SHELL HOUSTON OPEN

April 27, 2003

Mark Calcavecchia

JOAN V.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Mark, for joining us for a few minutes. You had a great year so far this year. You played pretty well. And you had a great week this week and you should be pretty happy with what you did this week.

MARK CALCAVECCHIA: Thanks, Joan. I did have a good week, and I liked the golf course right from the get go. I thought it suit my game. I said on Wednesday that I honestly believe the guy who played the best tee-to-green, I mean, from the time he teed it up to the time he holed up to win the tournament, that's best I have ever seen Fred play. When you can step it up those last five holes like he did, because he didn't hit a shot on the club face on 11, 12, 13, honestly, and I am telling you he hit every shot dead perfect the last five holes. He hit the one so good on 17, it went through the wind 30 feet long, but it was a perfect shot. To do that to win a tournament shows me a lot. I certainly didn't do it. I was all over the place again, and so but, you know, he played great. But I will take out of this week that I know I am going to win again, eventually. I said I'd win this year a few weeks ago, so I am narrowing in on it.

Q. Could you walk us through your adventure in the water there.

MARK CALCAVECCHIA: Well, I hit it in the fairway bunker off the tee and was shocked I only had 182 yards to the front of the green. I absolutely killed a 5-iron. It was even drawing, it was as good a shot as I could hit. It didn't come close to get up to the front of the green. And it hit the bank, jumped back down the edge, the ball wasn't in the water, but I had to go in and I just decided to leave my shoes on -- my feet are a little wet by the way. Rolled up my pants, when I got in there, it was like suction cup sand and I went down and it sunk. It was, like, woosh, and I thought I was going to lose both my shoes in there. I was trying to get my stance. I couldn't get my feet out of the muck. It was pretty interesting stuff.

Then I had choked up halfway up the shaft. Now I am thinking about chunking it or hitting myself in the rib with my grip. All kinds of crazy things. Understandably, I hit it a little hard because I wanted to make sure I got it up over the hill, and then how that putt didn't go in just kind of pretty much summed up my day with the putter.

I had 33 putts today. Fred probably had about 25. That's what you have to do to win. I am not complaining, but he putted great yesterday and he putted great today, and I am sure he putted great the first two days. You cannot win a tournament out here without putting good all four days.

Q. How deflating was the bomb that he made right after he just got through knocking it stiff?

MARK CALCAVECCHIA: It wasn't that deflating. Bombs happen. What was deflating was 3-putt myself, 9 and 10, I hit two great shots at 9 and putted it up there five feet right of the hole, hit that putt as good as I could, the grain just snatched it dead right. Then I hit 2 perfect shots on 10, Fred was all over the place to the right, was looking to bogey the whole time. I hit this putt and I blinked because it was like right -- when it was going in I blinked and when I opened my eyes I saw it is spinning right on the outside of the cup. I don't know how -- that was what was deflating honestly. I hung in and made a good par on 11 birdied 12 and Fred was still struggling and then hit about four inches behind one on the 13th hole and then hit just a marvelous bunker shot to a foot. I 3-putted. That's where the whole thing went south for me. Then Fred was perfect after that.

Q. How difficult was it or was it playing on sort of his own field with all the support?

MARK CALCAVECCHIA: It's like that when you play with Fred no matter where you go. He is just a fan favorite all over the world honestly. I play a lot of different places with him and I knew there would be a lot of people out there and most of them would be rooting for Fred. That didn't bother me in the least. Absolutely fueled my fire a little bit. I wanted to win as bad as anybody and you know, who the gallery is rooting for doesn't make a difference for me. I know I had at least one supporter out there for me.

Q. Putting aside your own disappointment, talk about how you feel maybe happy for Fred and the enjoyment that the two of you seem to have playing together in that final group?

MARK CALCAVECCHIA: Well, yeah, putting aside my disappointment, I am very happy for Fred. He said a very nice thing to me there on 18 and just said he didn't think -- he probably thought that he might not have won the tournament had he not been paired with me the last couple of days that. Meant a lot to me for him to say that. Then he understandably, just so happy he, was having trouble adding up the score card, I said, slow down, gave it to Joe to check over five or six times, and I wrote all the scores down correct, so he was choked up in there and I am sure he is going to have a great night, great week off. Hopefully me and him will be back at it again in two weeks when we both play again in Charlotte.

End of FastScripts....