. (Laughter.) If any of you have ever been to Abilene, you know. But you're used to hearing the wind whistle through your hat and through your ears. So the panic mode doesn't come on as much, I guess. So, I don't know, just like anything else, if I'm not playing well, if I'm not striking it well, I struggle in the wind. I just don't get to the golf course and hope that it blows 20 miles an hour. If it does, I feel like I can -- if I can stick to what I'm doing, I feel like I've got a pretty good shot.

HARRISON FRAZAR: No, it didn't get that close. The closest part of the edge was about even with it. Maybe just a little short of it. Yeah, it needed about a half a rotation. But I thought I hit a good putt. It just -- a little slower. That's a little dicey going down that hill there. I don't know if you were watching, but Andrew's bunker shot kept going past the hole and kept going -- thought it was to roll off the green and go all the way to, you know, the front again. I think when I saw that, I kind of got a little spooked that it might be just a little faster than I had planned.

HARRISON FRAZAR: This is my time of my year. People ask me all the time why that is, and I don't know. I can't explain it, other than I have to take time off in the off-season; meaning October, November, December is my time. That's my time to go hunting. It's my time to go fishing, spend time with my family. I don't play a lot of golf and I don't practice golf. I start up in January. And it takes me a couple months to knock the rust off and get ready. Usually right around the Florida Swing after playing four or five weeks in California and on the West Coast, I'm finally ready to go. That's the only way that I can explain it is that I'm in between the hard work of trying to get ready again and in between the next stage of burnout.

HARRISON FRAZAR: I guess I'll have to practice in December. I can fish over there, sure.

HARRISON FRAZAR: He's almost six months.

HARRISON FRAZAR: Yes. (Laughs). We tried to travel with him on the West Coast too early, which was another reason I didn't play very well. We would try to bring him out full time for three weeks in a row, starting when he was only 5 1/2 weeks. We thought that he was on a schedule, and we found out that we didn't even know what schedule meant. He was up every night at 2:0 and then again at 5:00, and it was very difficult to play with any kind of sleep deprivation. It's amazing how you begin to not even be able to function. You have no tolerance, you have no patience, you have no stamina, you have no energy, you have nothing. And it took a lot of counseling on my part, because I wanted to -- from some people to me I guess I should say, to learn to be able to separate, and it's time to come to work and it's time to be with my family. And it was hard for me to do, because I had never had to do that before. My wife was always with me on the road, and you know, we thought that we were separate between golf and our lives, our personal lives, but we weren't; it was all the same. She shared the dream and lived the dream just as much as I do, and now with a child, you have to place priorities. Once we figured out that, that I had to let go a little bit and let her take care of the child more so that I could focus on more my golf, when I came home from the golf course, that was my time to be with him; and when he went to bed that was my time to be with her and to help her as much as I could, try to be as supportive as I could. And in return, she gave me the freedom of not having to worry about what was going on when I went to work, whether that be from 7:00 in the morning to 7:00 at night or only three or four hours. But yes, it was an adjustment, definitely.

HARRISON FRAZAR: I've been playing really pretty well for the past couple of months. As far as saying that it -- did I feel it coming, I don't know. I took -- I missed the cut at Colonial and took all day Saturday off and Sunday and Monday. And I got here Tuesday and the club felt better in my hands, the rhythm felt better, the putter felt good. I hit the ball very well on Tuesday. I hit it good on Wednesday, for the most part. So I guess you could say I felt it coming. I felt like something good was going to come. I didn't know that I was going to shoot 6-under today, but I felt like some good play was in the near future.

HARRISON FRAZAR: It's fun, but at the same time, it's scary, because you know it can be taken away from you. You go along and you're hitting good shots, and you know that if you just continue on what you're doing, especially when the wind is blowing, you know that you are susceptible to having a disaster at any moment, because we get greedy. You stand out there and you're hitting a lot of good shots. You sit there and you think, "Well, I can -- I'm in charge of it. I'm in control. I can hit a 6-iron," and if the wind gusts from the wrong direction or you hit a little bump, this golf course is extremely penal. And you have to make yourself back off a little bit every once in a while, because you're going to get punched in the face in a minute if you keep trying it.

HARRISON FRAZAR: I think it's the wind. I think the biggest change that I've seen in the golf course, obviously there are some cosmetic things on No. 5 and No. 15 and a few other little spots. But basically the rough is thicker than I've ever seen it here. You know, when the wind blows, you're going to be in the rough more and it's a little tougher to get out. You can't play any kind of shots toward the green, really, out of it. You're having to play really hard, aggressive shots to try to get it somewhere around the green. And if you knock it in the rough around the green, you've got some very tough and difficult pitches. I think it's mostly the wind, because it's a little bit tougher to control your golf ball.

HARRISON FRAZAR: It was a great week. I played well. Like I had said earlier, I worked hard this year, earlier in the year to try to get ready for the tournaments that I knew I was going to have a chance to play well in; meaning Doral, Honda, PLAYERS Championship. I think I can play well in Atlanta. I think I can play well in New Orleans, Colonial. I thought it was going to be a good week for me. But I worked hard for that, and I worked hard in Atlanta and was playing well there, and then we got rained out the last day. I was disappointed. Not just because I wanted to go win the tournament, but I wanted to see how all that work was going to pay off. I wanted to go out there and test it on the pressure on Sunday to play in the last group or second-to-last group and see what would happen, see if I shot 85 or could shoot 68. I was disappointed I didn't get the chance in Atlanta. New Orleans, I got the chance. I thought for 16 holes I withheld myself very well under the pressure. I think I did good. I think it showed me a lot of positive things, that all of the work that I have put in was worth it.

HARRISON FRAZAR: Oh, sure. You have to. I don't take anything negative out of it at all, except that, you know, the only thing I learned about myself that I can't play conservatively to any side of the hole. I'm not going to say I can't, but my natural instinct is to hit it at the hole. And, you know, 17, I was trying to hit it over there to the right, but I just couldn't do it. My mind's eye wanted me to pull it back, and I made a bad swing at the wrong time. I can live with that. If I had decided to bail it out 30 yards to the right over there and lost the tournament that way, I wouldn't have felt very good about it. But, you know, if I'm going to go down, I want to go down in flames, and that's the way I am. And as long as I make a decision and feel comfortable with it, pull the trigger and it was done my way, that's okay. I can handle whatever comes.

HARRISON FRAZAR: Oh, well, I don't really know. I mean, he may -- he definitely made No. 5 tougher, because guys now can't run up shots on that front right. And with the water there, if you leave it a little bit short, you're going to bounce back in the water. But, you know I was lucky today on that hole. I hit a really good tee shot got it around the corner. And I only had 195 yards to the front and I was able to go ahead and try and hit something in there. Most of the time, I would guess if you're back there, 230, 240, 250, you're not going to take a shot at it. No. 7, the wind was put into our face off the tee today. So a lot of guys that can normally get there couldn't today. And that green has just got a little bit more slope on the right and a little bit more pitch on the left, but I think for the most part, that hole may play a little bit tougher, just because of the direction the wind was blowing today. I see he changed 15 rather significantly. I think that's a wonderful hole now. That was a wonderful change, dropping the green down and moving it over a little bit to the left. You know, once again, that wind was blowing into our face. So it was -- I hit a 3-wood at it, but I think for the most part, some of the guys can get there, but for the most part, I think guys are having to try to really roast a 3-wood or something like that, and get it up front or just short of green and make a pitch. And for anybody who was short of the green, that was a very difficult pin position today, on that right side.

HARRISON FRAZAR: You mean my shot after I hit it long of the green.

HARRISON FRAZAR: I went over the green. It was very tough. I hit a really good pitch out of the rough there, and the ball landed barely over the rough on the fringe and still rolled all the way down across the green onto the fringe on the other side. So I made that putt from there, but it wasn't like I had an easy go at it. I made a 12-footer off the fringe. 5, like I said, I hit driver and then I hit -- tried to hit a high, soft 3-iron in there into the back bunker, and I got up-and-down from there and made about an 8-footer. No. 7, I hit driver over the bunker left and hit a 3-wood on the green about 40 feet, 35 feet and 2-putted. Number 8, I hit a 7-iron on No. 8 to about six feet. Made that one, obviously. No. 11, I hit driver and laid it up with a 5-iron, and hit a sand wedge a little past the hole and spun it back to about eight feet. Made that one. And the shot on 12 was an 8-iron at about 140. I guess 147, 148 today, maybe not even that much, 145; and hit it about five feet, six feet directly right of the hole, pin-high. And on 15, I drove it in the fairway and hit a 3-wood up to the left, long and left, and then pitched it down. Ran it just past the hole on to the fringe and made about a 12-footer.