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BUICK OPEN

July 30, 2004

John Daly

GRAND BLANC, MICHIGAN

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: John Daly, thanks for joining us. Great day for you on the golf course, 8 under 64, no bogeys. If we can maybe go through your round, a good day for you and a good start to the week for you.

JOHN DALY: Yeah, I hit it pretty solid today. It's very difficult to hit the fairways out here. Had a lot of first cut fairways, or just in the first cut off the fairways. I got off to a decent start. I birdied 1 and made a good birdie on 3. Trying to still remember the birdies I made.

I made a really good birdie on 6. Made about a 12 footer there for birdie.

And then 9, I made about an eight foot birdie putt; so I was off to a decent start.

Had an opportunity on 10 and 11. 10, anyway, I missed a 5 footer.

Came back on 13. Hit a really nice third shot on 13 and had a tap in birdie putt.

14, drove it just on the short fringe there and made a 5 footer actually for my birdie.

And then 16, hit driver 3 wood just on the fringe. Chipped up to about a couple of feet and made the birdie.

Then 17, I hit a really nice 6 iron about a foot and made birdie.

Q. As wet and as long as it is playing this week, does it give an advantage to the big hitters like you?

JOHN DALY: I don't think so, because the course, it's not a tremendously long course. It's been a while since we've had four par 5s on a golf course, too. I have not been reaching the par 5s in two as easy as you would if it was dry. You look at the leaderboard, it's a mixture as usual.

I think it's just the guy that putts the best here and hits his approach shots in the best because the greens are very, very soft; that you can spin the ball, you can throw the ball behind the flag about eight or nine feet and it's going to spin back down. But it is sort of an advantage to a long hitter that he's hitting straight. You're hitting a lot less club, to be able to control the shot in there.

Q. Is Ryder Cup anywhere in your mind at all?

JOHN DALY: Yeah, it is. It has been ever since San Diego, actually. But I didn't play very good in the majors. I didn't play bad golf; I just didn't score the way I wished I would have. It's kind of weird that it's the only two cuts I've missed this year.

The British Open I really didn't play that bad. That's just golf. That's the way the golf is over there. You have to catch a bounce here or there. Got a horrible break on 15 on Friday. Hit a pretty decent drive, rolled 70 yards out of bounds. I'm not discouraged about it, but you've got to catch some breaks in some of those majors.

But definitely the Ryder Cup is on my mind. I would love to be a part of that team. I feel like I could help the team the way I'm playing right now, solid as I'm hitting it. And I've got a little bit of confidence and I think that's what the captain would want. But there's a bunch of guys up there that right now could fill that void very easily.

Q. Through your career, you've talked about how the fans have sustained you along your journey; that really seems to be the case here, following you around, just all of the cheers of encouragement that you get when you walk the fairways. Can you talk a little about that?

JOHN DALY: This is such a great golf state. The fans are incredible here.

I haven't played this tournament as much as I would have liked to. It's always been a scheduling conflict; I've either been overseas or already played four or five in a row. I got a chance to play again last year for the first time in a few years and played solid, but the fans are awesome here. They are awesome to everybody. Most them, of course, are following Tiger, and I have a lot of Tiger's fans running up to catch him hit his tee shots and whatever, and a lot of them are following me, as well. It's a great feeling to have, especially when they are on your side. It's not a lot of fun, I'm sure, when they are not.

But they are great here. It's a great golfing community here. I think it's just a lot of fun to play here.

Q. I know it's been a long time, but when the conditions get like they were, it's wet and the ball is flying, does that ever remind you of Crooked Stick, do you ever think back to the way it was that week?

JOHN DALY: Crooked Stick I think was a little longer golf course. The fairways seem to be I don't know, seems like the fairways are a lot easier to hit there than they are here. These fairways are not easy to hit. That's why we're all looking at each other, how can 4 under be the cut here? That just shows you the quality of player on our tour now.

I sat there about four or five times in the last few days and thought I hit it right down the middle of the fairway here and it ended up in the rough.

Not too much like Crooked Stick. I think you can get away more around the greens here than you could at Crooked Stick. We got downpoured on six or seven holes, and that was a little uncomfortable. Here the most important thing is making sure you don't short side yourself in front of the pin, and next thing you know, you're 30 or 40 feet from the hole or running off the green. That's what I think me and Jose and Scott did really well these last two days. We made sure we made it past the hole and controlled the spin. That's what's going to win here this week.

Q. I'm sure you've already touched on it, a bunch of us getting in here late, can you talk about your play, and the rain obviously didn't seem to bother you today?

JOHN DALY: I didn't have any bogeys and shot 64. (Laughter.)

No, I hit the ball pretty solid today. It was a good round for me. I needed a round like this to get some confidence.

Like I said, I didn't have any bogeys, which is really nice, and eight birdies didn't really attack the par 5s, didn't really have a chance to. I think I laid up on all of them today and made a few birdies on them. It's just a good, solid round.

Q. Yesterday you shot a 70. Going into today's round, was your mindset just to stay above the cut, or were you thinking you could get back in this thing?

JOHN DALY: You're not really thinking about it. You just go out and play and you want to get off to a good start. Being 2 under after the first three that was kind of a good sign that things might be pretty good today.

Hit the driver a little bit better today. I thought maybe I didn't hit that many fairways, but I had a lot of opportunities to get the ball close to the greens when I did hit the tee ball.

Just played hole by hole and turned at 4 under and I thought, hey, maybe I can get it real low. Because I think the back nine, 10, besides 11, it's not really a birdie hole, but 10, 12, 13 and 14, I think are pretty relatively easy holes, compared to starting off 1, 2, 3 and 4. So if you can get off to a decent start like I did on the front, and take advantage of a couple of those holes pretty good.

Q. You talk about being surprised at the cut being 4( under)and talking about the quality of play on the Tour today. There's a lot of familiar names on the leaderboard, but probably some names some may not know about. Can you talk about the depth, the quality and depth throughout the Tour nowadays?

JOHN DALY: Well, I mean each time you get 156 of our guys playing each week, any of them can win. That's just not kidding. When you talk to you talk to the Fuzzy Zoellers and you talk to the Nicklauses and stuff about back in the day, I don't want to make them sound too old, but there's only about 10 or 12, 13 guys that they worried about.

You know, you can look on the European Tour, as well. Now their depth is getting stronger and we have our Nationwide Tour, those guys, there's a lot of tour guys that were out here for a while playing the Nationwide Tour.

So the fields of all of the tours are very, very strong. But like I said, anybody that tees it up in our TOUR events these day, they can win.

Q. Players can feed off each other when they are playing well, and today with you shooting 64 and other two guys in your group shooting 67, did you feel and sense that at times out there, and how much can that really help as you're moving through a round?

JOHN DALY: It always helps when you have all three guys playing decent golf you feed off of each other and momentum and rhythm and all that good stuff. Everybody is kind of more loose.

So, yeah, you do. Scott played really well. He missed a few putts. Jose is probably the best putter I've ever seen in my life. I've never seen a guy make so many putts. It's cool to watch. That's the way he plays.

But we all played pretty decent. You're right, you do feed off of one another.

Q. Even though you may not have been as consistent sometimes as you've wanted, when you have a chance to win, your track record is pretty good; why do you think that is?

JOHN DALY: I don't know. I don't know. Lucky, maybe. I have no idea.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Before we finish, we have an announcement.

LARRY PECK: IÃ¢ï¿½ï¿½m Larry Peck, marketing manager of the Buick Open.

John, welcome back to Grand Blanc, Michigan. You started out with a victory at the Buick Invitational and we had a brand new trophy that we unveiled out there in La Jolla, California, the Buick Winged Goddess Trophy, and the version for you to take home and put in your trophy case just happened to come in this week and we have it here today.

I'd love to present this to you to bring you continued good luck for the weekend.

JOHN DALY: Thanks, Larry. Wow. (Applause).

LARRY PECK: Hope to give you another one of those on Sunday, as well as another new Buick.

End of FastScripts.

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