NEC WORLD SERIES OF GOLF

August 29, 1998

David Duval

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah, I had a good day again today. Few mistakes, but nothing real big and so I was just battling it out with a few more birdies than I've made in the last couple of days.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, I don't watch score boards, really. At times, it's hard not to see them. But I knew he had done -- shot a good score. You know, I didn't realize until on the 18th, I didn't -- I thought he had started the day a couple of under par. I thought he had shot 6- or 7-, maybe even just 5-. But I didn't realize he shot a 62 until I saw the score on the last hole.

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah, they seem to be. Maybe it rained out here last night. It did? Yeah.

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah, I think -- I don't know, to honest with you. The crowds were quite large and I'd dare ay the majority were there to watch Tiger. But, you know, because of that, I made up my mind to be very focused on what I was doing, not pay attention to kind of the ruckus and the crowd and to do my best to pay attention on just what I was doing and not get worked up at all, and I think I did a good job. You know, today was my first competitive round playing with Tiger on Tour so I didn't really know what the crowds would be like playing with him and maybe it's different at other places, but they were very fair, very cordial, very appreciative of my golf as well as his. I don't know if that's the case everywhere else, but I was -- I don't want to say surprised because that's not the proper word -- but I guess I was personally pleased that I didn't have to worry -- You know, it became a nonfactor. It just became a large gallery, not a partisan gallery that I had to kind of wait to hit shots and putt. They were very good.

DAVID DUVAL: Which?

DAVID DUVAL: I guess -- I don't know. Tuscon might have been the last time I was actually leading. Not won, but Tuscon -- no, I was leading at the Tour Championship, too. Tuscon was the last time I led going into the final day.

DAVID DUVAL: How do I handle it? It's not different than anything else, than if I was 1- or 2- behind, really. You know, the golf course isn't one that, you know, there's not four par 5s out there where you can get aggressive and make up ground. Long par 4s and long par 3s all day. So, you know, there's not a place where you can get more aggressive than another player because the golf course doesn't lend itself to that, you have to rely on making good shots and making some putts.

DAVID DUVAL: I didn't hear the last part. What goes through my mind?

DAVID DUVAL: Well, I don't know. I don't get caught up in who I'm -- you know, who is trying to beat me because I'm trying to win and I'm trying to play good. But sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. You know, it doesn't matter -- this is going to sound stupid, but I think sometimes people forget about it -- it doesn't matter who you're playing against. The lowest score is going to win. And that doesn't matter if you're playing against Tiger or playing against someone else you might not -- you might call or not. It doesn't matter. I think that through the course of the summer, the PGA TOUR has proved that it has -- you know, they've all tallied -- with the exception that you might think a few Monday qualifiers, there's 150 guys teeing up each week that can win and I think it proved itself out throughout the course of the summer where you had so many first time winners winning big events right in a row. So I don't think as a player for me, personally, I don't get caught up with who I'm competing against.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, I don't know. I would doubt it would be quite as good tomorrow because the greens won't be quite as soft and I don't know where they put the pins on Sunday. So I don't know if they make them more difficult or not. I would think it wouldn't be quite as good.

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah, we kind of butchered that one a little bit. But it doesn't -- you know, I made a bogie. You know, so I made a couple of other ones, too. You don't want to end with one, but you're going to make bogies at some point during the course of your day and you can't put more weight on the bogie at 18 than on No. 2.

DAVID DUVAL: Oh, yeah, yeah.

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah, it felt good. I don't know if I had a premonition. You know. It seemed to -- it was just a shot. I don't carry -- kind of standard lofted wedges. I carry kind of different gaps. And, you know, I don't have a 60 degree, I have like a 57-and-a-half degree wedge and the gap it closed for is 53 as opposed to like a 56 and it was just a shot that, you know, I didn't have to do anything different to the ball or where I put my stance or the club. I just set it up to it with that 53 degree swing. And it's going to carry it onto the green where I want it to go. I'm not going to say it was an easy golf shot, but it was not some big drop out high rough over a bunker.

DAVID DUVAL: I get nervous, just like anybody else, but getting too worked up and getting upset and really even getting too excited is counter-productive to what I'm trying to accomplish. You know, there's a lot of golf holes -- you play a lot of holes through the course of a round, especially through the course of a tournament and you get too upset -- you know, I'm going to end up hitting -- how many shots have I hit so far, 201? So I'm going to be hitting somewhere in the neighborhood of 265 shots to 275 shots through the course of the week and I'm not going to get too upset over one of them.

DAVID DUVAL: No, no. No.

DAVID DUVAL: Obviously, they have. I don't really know what else to say. I've talked about it a lot. I never viewed myself as a failure. I always felt like I was progressing in my career. I set a rookie earning record my first year out. Then I got better the next year and moved up a spot on the money list and I still hadn't won, but I had a lot of chances and then I finally won. You know, I remember -- I remember seeing the magazine in Golf Week my first tournament when I won at MICHELOB last year. Everyone is making a big to-do it take 82, 96 -- whatever it was -- starts to win a tournament. There's a pretty impressive list of people in that magazine that I beat that it took a lot longer to win than me and I kind of always found it ironic that I was getting knocked about that. I don't know how it was when they were playing when they first started, but just because a guy doesn't win a golf tournament he's not a failure and I think the players sometimes get portrayed that way and I don't think it's fair. I really felt like I was improving, I was getting better. I was pursuing my goals and I was accomplishing several. Although, admittedly not all, because I had won -- that was certainly a goal. But, you know, patience is a big part of this game and you can't just have patience through the course of a round, you have to have patience through the course of a year and a career.

DAVID DUVAL: Right. I think the most important thing to remember is you're not going to hit it perfect. I think the 2nd most important thing to remember is you're going to make some bogies. And then, from there, once you kind of remember those things, you can go play. You can be a little freer, free it up a bit and enjoy it. You know, I play a bogie-free round actually yesterday but it was probably only one of a couple this year. It's very rare that that happens. We make mistakes out here and I think if you can start the day realizing you're going to make mistakes and you might very well fall behind at some point and tell yourself not to get worried about it and worked up over it, you're going to be a little bit ahead of the game.

DAVID DUVAL: I knocked it on the green on 2 with a 3-iron to about 20 feet, 2-putted. No. 3, I hit a pitching wedge to about eight feet. I bogied No. 5, right? That's right. I hit kind of a poor shot onto the right front of the green, 3-putted with a 6-iron. On No. 6, I hit a 7-iron about, you know, 20, 22 feet, maybe, below the hole and made that. No. 8, I made a beautiful birdie. I hit it right off the tee to actually hit a chip out of the rough under some trees and an it up the fairway and ran it up to about 12, 14 feet and made that.

DAVID DUVAL: 13, I hit it into the left fairway bunker there and laid out on the pitching wedge and hit my 3rd shot about 18 feet to go to the hole and 2-putted. The next hole, I hit a sand wedge to about 3 feet, maybe. 16, I hit a sand wedge to about five feet. 17, I pitched it. On 18, I drove it left and had to punch it out. I didn't quite get it out in the fairway. Then I hit a nice 3rd shot from the rough to about 13 feet, 2-putted.

DAVID DUVAL: Where?

DAVID DUVAL: How long was it? I was probably six steps off the green and the pin was probably another 30, 35. Probably total 50 feet from the hole.

DAVID DUVAL: Thanks.