WGC NEC INVITATIONAL

August 24, 2002

Fred Funk

GORDON SIMPSON: Well, Fred, congratulations today, a round of 68. For a man who got in here on 200ths of a point on world rankings, you're doing well.

FRED FUNK: It was touch and go getting in, obviously, with my finish last week. And I'm happy to be here, obviously. And I've really been -- just really to sum up my play is I've turned into kind of a scoring machine today, because I didn't play very good today. I've been struggling with my ball-striking all week. I actually struggled with it last week a little bit, too. But I can't get set up over the ball properly, and I don't have any balance, so I'm not hitting the ball real solid, and actually hitting it crooked a little bit.

To be where I am, I'm pretty surprised. It's not that I'm putting that great, but I'm getting a lot out of my rounds. And today I was really reeling on the front nine. I hit No. 2 in two, but hit a terrible iron into 3, and made bogey and -- with a 6-iron, and drove it in the rough on 4 and made another bogey. And then I started getting up-and-down all over the place, especially on the back 9.

GORDON SIMPSON: Was it a sense of disappointment last week the way you finished?

FRED FUNK: No, not at all. I couldn't be -- I was slightly disappointed in the way I played on Sunday, not that I played poorly, I just didn't play that good. I kind of played the way I did today, or this week, but last week was just so much fun, I couldn't take anything away from last week. I had a ball.

Q. You said at the end you hated to see the week end, and yet it seems like this fun little ride keeps right on going.

FRED FUNK: Yeah, it has. It's funny how this game is, because earlier in the year you could hit the ball great and not score at all. And I've been hitting the ball really well for the last couple of months, and truly the last two weeks, I've started to struggle with getting into the ball. My whole game is based on my setup. When I feel good over the ball, I usually hit it really good. And I can say I felt good over two shots today, and that was it. And that was on the 14th tee and 14th fairway, and then from then on I never really felt that good over the ball.

I'm trying to figure things out. I'm usually a little wider with my stance, I've tried narrow. Wide is not working, narrow is not working. I can't find the middle. I don't know where the ball position is. I'm really slapping it around. As far as my distance off the tee, it's not very good. And my accuracy is down, too. So it's kind of a weird week. But I holed a bunker shot today, and got it up-and-down out of three other bunker shots, and made a nice 2-putt on -- nice putt for birdie on 11.

And 9 was really one where it was a two-shot swing. I probably had a 45- or 50-footer, and killed the putt where it truly would have rolled off the green, and instead it slams into the back of the hole and pops up into the air and goes in and made birdie there -- I probably would have made four there easy, because it would have gone off -- what was behind the hole was a downslope, and it probably would have rolled off the green. That was a two-shot swing. So actually that kind of relaxed me a little bit, because I thought of it as being a two-shot swing, and anything else is a bonus here. And I relaxed and played really well. Although I made some good up-and-downs on the back.

GORDON SIMPSON: Where did you hole the bunker shot?

FRED FUNK: On 17, I hit a 3-iron, it was 226 to the hole. I hit it a little thin. And it flew a little farther than it should, but it had no check on it, and it released over to the back of the green. It was an easy bunker shot, but not easy enough to hole. And it was the kind of exact same one I had on 10. I hit a 9-iron that landed short of the pin and hit like a trampoline and went over the green. The pin was right there and I almost holed that one. I had some easy bunker shots, but they were still ones you have to get up-and-down.

Q. I realize this isn't a major, Fred, but having been in the thick of it really for the first time in your career in a major last week, do you feel any more comfortable in the position you're in now?

FRED FUNK: No. I wish I was hitting the ball as good as I was a couple of weeks ago, because then it would be different. I'm really enjoying it. I think the bottom line has been my attitude. I've just changed my attitude around and I'm not dwelling on -- I started to get a little down on the front nine and my caddy got right in my face, because I was struggling so much with my ball-striking, and he just said, "Hey, just gut it out." And I kind of cheered up a little bit.

And then the putt on 9 really kind of cheered me up. I made a good swing on 8 and 9 -- good swing on 8 and a good putt on 9, it turned things around. A little momentum change.

Q. What would you have been doing if you hadn't gotten into this tournament? And secondly, this tournament obviously is shaping up to be much different than the '98 PGA Championship, so many guys near the top of the leaderboard. Is that the way you guys like it, you being in the middle of this?

FRED FUNK: Absolutely. The golf course is playing great. It's getting firmer as the week goes. And now the ball is running more into the rough than it used to or than it did the first couple of days. And that's why the course is playing a little more difficult. I think it was tough to shoot a low number today, because it was easy to get into that rough. And it is a very, very narrow golf course. And the greens are getting firmer, and the pin placements were really tough today, they were all stuck in little corners or ridges. They have been every day, but today seemed more, because of the firmness of the greens. And I would have been in Reno, had I not been here.

Sunday night I didn't know where to go. We took a gamble that -- which city to go to. It was like a coin flip. So we just decided to come here, and found out in the morning we were in by 200ths of a point. And that's about as close as you can get.

GORDON SIMPSON: How did you find out at 4 a.m.? Did you phone the UK?

FRED FUNK: Yes, my wife got on the Internet for the UK. She didn't find a list of the World Golf rankings, but a two paragraph thing that said Rich Beem, Fred Funk in, and Jeff Sluman and somebody else was out. And I felt really bad for Jeff, because he really deserves to be here, I think. But that's another story all in itself.

Q. You hear guys a lot of times say, "When it's your turn to win, when it's your week to win, things just happen." It sounds like things are happening that maybe you're getting breaks this week?

FRED FUNK: I've gotten some good breaks. I have this pull shot going, and I get on 12 today and I just pull it 30 yards right through that fir tree off the tee that's way left. But it goes -- it clips it, but it stays in the fairway, where I had a 4-wood into the green. But I had a shot. And that was a pretty good break.

Yesterday I slammed one into the tree on my second shot on 11, trying to hit driver out of the fairway, and if it bounces left, who knows where it's going to go. Instead it bounces right. I made bogey on the hole, but I could have made a huge number. I'm still making some nice putts, which is really nice. I'm not putting lights out like I was last week, but I'm not putting poorly, either. That part is nice.

Q. Are you still fist pumping?

FRED FUNK: I got it going on the back nine a little bit. It's a different atmosphere than last week. But it started to become like last week in a smaller degree down on 17, when I made that out of the bunker, that was last week's emotion a little bit. Not quite as loud as last week. But people were cheering me walking down the tee. And the grandstand to the left was yelling, "Freddie, Freddie." And then I holed it and they went crazy. Yeah, that was nice. That was a fun little moment there.

18, I wish I had birdied that one. I could have had them going there, too. That's the fun thing, is that I'm trying to give them something to cheer for, so I'm conscious of the fact, that, hey, I know they're going to do something. The crowd was starting to get loud. You could hear it through the golf course when somebody did something. It sounded a lot less mellow than it sounded the first few days.

Q. How much reaction have you gotten in the last week since your brother's thing came out?

FRED FUNK: I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from everybody. One, saying prayers for my brother, and wishing him the best to just making -- apparently, I haven't seen the telecast, but apparently it did come across pretty good last week on TV. I hope it did. It did look like I was having a good time, and that it was fun to watch. And that's great if it did. That's what I was hoping. It was something that just kind of built on itself and just kept happening as the week went, and it really was a lot of fun last week.

GORDON SIMPSON: Fred, keep on entertaining us. Thanks very much.

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