BAY HILL INVITATIONAL PRESENTED BY COOPER TIRES

March 14, 2002

John Daly

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you, John for joining us. Good round today. Why don't you talk about your round, and then we'll go into some questions.

JOHN DALY: It was a solid round. Hit a lot of fairways. Improved my strokes by ten shots, I think, on 6; made a 4 there today, so I was pretty happy.

Just a real solid, solid round. Putted real well and hit a lot of greens, which is the key out here. The couple of greens that I missed, I didn't get up-and-down. It's tough when you miss the greens here right now.

But very pleased. I think it's nice to finally have a decent round here. I've always loved coming here for Arnie and never really played good. So it's good to get off to a good start.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Questions?

Q. When you're playing well, does this course suit your game, do you think? If you're on your game, does the course suit you?

JOHN DALY: Sort of and sort of not. I played the par 5's 5-under today; that's what I shot. It does, in a way, where I'm hitting the ball solid. I hit it high and the greens are very -- they are very hard and I'm not hitting -- I'm hitting a lot of short clubs into the par 4's which should be an advantage. It's a course that I haven't had a lot of success on, so it's very difficult to really judge it.

You know, I like the way I'm playing now. This is the first year -- last year I came in here with with a cut and I didn't play too well, just sort of learning still a little bit now. And now I feel like I'm cut got it under control. It's a great cutter's golf course, and hopefully I can feed off of that.

Q. How long ago was it that you lived at Isleworth?

JOHN DALY: It was '92,'93. Somewhere in there.

Q. Is it more enjoyable having Tiger right in front of you with the large galleries back-to-back and playing real well? Do you feed off that even more?

JOHN DALY: I knew he's playing good. It was kind of cool because the gallery kind of watched both of us, both groups all day. It was a very quiet gallery today. I think everybody was still half-asleep when we teed off, I don't know. But very good galleries, too. Very quiet.

It doesn't matter, whatever Tiger is going is usually going to be, you're chasing him anyway because he always plays really well here, but he plays pretty well every week. It was kind of neat, in a way to, play behind him.

Q. Would you love to be paired with him on a Sunday? You've never been paired with him, have you, in a tournament?

JOHN DALY: '97 or '98 we played Memorial, I think. It was rained out. I think we played like nine holes or something, and then the round got cancelled or something. '98, I think it was.

Q. You talked a lot with Greg today. What sort of things did you guys talk about?

JOHN DALY: He's got a brand new boat. I said, "How many feet is it"?

"230."

"How many square feet is it?"

"23,000."

"My house is only 12,000. That's amazing."

But I said I've got to see. It it was really cool. We talked a lot. I mean, he played pretty good, and he's always been a good friend of mine. Through all of the up-and-downs he and Fuzz were always ones to call. It's really cool on a veteran to do that for a younger guy, so I've always been pretty good friends with him.

But I'm dying to see the boat. It's like four stories, it's incredible.

Q. Will they let you drive it?

JOHN DALY: I think he said there's crew of 14 that runs the whole boat. He says he can get from Australia to the West Coast and the States in about three weeks.

Q. What other kind of angle did you have in on 16?

JOHN DALY: Well, luckily the pin was left today. I hit 6-iron in. If it had been on the right side of the green, I probably would have had to kind of go right of the tree, trying to draw.

But luckily, I didn't have a very long iron to have to go in there.

Q. Where is the motorhome parked? I know it's not out here in the lot. At the hotel?

JOHN DALY: Just down the road a little bit. A buddy of mine has a golf course. They put a hookup up for me and everything. It's great.

Q. You're staying actually in it?

JOHN DALY: Yes.

Q. Are you going to Disney this afternoon?

JOHN DALY: No. I went yesterday. My two-year-old was dying to see Mickey. Couldn't find him anywhere. Nine of us go, we play $381; where in the hell is Mickey? (Laughter.)

We went to his house, we went to Tune Town, we went everywhere. We could not find Mickey Mouse. And my two-year-old is just crying because we couldn't get a picture.

Q. Did you personally go on any of the rides?

JOHN DALY: We wanted to go on the Splash Mountain thing, but just so many people there. I mean, it was unbelievable.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Can we go through your birdies and bogeys?

JOHN DALY: First birdie was 3,4, driver left of the bunker and a sand wedge and had 9-iron in to about eight feet and made birdie.

5, I hit 2-iron, sand wedge to about 20 feet and made it.

6, I sit driver. Had a lot of mud on the ball and laid up with 7-iron and hit L-wedge to about six feet and made it.

11 I hit 3-wood, wedge, to about five feet and made it.

12, I hit driver, 3-wood just on the back edge of the green, 2-putted.

13, the bogey I made, I hit a bad 2-iron off the tee and tried to chip a wedge on, kind of caught it fat in the water and made a really good bogey. Made about a 6-footer for bogey there.

14, flushed a 5-iron just thought it was enough, didn't get there, chipped it. Didn't hit a very good chip. Missed about a 12-footer.

16, hit driver, 6-iron to about 12 feet and made it.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you, John, for joining us.

JOHN DALY: You bet.

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