CANON GREATER HARTFORD OPEN

July 4, 1998

David Duval

DAVID DUVAL: My scores?

DAVID DUVAL: I birdied the first hole, hit a nine iron about 15 feet. I birdied the fourth hole. I hit a six-iron out of the fairway bunker to about 30 feet. I birdied the 13th. And knocked it on in two, to about 20 feet and two putted. I birdied 15, three wood over the back of the green, chipped up to about an inch.

DAVID DUVAL: I don't know. It's not tomorrow yet. I look forward to it. I think I'm in a good position, I'll see how it plays out.

DAVID DUVAL: I don't have an infection, from what he can tell, in my throat. So actually it sounds a little better today, doesn't it? So...

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah, I haven't really felt bad except for Wednesday when I got up, lack of sleep and a little fever. Other than that, I felt all right, except for my nonverbal ability.

DAVID DUVAL: It wasn't too bad. It picked up a little bit. I was still -- I guess that's from the south. If it gets blowing to you into like that on 13, it can keep you from going at it. It wasn't quite strong to keep me from being able to reach it. Other than that, it doesn't affect it. It changes the way you play. It doesn't make a huge difference. It wasn't flowing hard enough to do that.

DAVID DUVAL: You know, I've been fortunate enough in the last several months to win leading, win coming from behind, winning tied. So I think, if anything, the little bit of pressure might be more on you if you're leading. All the eyes aren't quite focused on you. I think doing and playing how I have in the past couple of years, you know, I'm gonna have enough eyes on me anyway, since I'm only a couple behind. So, you know, either way, I would certainly only -- you know, I think you always like to be ahead of the field, but two shots isn't very many.

DAVID DUVAL: He has, and he played awful well. He's putted beautifully. He hit some good shots and capitalized when he's done that, got a few nice kicks and breaks, we all have. So, I think I'm putting actually quite well. But I think I'm going to have to get the ball a little closer to the hole to have a chance, you know, to really make some birdies. I haven't made a whole lot of birdies this week, really. How many under par am I?

DAVID DUVAL: 11? I think I've made 12 birdies and just one bogey. So I got to get a little closer to the hole.

DAVID DUVAL: How did the course --

DAVID DUVAL: What sense? Dry?

DAVID DUVAL: It's drying out a little bit each day, because it hadn't rained. You know, it's been nice and warm. It's played a little bit faster, but certainly not like the racetrack.

DAVID DUVAL: I don't know. I think you could. That's actually the second time we've done that this year. We did it in Tucson. Actually, all three of us, on the West Coast, we played threesomes, me, Scott and Justin actually. All three played on Saturday and then me and Justin played together again on Sunday. That's the second time this year. You know, I think what happens is you get paired up with a guy who's playing well and it certainly makes it easier to kind of get pulled along, you know, and you can kind of imitate doing that, that in the sense if you're only shooting that even par, you get left behind. And so you need to kind of keep up and do your best to try and keep pace. So at least for me you get concerned about scoring and not concerned about how you're playing and you get focused on getting the ball in the hole.

DAVID DUVAL: We did.

DAVID DUVAL: It's certainly not the place you want to have to wait. You know, I hit it in the water there actually yesterday. That makes the wait today that much worse. I hit a real nice drive, as did Scott, and I was a little ahead of him. And so -- and he laid up. He couldn't quite get there. You know, I only had, two, three, two yards in front of the green. I went ahead and hit at it. It's not a real hard decision.

DAVID DUVAL: It certainly looks that way, doesn't it? No one has been able to kind of get way ahead. It's really surprising. It seems like everybody kind of today shot the same thing, moved up that many more shots under par and nobody really pulled ahead. I would suspect that I don't think the leaderboard will be quite as full that ten you see on the leaderboard on the golf course. I don't think it will quite be as close. I think there certainly will be a few players bunched up.

DAVID DUVAL: All right.

DAVID DUVAL: Certainly.