MERCEDES CHAMPIONSHIPS

January 11, 2004

Stuart Appleby

THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome the 2004 Mercedes Championship winner, Stuart Appleby. Congratulations, Stuart.

STUART APPLEBY: Thank you very much.

THE MODERATOR: No birdies on the Back 9, but you stayed steady coming in with all of those pars. Just comment on what it was like coming down the stretch.

STUART APPLEBY: I would have liked to have held, I guess, a larger lead through that section than what eventuated through the latter part of the last couple rounds of the day. Vijay hadn't really made much at all in the Front 9, but I did realize that Vijay was never going to go away.

It was looking like my cards were, you know, falling better with him missing and me making a couple. But by the same token, I knew I just had to do my own thing, which I knew got me almost across the line, just stay with that. But then Vijay closed in with some birdies, some very good birdies. I didn't make any mistakes. Eventually, I guess, to the benefit of me, he ran out of holes to really catch me, and I just had to really play smart coming in in pretty trying conditions all day.

THE MODERATOR: Four out of your last six tournaments, either second, then your two wins. Is this continuation from last year?

STUART APPLEBY: Well, form-wise, yeah, I think you could say form-wise. But there was definitely a break. You know -- how do I say it? The end of the year, I really tried to switch off for the little period I had to have a break. I guess that wasn't something I was doing when I was having a lot of seconds, won Vegas. I was just nose to the ground and go. But I think a lot of that, my game was really inside me this week. I felt very confident the way I was hitting it. Very similar to Vegas in ways because Vegas was a lot easier. This was a lot more of a challenge, and I did play very well this week, maybe even a little better than there.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Was there a point when you recognized a huge momentum swing? Was there a moment where you started sweating it at all?

STUART APPLEBY: In reference to, what, either nine? There was definitely a momentum change, but I really felt like that it was up to Vijay to catch me. I just really felt like that I wasn't going to let him have anything for free. He would have to earn it.

I knew that he would fight and struggle. And obviously you're talking with a guy who has come out of a good part of '03. One guy you have to show massive respect to. I just tried to play smart. The course wasn't -- what Vijay did was fantastic, to make those birdies on those holes. 15, I think (inaudible) birdied. That putt he made I guess was some good fortune because he didn't get any good luck on the Front 9. He makes that putt, keeps me honest.

But there wasn't any massive momentum change. It was just me getting further ahead early and him just pegging me back. It was just really a matter of us running out of time.

Q. Did you find yourself playing too conservatively?

STUART APPLEBY: Maybe at the end I had to. It was the smartest thing to do. I didn't need to go out and make birdies. What I needed to do is position myself that if I had an opportunity to birdie, I would give myself a reasonable chance. I didn't have to go smashing anything in the hole. The way the pins were located, it was very difficult to get the ball under the hole.

14 was tricky with it being where it was. I played the conservative route, almost made a three. Vijay played an aggressive route, almost, you know, really made it impossible to make a three from where it was. He made a good three there.

15 was playing pretty long today. I hit a pretty good drive, but just didn't feel it was necessary to try and go for the green. Think I could make a four potentially there. Vijay made a good four, I made a five. Again, that pin was not accessible.

16, wow, that green would say absolutely diabolically slippery. I knew it. Sailed by. Vijay makes his. His could potentially have gone 10 feet by. That's the sort of luck where he got the change around, I guess got the change of tides. I thought, okay, did two-shot leading going with two to go. Just play your way, smart. Vijay was going to have to go birdie, birdie, which was a chance. You can only control what you can do. That's what I did. That's why I got across the line.

Q. Specifically what are you doing better now than you were four or five months ago?

STUART APPLEBY: Hitting the ball better.

Q. Driving straight?

STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, driving the ball better, hitting better iron. All parts of my game, really. I think the thing if I was to look at any of my previous years, I'd like to drive the ball better, if I was trying to pick my game, I'd like to drive the ball better. Hit more fairways, which I think would entail more greens after that. That's where I feel like if I can get my game there, all of a sudden I have opportunities, now I can start to roll the ball. I feel like when I putt, I can make putts no problem. I have a good chipping game so I can be aggressive.

Q. Leading wire to wire, front to back, do you feel any extra pressure going into the lead on day one and trying to hold it through all four rounds?

STUART APPLEBY: Well, I can't talk from experience. You know, 72 holes are important. You can go and make an eight on the 1st hole, make a quad, lose by a shot. No one will remember what I had the 1st hole, you know. So it all is really relevant. I guess the peak of the whole tournament is that last two hours or even the last full 18 holes of the day.

I can't talk from wire-to-wire experience. Certainly, Mr. Woods has got a good track record there. I'd love to follow in that sort of tide.

Q. You had a two-shot lead on the first tee, I believe five at the turn.

STUART APPLEBY: I'm not exactly sure.

Q. In essence, was the tournament won for you on the front nine?

STUART APPLEBY: I think that was very significant. Yeah, I mean, if Vijay doesn't make his putts on the back, we're back to where we were. I've got a decent gap. You know, you could go on all day and say, "What if I didn't make my putts early? What if he didn't make his on the back?"

Q. In essence, was making your birdies on 3 and 5...

STUART APPLEBY: That certainly set it up, made it a lot easier for me. But you can hear in this room, it's very, very windy outside. It made my life easier. How it would have panned out if we would have all tied up going through 9, it would have been a good battle, I can guarantee you.

Q. Best playing week you've had for a while or ever?

STUART APPLEBY: It's really hard to say. I think -- sometimes you have these unbelievable weeks with just up and down everywhere. The greens were pretty big targets to hit. Very good putting week. I can't say how good it was, but it was a very good putting week. I drove the ball fantastic. The best I've hit it -- the strongest I felt I hit it. I made great contact with the ball all week, controlled the ball flight very well. That's more of the player that I'd like to be week in, week out. I guess the secret is, is doing that all the time.

Q. Having won two of your last four, can you talk about how much more optimistic you are about this year you're coming into, this next pile, than you have been previously?

STUART APPLEBY: I think what it does is solidify that what I'm doing on the golf course for me is working. So really the proof is in the pudding, a saying we use in Australia. The proof is in the pudding. I felt that through Vegas. I was thinking about Vegas probably today. Really today I was thinking, "What did I do in Vegas that got me across the line? What did I do the previous weeks even when I came second and didn't win? What was that?" It was just, "Never give up, stick to your guns, do what you're doing, play smart, let the cards fall where they do."

Q. When you say it only solidifies what you're doing is working, what are you doing that you didn't do before?

STUART APPLEBY: Sometimes it's intangible things in golf. Like I said yesterday, there's not really one super secret that's got me across the line. Sometimes it's just like bunches of little blocks, and you keep putting these blocks together, and all of a sudden you've got something. You've got a distinguishable feature.

Working on your weaknesses in your game, physical weaknesses, mental weaknesses, I've looked at all of those, and I've seen areas where, "Yeah, I think I can do better there. What's the shot that lets me down? What's the shot I struggle with?" Work on that. You're only as strong as your weaknesses, so really try to tighten them up.

A swing, yeah, just working on my swing. I was fighting for a few years, not last year, but for a few years on getting my putting stroke to go rhythmical smooth, get a little quick. I know Nick Price went through this. He's just totally changed how his stroke works. And myself, mine was quick now. I've got mine now, you know. Under pressure, I've got it smooth. I want to get it not so much smoother, but more stable again.

So those are things that eventually add up and become part of your game where you don't have to even think about them anymore. It's when you don't have to think about doing something all the time it becomes difficult. You just want to fly. I've got the game where it just can click.

Q. Were your weaknesses more here or here?

STUART APPLEBY: Both.

Q. Which was worse?

STUART APPLEBY: I think the brain controls the putter, I guess. So the brain would be the first thing (smiling). Then, you know, you're not going to stroke -- you know, you either make a poor pass at a ball or you make a poor stroke, and some of that can be flat-out mental. No matter how great -- it can be physical, sorry. No matter how think you're confident, your swing is total rubbish, it's not going to go anywhere. But when it is working, it's a matter of getting the brain just totally focused on it and just go. So there is a bit of a pattern, you know, method to the madness.

Q. You mentioned Tiger earlier in the week, a great year, a good year. Am I correct, you played some practice rounds with him down in Orlando?

STUART APPLEBY: No, I don't see him.

Q. You don't see him?

STUART APPLEBY: He hits like 10 balls on the range and goes home. I'm out there for four hours.

Q. Did you ever talk to him about winning?

STUART APPLEBY: No. I think it's a good idea, though. It's something that I really should do. I've always been an advocate of asking somebody who's -- I guess somebody you look up to, someone that you admire and someone who has gone where you want to go and ask them questions. It's certainly not about pride because you can learn a lot. You never know what you're going to get. Maybe won't tell me anything either.

Q. You talked about playing smart today. Would you say that's something you probably did all week, which was a big factor? Obviously, your swing was pretty good and your putting was good.

STUART APPLEBY: Smart? Yeah. I can't really see any holes out there. I mean, you start on the 1st. You got to hit a good drive down there. 2nd, you got to try and hit that green, difficult shot. You got the 3rd, you know, you can make a birdie on 3. There's only a couple of clubs you can hit off the tee. 4, there's not much you can do there. 5 is a par 5. Not like I went out and played super smart, like I laid it up on every hole like US Open or something like that. I went out and played the course. I think most guys play the course the way I did. The only difference is, how many times did I get up and down for pars or birdies and how many putts did I make?

Like I say, the greens are very easy to hit. It's where you position your ball to what you get left. Again, you play 72 holes, it still only comes down to 260, 270 shots, still only down to one or two, which is pretty amazing when you think about it..

Q. What is the miss you most commonly fight off a tee? What have you done mechanically perhaps to sort of deal or combat that?

STUART APPLEBY: I don't have that straight like a single shot. I can hit the ball left, I can hit the ball right. I guess like you guys, you know. I just try to make my misses a lot narrower.

I think like I typically feel more comfortable with the wind out of my right. But today, you know, I just hit the ball strong enough where the ball, my little Precept (pointing to hat), is flying through the wind like an arrow.

I tend to like the wind out of the right, but when I get up there and I got my irons today, wind out of the left, little draws in there.

So, no, I don't feel like I've really got an obvious weakness in the way the wind blows to the way it's going to show up in any particular problems. Something I'm always going to work on.

Q. Can you compare the conditions today to your first three wins on tour, which were also very windy Sundays? Secondly, when you see your swing on tape, do you see a swing that a lot of people consider to be in the top echelon on tour or do you see a motion that you constantly want to refine and get better?

STUART APPLEBY: Constantly want to refine and get better. I look at my swing on TV, and I go, "Does that look like what it feels like?" That's the first thing I think every player wants. "Gee, didn't feel like that."

I don't watch my swing that much, to be honest. I don't look at videotapes. I mean, what's happening, when you're hitting the ball, how you're feeling, that is the stuff that just sticks into your swing and flows through your body.

I don't know what people want -- swings they want to copy. I know there's plenty of great swings. You look at someone like Tiger, got a great swing. David Toms, Davis Love, those three guys there. I think everybody on the tour looks to those swings as something very repetitious and very functional.

Q. What was the discussion with Vijay on the last hole before you tapped in?

STUART APPLEBY: Just, "What do you want me to do? Do you want me to putt out?" He just looked at me, "If you mark it, you're going to have to move it." I said, "Screw it, I'll tap it in." Couldn't be bothered marking it and moving it, I'll just tap it in anyway.

Q. Was there a specific point on the Back 9 when you said, "Gee, Vijay is coming at me, I got to watch it"?

STUART APPLEBY: I guess as soon as he made his first birdie. Okay, there's his first birdie, he's closer. Then it was a matter of, what have I got? Literally, said this a hundred times, it was just me taking one shot, one hole, what was going on.

I didn't watch a lot what he was doing all day because, you know, I was the controller of my own destiny. If Vijay was going to come and mess around with my destiny, that was his pattern. I could only control what I was doing. I saw him starting to make birdies. I thought, "I'm playing pretty good. Hardly made a bogey all week. No reason to start making all that rubbish now. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, keep hitting it smart, then just try and sneak a couple in."

Basically on the Back 9, the putter is the only thing that's going to work for you. And for Vijay, like I say, to make those birdies in the difficult conditions, I don't think many guys would do that through that section.

Q. The lie on 18, how bad was it?

STUART APPLEBY: The third shot?

Q. Yes.

STUART APPLEBY: Not bad. It was all right.

Q. It looked bad on TV.

STUART APPLEBY: It was actually not sitting on the ground. The lie was already. The problem, I could get the front edge of the club under the ball, which was a big help. The shot wasn't overly difficult. Considering the situation, it got my attention. I knew I only had to hit it like 20, 25 yards. Obviously hit a good shot, smart enough shot. It wasn't the worst lie I've had.

Q. Each win is different in its own way. Talk about the quality of the field. This is a big win.

STUART APPLEBY: It is. And I forgot to answer your question before about the quality of the wins. When I won Honda, '97, came from behind and snuck up ahead of Payne, got across the line in windy conditions. I played great at that course. Kemper was in pretty trying conditions again in the wind. Houston was pretty breezy. I remember I shot 1-under on Sunday to win there. Here was more than just a light breeze. I've always felt comfortable, British Opens, I guess, had a second the other year. I feel comfortable in the breeze.

To get to your question, the quality of the field, yes, I guess there's only 29 guys I had to beat. But they happened to be only the best 29 that were playing good. You know, I was pretty happy about that. Maybe I caught them by surprise a bit sleepy out of Christmas, I don't know.

Q. You mentioned Vijay earlier. He's talked about wanting to replace Tiger at No. 1 over the next two years. Do you think that's possible?

STUART APPLEBY: There should be no one, including myself, that should deviate from whatever he thinks is possible. There's no reason why he can't. It will take some fantastic golf, a few scenarios have to be drawn out. But I think if that's his drive and that's his goal, we've seen what he can do when he sets his mind to something.

It would be very good to see that, yeah.

Q. You've known him for years, played with him for years. Do you see him or look at him differently now as a competitor than you ever have before?

STUART APPLEBY: I've always shown a lot of respect for Vijay. I think he's always one of the guys we love to have on The Presidents Cup team. I've seen his work ethic. I've seen how he plays. What I saw late last year was only typical of what I knew he could do. There's nothing surprising about it.

If that's what he wants to do, is to climb and claw his way up to the top, that's a very lofty goal, and that shows that he's willing to sacrifice whatever he's got to do to get there.

Q. Is he as good as anyone right now?

STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, definitely.

Q. A lot different course than anything else you see all year. What do you like about it?

STUART APPLEBY: I like it here because I won. It's an obvious. I'd play in a car park if I won (smiling).

Windy. I like the windy conditions. I've been practicing that in Australia when I was home the previous weeks. Similar breeze in strength to here. So I was really getting a feel for the wind.

You know, I guess the fairways are generous. Helps you if you're a little errant. I didn't feel I was errant at all this week. Drove the ball great, hit it in the right parts of the fairway, so I didn't have to use the runway. Hit a lot of greens, made a bunch of putts. I don't know what my stats are. Everyone I would expect to hit a lot of fairways here and a lot greens here. Really the only thing is to the putting to separate.

Q. A few minutes ago you said you took inventory of your weaknesses. What did you identify to improve? When was that inventory process?

STUART APPLEBY: To get slightly technical, what I've been trying -- what separated me from playing well to not playing well, everybody's got those things. Everybody's got something. Might be the take away, your setup, your aiming. Someone's got a weakness or someone's got I guess a strength where they he never have to look at that. Other people go, "I'm working on that all the time." You're always trying to wipe away your weaknesses. They're always going to be there, things that pop up. That's all we practice for. Not because we never hit good shots, it's to try to erase that, scrub it out.

For me, it was trying to get my arms to match my body speed. When I wasn't hitting it well, I wasn't getting my arms to match my body speed. So when I started to really work on that, like I said to Nicky Price, really worked hard, myself also, on getting the putter to be smooth. I worked hard at getting my arms working harmoniously with my chest. straightaway, when I do that, I get better ball flight, better shot making and obviously more confident. Technically, if you want to talk that sort of jargon.

Q. How much time do you spend in Australia and how much in Florida? Which do you consider home?

STUART APPLEBY: Australia is I guess my spiritual home. Always will be. Geographically, I'm spending a lot more weeks in Florida, Orlando. I'm probably spending, I don't know, 10 or 12 weeks, something like that. Very broken up over 12 months. I guess a week a month I'm there.

Then in Australia, this year we only spent not even a month. Normally I can almost get two months. But, yeah, it's sort of a bit of traveling.

Q. Now that you've won this, you almost won a British Open, is the logical next step you winning majors? This might put you Top 10.

STUART APPLEBY: I'm not really too worried about that. The logical next step for me is next week. There's next week's tournament. You know, I have no problem with winning a pile of regular events. I'm sure I'm going to slip in a nice, fat, juicy one in the future. I guess it's up to me to do the best I can and see what happens.

But there's no logical steps in golf. We've all seen that, you know. You guys all know what that is like.

Q. Why are you good in the wind?

STUART APPLEBY: Most Australians are because I think we play a lot in very windy conditions. Like Texans are generally considered pretty good wind players. Some guys are really good players on bent greens, Australians do well on fast greens. Firm greens we do well on. It's a little bit what we grew up on.

But Australia is a very windy place. We're constantly playing on wind that is between one and three clubs, hurting or helping. You play - -- I never thought I'd play on Bermuda style greens, I never -- terrible when I first came to the Nike Tour, we play on those greens. How am I ever going to putt? Grain, the ball goes sideways. Actually now I'm a pretty good putter. Somehow, took me a few years. That's become part of my game.

I think you can absorb new things that come into your golf, you always have the things you loved as a kid. Wind is obviously what I loved.

Q. You always had great success at Waialae. Very different course from here. How do you explain it?

STUART APPLEBY: Very different. I guess the wind is a factor there. So it's something that's a common denominator there. Greens are fantastic. Generally pretty flat. Very much a different course to mere. Much more pleasant course on the legs, I must say (smiling).

Q. Who gets the car?

STUART APPLEBY: I need a new garage before I worry about the car. I'm in the process actually before this week started of trying to work out whether I can get some more garage space, so it conforms with the design rules and the aesthetics of the community. That's what I'm trying to work out, see if that's possible.

So, yeah, I don't know.

Q. How big is it now?

STUART APPLEBY: It's two cars and a golf cart. The golf cart obviously takes pretty high priority when I'm about two miles from the range. My car and Ashley's car. I want to grow the stable. I guess there's really now a reason to build one, isn't there?

THE MODERATOR: Congratulations on great playing this week. Good luck the rest of the year.

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