WORLDCOM CLASSIC--THE HERITAGE OF GOLF

April 18, 2002

Billy Mayfair

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thanks, Billy, for joining us late in the day here. A great round, especially for the afternoon. Low round so far of the afternoon. Make a couple of comments on the day, maybe the adjustments with the wind and we'll go from there.

BILLY MAYFAIR: It was just a typical Hilton Head afternoon. The wind was coming off the sound. But you could tell in the morning, when I got up this morning and got here, you could see the guys were tearing it up this morning. You knew there were birdies to be made. And I got off to a good, solid start. I birdied 3 and eagled 5. And I kind of got my day rolling and all of that. But the golf course was definitely tricky out there. The greens were firm. The wind was kind of blowing just hard enough where you had to keep an eye on it. I was real happy with the way I played. I played real solid and I look forward to playing in the morning tomorrow.

Q. Billy, what's it like getting to the course and maybe before you tee off you're 8, 9 shots down when Davis has a round like that?

BILLY MAYFAIR: Davis had a great round. I don't care if he played in the morning or the middle of the night. 9-under is 9-under, and that's a great round. You've got to keep saying you've got to keep playing the best you can. There's four days, and it's a long tournament. And you play the best round you can and stay close, I guess.

Q. You've got some good things going here at Hilton Head, it seems like. Last year some other events, what is it about this place that suits you?

BILLY MAYFAIR: Well, I obviously love the golf course. This has always been one of my favorite on the Tour. You've got to drive the ball straight, and you don't have to drive it all that long. You've got to hit good iron shots and chip and putt very well. It's just the opposite of last week, where it was a ball beaters golf course at Augusta. It's good to hit it a long way here, but you don't have to play good.

Q. What are your memories of last year, and --

BILLY MAYFAIR: The funniest thing, I guess, is yesterday I hit it down in the gunk on 18 and got it up-and-down. If I remember right, that's what Jose did to me in the fourth playoff hole to beat me. I thought that was kind of funny. But obviously win or lose last year, I played well here last year. And anytime you play well, you always look forward to coming back to that tournament site. And this being one of my favorite golf courses, I saw some things that I remember from last year, Tuesday and Wednesday. And today was the first round of a new year, and you can't think about last year, that's for sure.

Q. Billy, yesterday Jose told us that one of his better friends on Tour is yourself. He talked about it. Did that relationship develop before last year's tournament or did it come out of last year's tournament?

BILLY MAYFAIR: It mostly came out of the tournament here last year. Jose is a fine gentleman, we get along real good. We really got to know each other during the rain delay on Sunday here a little bit. And then we ended up playing. And that's the great thing about golf, we try to beat each other on the golf course, but as soon as we walk off the golf course we're friends. He always says hi to my wife and little boy. We kid and joke around a lot. He's a nice man and I like to call him my friend, too.

Q. Do you speak Spanish?

BILLY MAYFAIR: No. I say that because I don't understand everything he says to me, but I get a little bit. I get most of it, though. If I'd ever need to learn how to speak Spanish, he'll be the one I'd go to.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Do you want to go through your card.

BILLY MAYFAIR: I birdied on 3, I hit a 6-iron from about 170 yards, about 15 feet from the hole and made that for birdie.

Then on 5 I hit a 3-wood from about 230 yards. I hit a real good 3-wood there, before 8 feet from the hole and made that for eagle. And obviously that really got my round kind of jump started right there.

And then on 6 I hit a 9-iron in from about 140 yards, about 15 feet from the hole and made that.

7 was my only bogey of the day. I hit a 6-iron. I think I had like a 165 to the front and I hit it 163 and it rolled back in the bunker, and I didn't get that up-and-down, and it's probably about a 10-footer for par.

Real good off of 8, I had a 9-iron into 8 from about 130 yards, and made that for birdie. I hit it about four feet from the hole and made that.

On 11 -- I really hit it close on 9 and 10 and missed it. Then on 11 I got fooled by the wind and it came up short. It was about 30 feet from the hole and made that for -- I hit a 4-iron about 30 feet short and made that. It was one of those the ball just ran up to the edge of the hole and just fell in at the last second. When those kind of things happen you know it's your day.

And then made birdie on 16. I hit a 9-iron in about 12 feet from the hole and made that.

Overall, if I did anything really shaky today, I maybe didn't play the par-3s as good as I'd like. But I'm real happy with the round, that's for sure.

Q. You kind of touched on it a little bit earlier, when you have a round like this in the afternoon at Harbour Town and you get the morning round tomorrow, you're licking your chops?

BILLY MAYFAIR: You hope tomorrow the conditions are good. You might wake up tomorrow and it might be windy, who knows. But I think the weather forecast looks good and all that. You still have to go out and hit one shot at a time and one hole at a time. If you don't -- if they don't start going in right away, you have to be patient. Tomorrow is a whole another day.

Q. You played with Greg Norman today. Did you talk about that?

BILLY MAYFAIR: Greg played great. I was hitting balls next to Greg on the range. And I played with Greg earlier at Doral and I saw him last week at The Masters. And I saw a different look in Greg's face today. He had that fire back in his eyes. He was on the putting green and you could just -- it was almost like the old Greg Norman to me, and this was before he teed off. I'm glad he had a great round, because he really played good. I saw that fire in his eye. I remember playing with him when he was the number one player in the world, and he kind of looked like that again today.

End of FastScripts....