FBR OPEN

January 30, 2004

Jeff Sluman

TODD BUDNICK: Thanks for coming in, Jeff, 4-under 67 today has you at 9-under for the tournament, one back of the lead with 36 holes to go. Are you surprised at all with your five years away.

JEFF SLUMAN: Was it five? It seemed like eight. Actually, I am. As you know, I still think the golf course over time is going to favor a long hitter, but as I mentioned yesterday, any golf course does if a long hitter hits it in the fairway. Typically if you look at who's won this golf tournament, for the most part they've been pretty long hitters. They lengthened the golf course up, but I rolled the ball very well for the first two days and hit a lot of shots close, so I took advantage of my opportunities.

Realistically if you look at where you're at, you'd have to say obviously the way Phil played last week winning the golf tournament, he's won here and as long as he is and he's on a roll, he's definitely the favorite.

TODD BUDNICK: You started off very well with three birdies and I guess a double after that, but it didn't seem to slow you down.

JEFF SLUMAN: Or the double ran into me. Yeah, I got off to a great start, birdied 1 and 3 and 4, and then 5, I hit it in the bunker off the tee and just tried to kind of -- didn't have a great lie and was trying to get it down where I'd have a wedge into the green and I caught the ball extremely solid and it almost went into the dry creek. It wasn't quite in the hazard. I chipped it just short of the green and then I had to play a bump-and-run. This was the first time it's ever happened to me in my life. I played a bump-and-run and the ball actually landed perfectly in the middle of a ball mark, and it just stopped. We kind of looked and started laughing. I had never seen that happen before, and I chipped it from there and made the putt for double bogey. So basically, I hit four consecutive wedges, which is, I think, a Tour record, at least.

Q. Is there any doubt in your mind -- have you already made up your mind -- you sound a little bit like you've made up your mind that you're not going to win.

JEFF SLUMAN: I don't think so. I just basically said if you look at Phil's record and the way he's been playing, he would have to be the favorite.

Q. I agree.

JEFF SLUMAN: So I think we're in agreement, but I'm not going to -- I mean, if that was the case, I probably should just get on a plane and go home, and I'm not going to do that, either.

Q. Realistically, do you think you have a chance to win?

JEFF SLUMAN: Oh, absolutely, but I'm just stating the obvious that I think Phil would definitely be the favorite. I think we'll just call Vegas and they'll probably agree with all of us, too.

Q. You said you were laughing about it. Were you able to continue to shake that off?

JEFF SLUMAN: I birdied the next hole, so it didn't really bother me too much. It's kind of a weird experience to see the ball hit kind of where you want and it kind of pops straight up in the air and didn't really move after that. I certainly wasn't expecting that.

TODD BUDNICK: You've obviously played last year a number of times and the number of victories you have on Tour, what is it going to be like playing tomorrow -- you said Phil is the favorite, he's the hometown guy. Is it any harder in that respect?

JEFF SLUMAN: I'm actually going to be in the second to the last group, I think it's Scott and Jonathan, so I'm going to be with Ricky Barnes and Mike Weir unless somebody finishes strong, so we'll be hearing screaming and yelling in back of us, but it'll be an exciting day tomorrow.

TODD BUDNICK: Let's go through the round.

JEFF SLUMAN: Birdie on 1, hit 3-iron, 8-iron to about 12 feet.

3, laid it up and had a perfect sand wedge distance and hit it in there about three feet.

4, I can honestly say I pulled the 7-iron a little bit. I wasn't trying to challenge that pin, and I ended up four feet behind the hole. I made birdie there.

We've talked about 5, driver, wedge, wedge, wedge, wedge.

6, after watching that, I was going to hit 3-wood off the tee and I saw Mark hit a beautiful drive, kind of threaded it through those 15-yard bunkers there, so I hit driver there and 7-iron to about nine feet there.

8, I pulled the drive into the desert and hit my second shot near the green and I hit a pretty decent chip, but it ended up in a bad spot, one of those five-foot downhill left-to-righters that seemingly you can't gun because if you miss it you're going to have at least five or six feet coming back. I hit a nice putt and it hit the edge and didn't go in.

10, hit a beautiful 3-wood down there. I think I had 122 yards and I hit a wedge about six feet.

13, hit a nice drive down the right side today instead of the left. Yesterday, Mark and I hit it down the left side and couldn't get home. Today, a little better conditions later in the day with it being warm, so I hit the second shot in the right bunker and hit a nice bunker shot to about five feet there.

Then coming home on 18, we all hit -- Mark and I hit really nice drives, and John hit it in the right bunker, which -- the new right bunker, but I hit a nice wedge in there. John hit a gorgeous putt right behind me, a fantastic putt that I thought was going in and it didn't. I learned how fast it was because it went by about three feet. I followed it up and actually made it.

John, hats off to him, he played a really nice back nine and hit some beautiful shots out there. It was good to see him play that way. He drove it on the green on 17 on the fly and had Mark and I kind of shaking our heads. We kind of heard a few cat calls from the crowd after John drove it on the green, because we laid it up, but we could take a bucket of balls and not get it on the green from there, but it was good to see John play well.

TODD BUDNICK: Jeff, thank you, and good luck this weekend.

End of FastScripts.