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FBR OPEN

January 29, 2004

Jeff Sluman

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Jeff, for joining us for a few minutes. Good round today, good start. Four birdies in a row on the back side. You started out on 10.

JEFF SLUMAN: That's correct.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: So a good start for the week.

JEFF SLUMAN: Yeah, it was. I haven't played here in six or eight years, and my practice round consisted of seven holes on the front nine, so I hadn't really seen the back nine. The guys told me that besides the added length on 14 and 15, really the golf course hadn't changed at all. I didn't really feel it was mandatory to go out there. Sometimes it gives you a little better perspective and you get real focused out there and know exactly where you want to hit it. I kind of got things started on 14. Hit a nice 5-iron in to about a foot on 14.

15 -- Mark O'Meara and I were playing with John Daly. John went for it today, but Mark and I were talking if we hit our best drive, we'd hit it about 240. So we both laid it up and I hit a wedge in there about six feet.

16 is a par 3. That's one of those things about not playing the course, I remember the greens being very firm, so today they were holding. I hit a nice high 6-iron cut shot in there on 16, and in previous years it probably would have bounced into the crowd, but this year the greens were holding so I hit it about eight feet.

We all were close on 17, and I was the longest with about six or eight feet there with a 5-wood off the tee and a sand wedge in. So obviously getting off to a good start is very important in this tournament, especially on a day like today; basically no wind, the greens are holding, and the fairways are perfect.

If you drive the ball in the fairway you've got a real, real good chance to hit a relatively short birdie putt. There's only about three or four pins out there you've kind of got to play away from, but I did think the pins were extremely difficult today. The scores may not reflect it, but I thought they were -- the course, pin placement-wise, was set up pretty difficult.

Q. When was the last time you didn't play a practice round of the entire golf course before a tournament?

JEFF SLUMAN: Last week. There's four courses so you never get a round there.

Q. There was, I think, a lot of talk before the tournament that the way the course was set up now, it would probably favor long hitters, but you and Scott aren't the top of the distance list.

JEFF SLUMAN: One day doesn't win the horse race, but at the end of any week, any tournament, the long ball hitter has an advantage over a medium hitter, if they keep it in play, if they hit it in the fairway. They're going to have an advantage. I mean, there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. That's the way golf has always been. But this golf course, if you just look at the past winners, has typically seemed to favor much longer hitters, but there's always exceptions to the rule.

Q. Did you gain any distance on your driver over the off season?

JEFF SLUMAN: No.

Q. So you're hitting it the same? Because your average from last year, you're hitting it maybe -- it says 16 yards longer.

JEFF SLUMAN: You know, you've got to kind of wait until the end of the year, the conditions we play under. I didn't play Kapalua, which I did last year, and that always hurts you in driving distance, especially during the beginning of the year when you're not counting many drives.

I played the Bob Hope and Sony and it was pretty hard and fast there, so you get a lot of roll. This week, your driving distance, everybody's should be up significantly from their total year's average the last year after this event.

Q. Can you just talk about why you did stay away from this event?

JEFF SLUMAN: Well, a number of reasons, but one of them was, I didn't want to play four weeks in a row starting the year out. And for the most part, it always went Mercedes, Sony and then Bob Hope and I'd take a couple weeks off. I play a lot on Tour and I value my time off in the off season. I really don't do anything but pick up a club. I go out to Hawaii a little early to try and get ready, and I don't want to get burned out before we even hit the east coast. A lot of it is scheduling.

Q. Atmosphere at all?

JEFF SLUMAN: I think the Thunderbirds have made some wonderful improvements, and I think that's being noticed by a lot of players.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thanks for joining us.

End of FastScripts.

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