KEMPER OPEN

May 28, 1999

Bradley Hughes

BRADLEY HUGHES: I didn't have such a great start. I didn't hit the ball very well at the start. A lot of trouble hitting off the 10th hole for some reason. I like to play the course normal way around. It is difficult playing back to front in your mind. Once I got through the first couple of holes I played pretty solid after that.

BRADLEY HUGHES: I think the way the course is playing it is playing much longer this year because of the different fairways. The greens are pretty difficult to read. A lot of double breaking putts and it is hard to get the ball close where some of the pins are. So if you play well, you can shoot your 3, 4-under but you have to like put it out of your head, really to shoot 7, 8-under like some people do most weeks. That is why it is bunched up. You can sort of stretch around and make your par or whatever, but to play good you are not going to go real, real low, that is the type of course it is.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Different grasses there, not as much run out there. The ball is pretty much stopping where you drive it to. I mean, if the greens firmed up because of the wind the course would be really, really tough to get the ball near the hole. You need a lot of long putts and to be able to survive more or less, the greens are still pretty receptive at the moment, so you got to peek your flags that you can go at; then steer away from the others that you might have trouble with.

BRADLEY HUGHES: No, don't really know what is happening in cricket. I have lost contact with that. I think we are getting beat anyway, so it doesn't really matter now.

BRADLEY HUGHES: I think, well, I think this is a good course in that it is not a 20-under course. It's always been, around the 10-under mark. Most of my good results have been where it is -- courses where it is single-winning scores. And when the courses play tougher, I hit a lot of fairways and a lot of greens normally, but my putting needs a little bit of room for improvement. I don't make enough birdie putts. With me, hitting fairways and greens, I am going to make a lot of pars which is better for me on the harder courses. This suits my game pretty good. If I was going to shoot 68 everyday, I would just go and have a couple of beers and see what happened on Sunday. I think that would be pretty close by the end of it all.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Drove it right on 12, just pitched it out, laid it up, made a bogey there. 14, I hit a sand iron right onto the front edge from about 25 feet, holed that. Next I got it up 50, 60 yards from the green, pitched it up to about ten feet, I guess. And 5, I hit a sand iron to only a foot or so. Then 6, I laid up and hit a sand iron there to about ten feet and holed. That. Then the last hole, 9th, I hit a wedge to whatever that was, seven, eight feet.

BRADLEY HUGHES: I am playing fairly consistent without playing outstanding. I have hit a lot of good shots but obviously one or two bad ones each round or so, that has really hurt me. This week I have been working hard on my swing with my coach and getting pretty close. Done a lot of finetuning with it, now it is not major stuff. Now it is just finetuning, so now that I know I am close to getting it where I want to be, it is much easy to go out and play and hit the shots you want and you are not frightened by missing greens. You can stand up there and be confident. You can fire away exactly where you want it. So now that I am playing a little bit better and don't have to work so hard on my swing, I can putt more effort into my short game as well and that is coming along pretty good. So I am saving shots there around the greens where normally I was messing them up.

BRADLEY HUGHES: When I was growing up, professional team, I got signed to play with them. At that point I trained a little bit with them and then decided to stick to golf. When I was growing up I was one of the better players on our team, so the other team took offense to that and tried to take my head off every week so I had enough by then.

BRADLEY HUGHES: When I was about 16 or 17.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Well, I sort of trained. I didn't play with them. I decided then that I wasn't going to do it. I played for six, seven years up to that in junior league and under age teams and things like that.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Not really. I mean, I played in both at that point. But I think I liked the-- golf is more individual, whereas football people can make you look good or bad depending on what they did with the ball once you gave it to them. In golf it was just making myself look good or bad. So that was -- I think I liked practicing, I used to like going down to the range, running around the track a few times didn't really interest me that much after a while.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Yes. I live out near Bay Hill, joined there the middle of last year which has helped a bit as well because I didn't have anywhere to play or practice up to then. Used to go to the range. Since I joined, my game has been much better because I can play nine holes at night and get a bit of competitiveness in my game as well, instead of just whacking on the range.

BRADLEY HUGHES: No, just five minutes away.

BRADLEY HUGHES: This Tour has obviously got the most money. It is much easier to travel. It is probably more like Australian than any of the other Tours that I have played so that makes it easier. Courses are very similar. So it takes a little bit of getting used to. Obviously it's not every day you go out and play against Tom Watson or things like that, so you got to get used to that. In Australia playing was like you are going to get some good draws there with the marquee players that came out so that helped a little bit. Now that I have been in two or three of these I have gotten to know the courses better so that has helped, I think.

BRADLEY HUGHES: Girls questions?

BRADLEY HUGHES: Okay.