home

jobs

	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT

June 3, 2005

Jeff Sluman

DUBLIN, OHIO

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Jeff Sluman, nice round today, 71, looks like you're in great position heading into the weekend at 8 under par, a lot of players still on the course but off to a good start.

JEFF SLUMAN: Yeah, thanks. I obviously am in a pretty good position. I certainly don't expect to be leading the event. If you look at the leaderboard there's a lot of guys out there like at 6, 7 under right now. Conditions for scoring are still out there, so I'd expect myself to probably be in the last three or four groups out there.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Overall your round today, two birdies, one bogey. If you can talk about that. You mentioned outside that you hit the ball maybe a little better or felt a little better over the ball but you didn't quite get enough out of it.

JEFF SLUMAN: I felt certainly better over the ball, but quite candidly, some shots I just didn't with the shorter irons just didn't get it as close as you need to out there. I hit a tremendous amount of good putts that didn't go in, but I think everybody does that here, as good as the greens are.

I've just got to hit the ball a little closer from the fairway, but overall, I really have no complaints following up yesterday's round with today's. Like I said, I hit it pretty solid, just didn't get as much out of it because I didn't hit it as close as I needed to, but after I get done with this, I'll grab something quick and go out on the range and work on it.

Q. Nice two putt on 18?

JEFF SLUMAN: Yeah. I mean, that's the typical kind of example of the way the day went. I drove it perfect out there, had 169 to the hole, saw Peter right behind me hit 7 iron and I thought that wasn't enough, and then it's an easy 6 and you kind of hang it out to the right and you have 40 feet. You're just not going to make those very often. You've got to hit it in there closer than that. That's just kind of what I need to work on right now.

Q. With the way you've played well through the years in Opens and PGAs and things like that and the way you're playing here this week, which is better than normal here, is this do you have to play maybe with more patience these first two days here than in other years when conditions have been different? And is that why you might be doing well here?

JEFF SLUMAN: Not really. I think the scoring well, when I started yesterday, I looked up there and there was a lot of guys at 4 and 5. That immediately tells you that there's a scoring potential out there, that the leaderboard wasn't one guy at 4 and two guys at 3 and 2 under on the board. There was a lot of guys at 5.

I think you have to remain patient every day, every round. But there's a fine line of how patient you have to be. You know, you get to a golf course like the Bob Hope, you don't want to just say, "well, you know, 69 is going to be a good score today." You know you've got to really go out and try to light it up right from the getgo. A golf course like this you can remain patient and try and just let the round unfold in front of you without doing anything crazy out there. That's what I've always kind of done when you get on golf courses like this.

Q. If I could follow that up with you not having the benefit of seeing much of a board out there when you started today, did you have to find out early in your round where that line was today as far as patience?

JEFF SLUMAN: Not really. I still I felt like there were still very, very good scoring conditions out there, even though I wasn't lighting it up again. I felt like my short irons were just a little more on target, I would have certainly had some better birdie opportunities than always putting from 20, 25 feet. You've got to hit those shorter irons in there much closer than that.

But that being said, Peter made a lot of birdies and made a lot of nice swings. So I knew that to me the golf course scoring condition wise didn't change much from day to day. If anything, it wouldn't surprise me to see as good or better scores than yesterday today.

Q. Players that come here always rave about the condition of the golf course, but I wonder if since they've taken the trees out in the last two years, particularly this year, now that it's had a chance to take hold, do you notice a difference in the way the fairways run, the way the greens are? Kenny Perry was saying they have a lot of grass on them, yet they're really, really fast?

JEFF SLUMAN: Well, I would think, since you asked the question, I would think with all the trees that have been taken out around the greens that actually that's probably a little more difficult, you're going to get a little wind that you don't feel kind of banging around in there a little more than having a stand of trees kind of block the wind.

It could be a little bit more difficult wind condition wise up by the green with swirling winds. But as far as the fairways, I know they always want them firm and fast, but Mother Nature doesn't seem to cooperate a whole lot here. If we dodge the looks like there's a storm building up. I don't know if it is or not, but if we dodge any rain today, I think we've got a chance to have some good, firm conditions on the weekend, which will really make the guys think off the tee, which I think Jack always wants you to do. You've got to shape the ball against the fairways to try and keep them in if they're running fast.

Q. The first half of the field today it looked like there were some guys who were making runs early under par taking advantage of the scoring opportunities but then they came back. Anything you saw out there that caused that?

JEFF SLUMAN: Not really. I think that it's a difficult golf course, and if you hit it off line a little bit, the rough is so severe, it's difficult to make a par here or there. But I think you'll see in general if a guy is 4 or 5 under after 10, it doesn't happen very often that he can continue that pace and go ahead and shoot 62 or 63. It's not that type of golf course.

15 is going to play a little more difficult today, only because of where the pin is; it's 25 on and three to the right and right over the bunker. Yesterday it was a readily accessible pin. But today if you don't get it on the green or probably through the green, you're going to have a really tough time with a pitch getting it close.

All it takes is just a few holes to play a little more difficult like that, but that's one of those things, you come to a hole like that, maybe 5 or 6 under, and you're thinking maybe I can make a 3 and you walk off with 5 or something.

Nobody seems to light this golf course up. It's one of these sometimes it's okay to get to 5, 6 under, but it's a difficult course to get to the 8 or 9 under. It just doesn't seem to happen.

Q. Do you have any argument with where the pin was at 4?

JEFF SLUMAN: It was tough, I know that. Actually I hit it in there I hit a nice iron in there, dead pin high to about six feet. It was on the green and it was rolling, and I was saying, "just stay on the green." I saw Todd Hamilton miss it left and I chipped it and it rolled back, so there's probably a lot of that going on out there today. You know that going in, there's a little false front, a little runoff on the left, and you try and keep it up there just to the right of the hole.

Q. You're not the first guy that's mentioned the severity of the rough. Is it higher, thicker?

JEFF SLUMAN: It's a little higher, it's a little thicker, and the ball is sinking right down to the bottom, which I don't know how they've accomplished that, but I'm sure the USGA would like to know (laughing).

It's one of those deals, again, if you miss the fairway by say the first five yards, it's difficult, but if you go ahead and air it out and get it into where the people are walking, because the grass is a little different over where the people are walking, then you've got a pretty good chance to hack it up near the green or whatever.

But for the most part, if you just miss the fairway, you're going to have to be extremely fortunate to have a shot that you can manage to get up on the green or feel like you can get on the green.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Jeff Sluman, thanks.

End of FastScripts.

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297