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DEUTSCHE BANK PLAYERS' CHAMPIONSHIP OF EUROPE

July 22, 2005

Michael Campbell

HAMBURG, GERMANY

RODDY WILLIAMS: Michael, tremendous start there, 7 under par, 65, seven birdies, no dropped shots. A pretty good day's work.

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: Yeah, well, today was a nice day of playing golf, and I just had a mindset of, I saw a lot of fairways, a lot of greens out there and the holes seemed like as big as a bucket. So when you have that sort of mentality going on in your mind when you're playing a round of golf, it definitely helps the score.

RODDY WILLIAMS: How difficult was it starting a day later than you were supposed to have done?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: For me it was a blessing in disguise really because it's been a very exhausting last six weeks, and yesterday I just did nothing. I slept and watched movies. So I needed to rest, and it was more of a positive thing for me rather than a negative thing.

RODDY WILLIAMS: Clearly the confidence has carried you over the last few weeks, still burning bright.

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: Yes, one thing I've noticed, one thing I've been doing the last couple of months or so is I'm focusing pretty much on every shot. During past times I get a little bit lazy and kind of fall asleep for two or three holes and made a few silly errors, but now I'm focusing on pretty much every shot and hence my scoring has improved over the last couple of months.

Q. How did the course play after all of the rain?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: It drained very, very well. For all of the weather we've had, I was very surprised. No one took any relief because of water, at all, in our threesome, anyway. I think it's all credit to the designer of the golf course and the greens staff for doing such a great job yesterday.

Q. What's it like when you get into this room where it's seemingly, golf seems like an easy game and you just keep sticking round after round together, what does it feel like?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: It feels easy. The game feels easy right now, but I still respect it. I respect the game a lot, and I know that when you think you've got this game by the scruff of this neck, it bites you back very, very quickly.

I'm just going through my own sort of formula that works right now with my routine before I play and after I play. Lots of different things, lots of different things I'm going right now that helps me to perform to my maximum ability.

Q. I think we spoke in Malaysia when you were having a tougher time, can you quite believe the difference since then, the change in form?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: I've been close the whole year, very close the whole year. And what's changed is just basically I got a new driver in the bag, the FT 3 Fusion driver the week of the first week I used it was Johnnie Walker, about three months ago and my stats and length with that driver has definitely improved over the last three months.

If you look at my stats before and after the Johnnie Walker, it's night and day.

Q. How much improvement?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: At least 12 yards, and probably improved my accuracy by about 40 percent, so it's a lot. And if you drive the ball so well, that's half the golf course gone.

I think today I missed probably about two or three fairways. So I'm hitting between 10 and 12 fairways per round, which is pretty handy. The week at Pinehurst, I hit 12 out of 14 the first sound, and 10 out of 14 the second round. It's really helped me to have obviously an easier approach shot to the green and hit it a little bit further and straighter off the tee.

Q. We could not actually see the last green; did you miss a short one or a shortish one?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: It was a makeable putt, ten feet, 12 feet. I missed a tiddler on the first hole, my first hole, the tenth hole from three feet for birdie, so it could have been a lot better.

I lipped out for eagle on 15, lipped out for eagle on 15, hit it to about ten feet away. So it could have been a lot lower today than it shows.

Q. I'm interested, Michael, in what you said about having focus on every shot; whereas before it might not have been there for every shot. What have you done to achieve that? Is there something you're doing?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: Just told myself to. (Laughing). Simple as that. I do get laziness, I think that's why I'm so inconsistent with my performances through my whole career, either missing cuts or winning golf tournaments. It's always up and down and it's sort of a roller coaster ride. But in recent times the last couple of months I've decided to focus on every single shot. Sometimes when you get tired out there, you just get a little bit lazy and you don't really see, you don't really care what happens to the ball and you don't really visualize a shot properly or clearly. But I've been doing that for the last couple of months, so it's helped me a lot with my game.

Q. I would like to hear a few words about a young German player, Marcel Siem, who played a good round with you today?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: He's a great talent. He's got the ability; he's got the ingredients to be a great player. He's long, he's strong, he's young, 25 years old. He's got a great putting stroke. He's definitely a great talent for Germany. He can go a long way. He needs to work on his course management a little, but besides that, he's got a big heart, too. He's got a desire to win, I can see that, and I can feel that. I feel that he can do good in this game.

Q. In an interview, he said he had problems with his emotions to keep them controlled; did you experience that a little bit?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: He's very excitable, very excitable. He's a player that needs to show his emotions, which is fine. Some players do; some players don't. I'm sort of like in between. Retief Goosen doesn't show any emotion at all. It's a little different. Marcel, he's very, very excitable. If he makes a putt, you sort of know about it the way he does the old fisty pump. No, he's a great talent.

Q. And second question, two days ago, you said you didn't get to play on the course at all. Obviously yesterday you didn't. Are you at the moment, you just play too well or so confident that you don't need to practice more?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: As I said before, it's been a long six weeks, so I'm very tired and so I'm trying to just reserve a lot of energy. I didn't come out and yesterday or practice at all. I just slept all yesterday because it had been a big six weeks.

I played in the Pro Am, so I saw the changes, good changes, and the course played tough, really, really tough. It was obviously a little bit easier today with the scoring, but once again, I think they have done a great job in lengthening the golf course and done a great job in repairing the golf course after such a huge downpour of rain in the last 24 hours.

Q. Remind us of your plans after this, you're heading for New Zealand next week?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: On Monday.

Q. For how long?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: Ten days.

Q. And you put your dad out here with you this week?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: My dad is here. Ten days of having fun.

RODDY WILLIAMS: Could you rattle through your birdies before you go?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: Driver off the tee in the bunker, hit it to about 110 yards short of the green for my second and had sand wedge to probably two feet on the third.

Fourth hole, driver, 7 iron to about 12 feet.

Eighth hole, 3 iron, wedge to about ten feet.

11th hole, driver, 9 iron to about 25 feet.

12, driver, 5 iron to about 15 feet.

13, 3 iron, wedge to about ten feet.

15, driver, 3 wood on the green, 15 feet away and lipped out for eagle. RODDY WILLIAMS: Michael, thank you very much. Very well played. Good luck tomorrow.

End of FastScripts.

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