MICHELOB CHAMPIONSHIP AT KINGSMILL

October 7, 2000

David Duval

DAVID DUVAL: Well, as much as anything,, although I don't feel I played my best today, I may made up three of the four shots I was behind and so I am very pleased about that.

DAVID DUVAL: No, not so much. I think -- I mean, I guess "yes" is the answer to that question, if you want just a one-word answer. But it is just -- it is not that it hurts. It just that it is getting tired and the muscles are fatigued as much as anything.

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah, the muscles are tightening up. And I think it just goes to fatigue.

DAVID DUVAL: No. Not really. I think it is the two weeks in a row, I think as much as anything.

DAVID DUVAL: I don't think so. I actually -- wearing this long sleeve shirt today I was a bit warmer than anything at times. I never felt cool. I certainly thought I might, but I don't think it really played anything. It is just, you know, about 15 straight days of golf and that is all. I just don't have that endurance that I was talk about earlier in the week.

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah, I think, you know, I think just basing off what I experienced playing, greens were a little choppy this afternoon. They were a little thin and around the holes, they were getting spiked up and they were pretty bumpy. I think that combining it with playing not quite opposite wind, but almost an opposite wind, so you are experiencing a different golf course. And then the fact that it is Saturday, it is late groups and you have a chance to do something at an event.

DAVID DUVAL: I know you are talking about 16.

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah, that was only probably five feet. That one -- the putt I missed on 9 would probably be attributed to, you know, failure on my part as much as anything. I actually hit a pretty good putt, but I don't know if I pushed it or hit it too hard or what. I had a hard time kind of getting set. I read the putt to be pretty straight, but standing there and visually looks like it's got to come left. Those are the putts that get difficult to line up. Then the putt on 16, the putt on 16 I missed. I don't ever like to blame it on bad bounces and stuff, but I hit it just how I wanted to, but I had an old hole and I was only this far putting (indicating about four feet); I had an old hole about that far (indicating about a foot and a half) from my ball and I fixed it twice and it was -- i really thought I gotten it smoothed out; it kind of went through this and came out through the right; that is why it stayed high all the way.

DAVID DUVAL: An old hole.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, I've got to be careful, right, I don't want them to get any hints as to how to combat that. You have got to learn for yourself. (laughs). You know, there is a lot of nerves obviously involved. For me, personally I had been in that position a lot, although I hadn't won so the night before wasn't an issue with me, as you hear with some people that it was, you didn't sleep well, those kind of things. And tomorrow, I think the thing that you have to learn and you have to overcome - and this is all I am going to tell you - is that in some way when -- the important thing of winning on Sunday is figuring out how to build into your golf game, and the shots you choose to hit, the adrenaline that you experience. That certainly plays a role. Beyond that, you know, we can talk tomorrow maybe.

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah, you get a lot more jacked and, you know, just handling the situation is as much as anything, and the guys, to be honest with you, I hadn't seen the leaderboard, I think Bradley is leading. He is a world-travelled, you know, player, and he has been there before. I don't know who -- Riley, a young guy I have played with for a long, long time. So I think -- and the thing I have said before when I have been in that position with the people who haven't won is that, you know, at some point - I don't want to say every one of those players up there are going to break through - but a lot of them are probably going to and tomorrow might very well be that day. So you never can tell.

DAVID DUVAL: Try to get warmed up, stretched out in the morning and warmed up and just kind of get loosened up, and then --

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah.

DAVID DUVAL: A little bit of ultrasound, a little bit of manual work to make sure a few components actually are working; make sure my hips are working properly, and make sure the muscles, you know, up through my mid-back are loose. Then when I am done I tend to get some stem - that electronic or electric kind of stuff, and ice, but this afternoon I did have some manual work done to try to loosen up the muscles that I was talking about a few minutes ago that are bothering me.

DAVID DUVAL: It is not a problem. It really -- to play 4, 5 more days in a row of consecutive tournament golf, it might, you know, might give out just fatigue-wise, but tomorrow shouldn't be a problem. I think, you know, yesterday I think as much as anything, playing late Thursday and then kind of coming right back and playing again, just, you know, just a lot. I didn't get the time in between and now I having another what, 18 hours or so before I play again, I should be fine.

DAVID DUVAL: No. No braces. I wore a brace for a while during my recuperation. After a while it actually started bothering me.

DAVID DUVAL: I feel great actually. I am not combating a back problem any longer or a back injury. I am simply combating the muscular fatigue that, you know, that I don't have, the endurance that I don't quite have right now. It is just something I will build back up through playing; through being very cautious for a couple months and not doing a whole lot -- lost some of the strength. That is just tough. That will slowly build back up. It is not -- I'd like to stress as much as I can, it is not a back -- I don't have a problem any longer right now; not an injury problem. It is just the muscles are just getting tired is all.

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah, a little bit. I am like anybody, you get excited about the situation and you start looking ahead a little bit and there is certain things that I do personally to try to kind of pull myself back into what is going on at the moment. As much as anything, I think you get to where you embrace it, you enjoy it.

DAVID DUVAL: Last week was, you know, I was obviously a bit nervous maybe more so than the -- I don't know what numbers of victory, but from 8 through 11, you know, or 7 through 11 maybe because those were coming seemingly every other week or every third week, whatever it was at that point. And then coming back off of an injury, I was a bit more nervous than I had been in a long time and best way to avoid it is probably win the first one or second one.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, I think that they will, if I get out there and start out well, and get on the board and, you know, get six, seven holes into the round and be putting pressure on not so much the lead group, but the field to kind of keep up and if I go backwards or get stagnant and they start to play well that I don't think they will be real concerned about me.

DAVID DUVAL: (laughs) Well, that is, you know, that is -- that is what you can say about our World Cup team this year, three majors among us this year, you know, (laughs)-- you can always compare that way to different people.

DAVID DUVAL: I was in the second to last group and I was three shots behind.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, three shots is obviously a great deal more to make up than one. And I kind of think that over the course of 18 holes, I know it is not entirely accurate, but you know, I would say that we are virtually tied -- in essence we are tied.

DAVID DUVAL: I haven't at all. Just been taking it easy as much as anything. Sorry.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, been watching some baseball. Most of the games have tended to be in the afternoon, so, the other ones I watch at night, so nice football game tonight. But my season, my baseball season, is basically over, my Braves. College football too, my Seminoles. Just a bad day for me. So hopefully they don't plummet too far in the poles and beat up on the Might Gators.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, no.

DAVID DUVAL: My dad went there and mom went there. His brother went there. My mom's two sisters went there. Her two brothers went there. My cousin went there. All my --

DAVID DUVAL: I got none actually, I didn't get recruited by Florida State actually.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, the program was in shambles at the time, so...