THE TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY SOUTHERN COMPANY

November 1, 2000

David Duval

DAVID DUVAL: I feel wonderful. Golf is good. Back is good. I like the course. So I like how it is playing too, a little faster than I seem to recall it playing in 1998. Fairways seem a little tighter, a little bit harder, so, I think it makes for a good combination.

DAVID DUVAL: Not particularly. It goes to the bottom. Real spotty, and still thick and fairly high. So like, once you get passed whatever it is, three or four inches, it kind of doesn't matter at that point, how much longer it is.

DAVID DUVAL: I am not so sure I have hit it in it yet, so (laughs).....

DAVID DUVAL: I think just because I like it a lot. Look forward to it so much and I have always viewed it as a great way to wind down the year. The time of year I enjoy, the weather. So just a combination of those type things.

DAVID DUVAL: I got some events left.

DAVID DUVAL: I don't foresee me making a trip to Spain.

DAVID DUVAL: I thought I was supposed -- I thought you wanted answers not just one word, so -- so, no. I thought I was learning, but I guess I am not (laughter).

DAVID DUVAL: Where?

DAVID DUVAL: Not really.

DAVID DUVAL: No, I played here 6, 7 times in college here maybe. It was a different golf course then.

DAVID DUVAL: I love that.

DAVID DUVAL: I love that. I like this town and the people. That is always exciting to come back and to play here twice, you know, for the year is nice. I enjoy it.

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah. I think, yeah. That is very fair to say, so I am feeling good. Everything is since coming back is good. The only bad day I have had was Sunday at Williamsburg and if I can, I will use the excuse, I think it was just my back, really. I am not making an excuse, I just gave out not really so much on Sunday. On Saturday I felt it kind of not hurt but just tired out and just wasn't ready, nor is that endurance. Other than that, I have played well and had a nice Presidents Cup and managed that 36-hole day without a problem. Last five days I felt the best I have felt in probably 15 months.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, yeah. Yes and no. I haven't been quite as diligent in the last -- since I have started playing again last six weeks, that would be, whatever it is. Some of that is what I am doing off-season for -- trying to get a good balance going again. Because I didn't want to push it too hard and do too much, so I haven't been going as much lately.

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah, something similar. I will try to find a better mixture, better balance of that and try to accomplish as much with less time if I can. But that is the goal of anything, of practicing golf or anything like that. That is just through trial and error.

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah, I think so. If anything I felt it -- this might not be the right thing to say -- but I felt it more when it was like - before the course was redone, because that was more of what they saw, what they played on. The transformation that has taken place here from when I was in school is dramatic. The golf course was in shambles. The clubhouse was in shambles. The neighborhoods were in shambles and that has just all changed. That is an exciting thing to see. It seems like they are starting to try to write their own history with that.

DAVID DUVAL: I have heard those stories about that, what the folks would play, but I never partook.

DAVID DUVAL: I have not. Heard those stories too.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, the only difference I see is the height of the rough. I never thought it was unplayable in 1998. Certainly, I thought the rough was too much simply because you had some holes that were 460 yards and you'd miss the fairway by, well, whatever the width of that first cut is, what, 6, 7, 8 feet, so you add a foot more and you miss a fairway by nine feet and you can't play. I didn't particularly agree with that. But I have heard that they changed the mowing patterns on a couple of holes and I have had a hard time seeing anything different. I think that the 5th hole is played wrong for some reason. I don't know why they choose to play it a par 4s, it is a silly thing to do. You have got 50 or 67 whatever yards back there make it a heck of a par 4 -- par 5, but you know, again they didn't call me and ask me how I thought the course should be set up. So, I am still waiting for that call each week.

DAVID DUVAL: I don't think so. I have been asked that about the Players Club, I mean, it is kind of like set up the same, like Augusta, most golf courses for the big events. You see the TPC on television and you'd think that is how it is. Well, it is not. It is like that for about five or six weeks a year. I think that you get to, you know, maybe you know how to play and you know the shortcuts around greens to tees, I don't know, but when you are playing fairways that are a lot faster than you are used to or greens that are harder, I don't see how it is much different.

DAVID DUVAL: Not really. I mean like, right now, it is being overseeded, it is just no good. Grass is coming in. It is just not sitting like it will be in six or eight weeks, so it is kind of -- I was asked about if I thought I had an advantage at the Bell South when I played it as an amateur, you know, Atlanta Country Club I thought well that is kind of pretty stupid question. I have played here probably 20 times since I have been in school and too many Kite has been playing here for 20 years, who do you think got an advantage. So I don't putt much weight in that stuff.

DAVID DUVAL: I think it is very high on the list still. I think it has -- I think something has been taken away from the event because it doesn't decide anything any longer, this year it wouldn't anyways, but in 1998 when I came here and played, you know, it decided the money title and decided -- well, they thought it might decide Player-of-the-Year, they thought, if I won, but I didn't really think if I'd win anyways -- I mean, the money, I didn't think I could win Player-of-the-Year anyways. But you know, I had six holes to play and I was tied with Tiger for Vardon Trophy, so it decided a lot of things. That is not the case any longer, so.....

DAVID DUVAL: I don't think so. I mean, we are asked about those types of things and equipment doing -- making courses obsolete, yady-yady-ya. The scores haven't changed much, you know, you look at scoring averages this year and certainly Tiger has a scoring average that is going to break the record by a fairly substantial margin, but then after that, is there anything else that is going to break the record? I don't -- I don't think so. I just don't -- I don't think much about that. I don't think there is much weight in those arguments.

DAVID DUVAL: It was in bad shape.

DAVID DUVAL: I don't remember. Like I said, in four years, I have played out here very little. But I don't remember the golf course a whole lot from then. Especially after you come and play it again in 1998 you spend a week here, it will make you forget what it was like, so...

DAVID DUVAL: Certainly. It was not the best place, but I don't know. I have always -- I kind of get on the golf course anyways and get in my own little world and forget about it. So I didn't pay a whole lot attention to that, but it is just a different place now. It is nice.

DAVID DUVAL: The dramatics of what?

DAVID DUVAL: What about it?

DAVID DUVAL: I think it is a great hole. I don't know if they backed it up a little bit more or not, but it seems a little bit longer than last time. It is a hard hole. It is kind of -- I thought it was kind of neat, kind of like at Congressional, you get up and, you know, you got a chance to win and it is up to you. You get to hit a shot. You get to put it on a tee to do it. Unlike if you are playing a par 4 to finish or something where a lot can depends on the lie you get or something like that. It is kind of put in your hands, the player's hands then fully and I like that.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, you know, I would like to say yes, but I think that it is hard to answer. I think you have seen some great golf from a lot of people and I think that is one of the difficult things that you all as writers and TV people face right now is that what Tiger has done and what he has been doing doesn't make anybody else any less good. I think that people have -- some writers and some other people have seemed to have forgotten that.

DAVID DUVAL: No, that is up to them. If they want to compete, they better become -- they need to become better players. But I think that they have belittled some players, not based off of poor play but based off of exceptional play from someone else. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I think you should, you know, appreciate the talent of everybody and then marvel at the talents of Tiger. So you know, it is a tough -- like I said, it is a tough thing to do. Certainly any time you write a golf story right now, seems like, you know, Tiger is going to be in there somewhere if he is competing and I understand that. But Tiger Woods' exceptional year doesn't make Davis Love any worse of a player or anybody else any worse of a player. That is the only thing that I have seen that I think has happened in the last twelve months that has been a little unfair.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, I think, yeah, probably I guess to answer your question. You have to out here nowadays. There is just no way around it. You just have to go out and play well and we all know that if you want to win some of those big events, you are going to have to play very, very well. That is a great challenge to try to meet.

DAVID DUVAL: I mean, last year it made me and I think made a lot of players kind of not really particularly interested in playing, you know, then the way it was, you know, it was nice that everybody got to attend the service and such, but also kind of really broke up the event and made it, you know, you are trying to -- we are in a difficult place. The Tour was trying to keep the event going and keeping it where it should be as one of the big events of the year. But then you have to break it up and do this to complete the event, so you realize that it's not really particularly important with what is going on. It is just a tough thing that happens. I think -- so, the things that I don't know, I think the things that make me think about what happened and about Payne and stuff was more like The Presidents Cup events, those kinds of things that he was so enamored with, so....

DAVID DUVAL: I don't know. I can't answer that. Sorry, Scott.

DAVID DUVAL: I don't know where this story is. I don't -- I don't read them much.

DAVID DUVAL: These are running shoes, actually.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, you know, I have been working very diligently with Foot Joy about it and the great thing is the response that they have had to it. I have a very kind of -- I don't have a Howard Twitty foot, but my feet are kind of awkward. I have a long -- I have a narrow foot too with a narrow heal and wide toe area. I am not a foot expert nor a shoe expert. Other than that, all I can say is we are working hard on trying to resolve any issues there are.

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah. Sometimes.

DAVID DUVAL: You don't remember watching me tape them up in Australia and other places? Yeah, I mean --