BUICK CLASSIC

June 20, 2003

Joey Sindelar

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Thanks for joining us. Second round, 69 puts you at 7-under and in fourth place by yourself. Just to start with some opening comments, 69 is a pretty good score today, all things considered, still with the size of the rough and some of the conditions out there.

JOEY SINDELAR: Yeah, I agree with you. I think that anything -- generally speaking, anything under 70, under par on this golf course is never a bad thing.

You know, when this course is playing hard and fast, under par is a good score because the greens are just unbelievably difficult. When it's playing wet, soggy with the huge rough, it's hard for different reasons. It's so much longer off the tee, longer shots required into the greens but the greens are more playable.

So it's a great course in either direction and for me it's a course where you just try to make sure you're in position because you can get a double bogey in a hurry out there today. I had one today but not for the typical reasons. I was just off the 12th green in two and could not hit the ball on the green from six steps off. It was a double. You have to be patient through that stuff and expect that everybody is going to get one or two of those.

It was a day of a lot of solid shots. I didn't get the ball in the fairway off the par 5s for two days now; No. 18 yesterday is the only one I've hit the fairway on and went for it and consequently came up with the eagle. So I hate to give the shots away on the par 5s. But had enough other good birdie putts go in that it worked out.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Give us some thoughts on your playing going into the weekend, in the hunt in the Top-5 in, great position.

JOEY SINDELAR: I'm very happy about that. I have not been in this neck of the woods for a while. Apparently I play with Tiger and Maru, my buddy, and that will add a little extra excitement. You never know what you're going to get. Just try to do your best, do the same things, go to your tees when you're nervous and go for it. I've always talked with friends or clinics or interviews and they say "How do you do it for money?" It's all about comfort zones. When -- you see guys get in the lead and be around the leaderboard for weeks at a time. A lot of guys get comfortable there. I believe a lot in that.

Hopefully this is my entry to the leaderboard category and I will stick around for a while. It's all about getting comfortable doing what you do and do it your own way.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: As far as the weather, we have had some strange days, expecting doom and gloom and it never really came for us.

JOEY SINDELAR: We're shocked. To bore you for one minute, we talked about it in here yesterday, when I finished yesterday we thought the Amateur guys were going to get hammered and we were chuckling about that. And when they didn't get it last night and didn't get it this morning I was thinking, "well, I should not have ever said that because we are going to get it back this afternoon."

I think that has to be a miracle; we've played this many holes of golf with no rain. I don't know what tomorrow brings but at least everybody -- we won't be opposites and guys with similar scores tomorrow will play in similar conditions and that's when it's best. But yes, we are awfully lucky.

Q. That feeling, that nervousness going into a round in contention is that part of the fun of it?

JOEY SINDELAR: Of course, yeah. Probably not when it's happening but in retrospect it is. It's like wasn't that one of the cool things to do. Personally I'm the kind of guy who enjoys being with Chris Smith and Jay Haas, with three low-key people who enjoy being with each other and we can laugh and giggle about TVs or watches or whatever it is we're talking about.

But tomorrow won't be that day. Tomorrow will be Tiger. Tiger, he gives away 100,000 free tickets every week and they all come to watch him play.

It will be fun. I have not ever played golf with Tiger, but I have with Maruyama Shigeki -- we call him Maru -- and he is a sweet guy and a great player so I look forward to tomorrow.

Q. What do you compare it to? Have you played golf with Nicklaus?

JOEY SINDELAR: I have. I've been lucky, coming on the Tour in '84, he caught -- well, Nicklaus was a peripheral player at that time but I played several rounds and enjoyed that. Johnny Miller, just once or twice, Tom Watson several times, Seve a few times, and those are big thrills. This will be no different.

Q. What have you done so much better these last two days than you have done so many previous ones?

JOEY SINDELAR: Putting. I've putted so poorly. Some weeks I didn't putt as poorly and they just didn't go in, which is commonplace. The guys I played with -- Glen Day had putts all over the hole for two days and could not get one to drop. That's okay because it all changes. I had a few eagles where I wasn't even hitting good putts.

Putting isn't the only answer between my 76, 83 and whatever I shot last week at the Open. It isn't, but it is because it's not just -- when you make a couple, it heels everything around me. It makes your irons better, it makes your tee shots better and it makes your chipping better. When you feel like you can make a putt all the rest of it becomes easier and that's what's different for me.

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