MICHELOB CHAMPIONSHIP AT KINGSMILL

October 6, 2000

Bradley Hughes

BRADLEY HUGHES: I played very solid yesterday. I had one mishap yesterday which hurt me on a par 5 where I double bogeyed, but I knew I was playing well and I have been putting quite well this week. For some reason I have really seen the lines well so i haven't had to attack all the holes. I have hit it pretty much to the safe side of the holes and if I have had a wedge in my hand, then I'd attack the pin. I have holed a lot. Probably holed 6, 7, 8 putts from 20 feet or so, 15, 20, 25 feet; which I haven't been holing of late. So that has made things a little easier. I haven't driven it long, but I have kept it out of the rough, hit a lot of fairly decent amount of fairways and I think I have hit a lot of greens. I might have missed four yesterday and only two today. So haven't had to struggle a lot for pars or anything which has made it a little bit easier.

BRADLEY HUGHES: First hole I hit a sand iron into about seven feet. Then the 3rd hole I was just short and chipped it up to less than a foot, so had a tap-in there. The 6th hole I hit a good 9-iron out of the fairway trap to about five feet, made that. Then the 7 I drove it in the rough and laid up; hit a sand iron from like 100 yards; that was a 20-footer, holed that one. Next hole hit 7-iron about 25 feet below the hole, made that one. 9 I pushed it in the bunker into a horrible spot really and had to get up-and-down for 5 from the other side out of the rough. 10, was 8-iron to about 18 feet. The 12th hole I hit a wedge fairly close there, probably four, five feet. 15 I laid up and hit a sand iron into like 20 feet, holed that one. 17, I hit 8-iron pin-high probably 25 to 30 feet, made that. So holed a few good ones and then some of the others I had chances also, but can't complain.

BRADLEY HUGHES: I think it was two years ago.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Yeah, I think I like the course in that you have to obviously strike it well and there is a lot of valleys and fairways wind a little bit so you have to keep the ball in play. The rough is just penal enough where if you want to be in play, if you miss the fairways, you can get some flying lies, which I are hard to control. Then the rough around the greens are pretty fluffy so it is easy to duff them or hit them too farr out of the green-side stuff Normally when I am on my game hitting greens is one of the -- the strong points in my game. I think that is why the course sets up well for me. I have just putted better this week. That is why I am 11-under.

BRADLEY HUGHES: That might be it, I think. I think I had a couple of 64s somewhere. That might have been it today.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Well, I had a really good start to the year; then I struggled. Once I got to Florida on the grainy greens - I never grew up on those things - so that has taken me a while to get used to all of them. Now I am seeing the breaks a little bit better on those. And my chipping I have worked really hard on that and it has improved so now I am a little bit more confident, if I miss a green or I can attack a flag, I know I have got a good chance of getting it up-and-down. That was one of my weakest parts of my game, my chipping, I couldn't do anything with it. So that has turned that around. Then last week I switched balls. I have been playing a wound ball for a long time and I told everyone my coach and my family and everything that I was playing well and I was shooting 76s and they thought I was lying to them. I was just standing there with hitting good shots, I just couldn't get the ball to go the distance that I wanted it to go. I think on the West Coast when it was colder I sort of allowed for that because it was colder and I took an extra club and what have you. But when the weather got better I knew how far I should be hitting a shot. I couldn't get it to go. My confidence got down because I didn't know whether to take an extra club and then I'd ease it and mess it up. So switched to a two piece ball last week and the results were pretty much immediate. I was hitting my irons probably -- not my driver much longer, but my irons, I am hitting 10, 15 yards longer with each club for no apparent reason except a different two piece ball. The other one I just spun too much. I think it just went up in the air in the wind, I was having a lot of trouble.

BRADLEY HUGHES: I went from a Titleist to a Nike. I think Titleist have a similar ball meant to be coming out next week, but I just felt for my best interests the way I was playing I had to get something going quickly and I just couldn't wait a couple more weeks. I had to get something done quickly and that is why I changed last week.

BRADLEY HUGHES: No, I not really. I just picked that one up. Good enough for Tiger, good enough for me. It went well. It was more than I expected. I changed clubs and I have changed my swing. I have done a lot of messing around with all different things, searching for a reason why I couldn't get the ball to go. I mean, when I first came out on Tour I was one of the longest hitters and this year I was like 111th going into last week in distance. Then that made me hit driver off every hole because I wasn't getting the distance on the holes, made me press on each hole and my accuracy got worse and everything snow-balled so I had to make a change. Hopefully I have done the right thing.

BRADLEY HUGHES: I think I was getting shorter and everyone else was getting longer. It was just a combination of both. I am not so worried about off the tee because normally I can hit it straight, but it has made a big difference with my irons. Like I am hitting my irons at least 10, 15 yards further. So I don't have to, you know, feel -- I don't have to go in with a drive 5-iron or 4-iron on holes, hitting similar drive, but I have get a 6-iron or 7-iron in my hand. It's obviously easier to hit a shorter iron closer. I have had a lot more opportunities.

BRADLEY HUGHES: It should have gone 160 to 165, but quite often I'd end up plugging in a bunker that was only like 150 carry, it was just strange, in the wind got up --

BRADLEY HUGHES: Yeah, I am. I have known that now I know if I have the yardage I can just go ahead and hit it and know that it is going to get there. Whereas before I could hit one that would get there and then I could hit one that wouldn't. So I don't think it was the brand. It was just the wound ball. I used to use a two piece when I was a an amateur growing up and then when I turned pro I changed and I didn't really know the difference. I have just sort have been searching and searching and finally I just pinned it down to that. I have changed clubs and my swing, and my hairstyle, done everything, nothing was working. So I just thought I'd try something different and it's really helped.

BRADLEY HUGHES: I just hit a poor drive there. We had a little wait on that tee and sort of knew I should have been 6-under after that hole and I was thinking about the birdie I was going to have, and I got ahead of myself.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Pulled it left into the hazard and tried to get it out and didn't. So I wasted a couple there. But I came back pretty good after that really.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Well, I think I had to try something because the other way I was going nuts. I was -- I felt like I was hitting it well and I was doing everything technically and as well as I could, but mentally I was just burnt out because I was hitting good shots and not getting the result that I knew I should have been getting for the shot that I was hitting. So it was just getting to my head after a while. Could I start out the rounds fairly well and fight it and fight it. Then at the end of the last few holes when the water is there and the pins are tucked that just made things much more difficult and I'd drop shots at the end and played fairly well and have even or 1-over and when I have played like a 4-under round or better. So it just made it harder.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Well, I had to get something going because I just had no confidence with the wound ball. I knew I wasn't going to get it done with that so I thought I had today try something because if I didn't and you know, get right down to the wire there and I'd have to do something really special in the last couple of weeks. I knew I was playing well so just had to try something I didn't think it was that big a deal and just get some confidence again.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Straight-a-way. As soon as I started hitting -- I had, say, 130 as to how far I used to hit a wedge and now I have been like, you hit a wedge 115, 120, I just stood there, 130, right, you know, right next to the hole. When you know you should be hitting a wedge 125 and you are only hitting -- it is 15, you are having a 40-foot putt, it is not very good with a wedge really.

BRADLEY HUGHES: I don't think so. I wouldn't say I do. I don't know. I have tried to have my swing out so wouldn't spin it as much. That was one of the things I worked on, but I don't think so.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Couldn't --

BRADLEY HUGHES: Wasn't meant to do it either, but I knew if I didn't do it I might not have a contract anyway next year because I wasn't going to keep my card. So I had no choice really. It was nothing against them. It was just something I needed to do.

BRADLEY HUGHES: That was awesome. I remember that for a long time and I think I was in Japan watching it. I was watching the week before when they announced the team, I think, something like that, the Canadian Open might have been, the week before, I said, oh, they started talking about The Presidents Cup so that would have been really good. I was having that week off in Japan and I went to bed and the phone rang like four hours later I think I was Mike who rang me and said I should get on a plane, he might need me. That was pretty cool. I flew on a plane; next thing I had dinner with the president and his wife. It was a pretty amazing thinking I was going to be in Japan and ended up there not even knowing if I was going to play. So then once I got there and found I was going to play, that made it even better. Then I played with Nick Price the first game so everything -- against Davis Love and Fred Couples so I couldn't have wished for more. It was a good event. I just wish I had played better the last couple of years and get in it again.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Well, I don't think anyone cared about the Ryder Cup 15 years ago either until Europe started winning it or all the time. So I don't know. The International Team won the last one, I know Americans don't like to lose at anything, so I am sure if they happen to -- if the International Team happened to knock this one off again then I am sure it will keep growing. The idea of it all is really good with, with the Americans against the rest of the world. I mean, they got the Ryder Cup which we can't play in, so I guess they need something. It is difficult for you guys having to play one each year, I think, but maybe some day they will have something where it is just a bi-annual thing, everybody competes against each other, I don't know, it will be hard to organize, but in an ideal world that will be the best thing.

BRADLEY HUGHES: I think so, yeah. I always thought we would probably win Royal Melbourne anyway; just needed a lot of local knowledge around there. The course in Virginia is fairly even matched. I think it doesn't really favor anyone. It is just whoever plays best. It is a good event and hopefully it goes down to the wire because a bit more exciting than blow out.

BRADLEY HUGHES: I am not famous enough to go back.

BRADLEY HUGHES: I would have liked to have been there but I had to get my card first. It was hard in one way in that I read the paper on the computer from home, I knew everything that had happened so -- from the time delay, you guys should get up at 4 AM like we have to watch everything, all the Olympics, and the U.S. Open golf and tennis, all that because of the time change. We don't tape delay it. We have got to suffer and set the alarm to get up.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Yeah.

BRADLEY HUGHES: I played Aussie Rules for, oh, probably seven, eight years. I got signed to play professionally for Melbourne who they played off in the final this year. I just kept getting beat up in the end. I was probably one of the better players on our team so once I got to the older age groups, they started taking it personal and tried to bury me every week. So I'd just get injured and then improve just in time to get beat up for the following week. I thought I'd better stick to golf after that. Everyone just got bigger and stronger than I was.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Probably 16 or 17 when I finished playing.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Nothing too bad. Just groin injury or I never broke anything, I don't think. That was about it. Just minor things, but just anything -- enough for you to take a while to get over them. I was unlucky. I didn't have anything too bad because it could have given me some rest.

BRADLEY HUGHES: A little bit because golf was a sissy's game at that point, but now I guess I have got the last laugh, I get to travel everywhere and if it was football as my career it would be over by now. I played a little bit with Darren Bennett who he came over here. I think he kicks for the Chargers. Me and him were on the same team growing up.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Well, I was signed to play. I just never did. I decided I was either going to go that way or towards golf and I qualified for a big tournament at home; then I won the Doug Sanders where I went over to Scotland to play. I thought that was a little bit better. It was more fun travelling around seeing everything, so at that point I didn't actually go and train with them. I just said I was going to stick at golf.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Yeah, I was in the middle, so I did both ways, offense and defense, so I used to run a bit more in those days than I do now. Probably ran about 20 miles in the game. Lucky to run about 20 meters.

BRADLEY HUGHES: I am out of touch with it now, but when I was growing up they didn't make a hell of a lot at all. Everyone else -- they all had to have other jobs during the week and then train at night and play on the weekend. It was a big gap compared to what happens over here, but I think now maybe the leaders probably get, I don't know, maybe a million Australia dollars or three-quarters of a million which is a pretty good salary for how it used to be.

BRADLEY HUGHES: I hope so.

BRADLEY HUGHES: It made it a bit easier because I knew how far I did used to hit the clubs, but it was -- I used to use a two piece ball; never even entered my mind until I sat down because I just totally was dumbfounded by the end, I didn't know what was wrong. I knew I was playing well and hitting shots and just wasn't happening. Then I just sat down one day and wrote a list of everything I could think of, why things were occurring and why they weren't, and then that one just popped into my head. I knew that I used to use it, Tour edition which was a two piece ball that everyone sort of laughed at at that point because they were one of the first ones to do it. But I knew that I used to hit it further than, much further than I did now and that was with a wooden driver in those days. That was one of the other reasons that I just thought, well, I have to do it now, try it.

BRADLEY HUGHES: I just went up and said: Have you got a couple of because I can try and I just used them a couple of them in the Pro-Am in Texas; then I put one into play on the second day because I struggled the first day.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Yeah, I missed the cut anyway. I had 78 the first day. Then used it last week.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Yeah. (laughs) That was it for me there. Like I say, it was a windy day, I just couldn't control it. Guys I was playing with were hitting 5-irons and I am trying to cut a little 3-iron, it was just a totally different course.

BRADLEY HUGHES: I haven't noticed anything with the way it stops. It doesn't feel much different. I am putting better so it might feel better to putt with, I don't know. Maybe that is me. But obviously it might not be good for another people, I mean, I play with Davis Love and obviously David Duval they use the wound ball and they rip it, so there might be something in there swing, they don't spin the ball as much so that ball is good for them. It was just a personal thing for me. It just didn't work. I knew I was getting shorter or everyone else was getting longer, so I had to see which way it was.