THE HONDA CLASSIC

March 10, 2005

Jesper Parnevik

JOE CHEMYCZ: We welcome Jesper Parnevik, 2001 Honda Classic Champion, had his 40th birthday on Monday.

JESPER PARNEVIK: That is correct.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Congratulations on that and congratulations on your round. Maybe just talk a little bit about the week for you.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I mean, of course, the last two weeks have been very hectic for me. I flew in about 60 friends and family from Europe coming in last week, and we had a lot of parties over the weekend and a big party on last Monday. So it's been a lot of fun, but at the same time it's been, like I said, very hectic.

My game, actually, felt really good last week, as well. So even though I haven't practiced very much this week, I have to admit, I felt that something good was about to happen. I'm really feeling it coming along. It's been coming long all last year but now it's to a new level it feels like.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Difficult to concentrate this week?

JESPER PARNEVIK: Of course it is, but sometimes it also helps, too, you know, don't expect that much. When your game starts feeling really good, you start expecting to win and so on and something, and that's something that hurts you a little bit. So I think having a lot of distractions this week could be a good thing.

Q. Even though you won at a different course than this, is there always a comfortable feeling in waking up in your own house and coming to work?

JESPER PARNEVIK: Definitely. I even went back and forth last week down to Doral and that's a little bit longer ride.

But, you know, as much as we travel to be home, to sleep in your own bed means a lot, and especially this week with all of my friends and family here. It's great to see them every night.

Q. So is it taking your mind off of things in a good way; do you think?

JESPER PARNEVIK: Yeah, I would say so. Like I said, I haven't had that much time to practice this week but it's -- I have to say, when I won at Heron Bay, I had a lot of friends and family that flew in that week as well; my parents were there, my sisters and all that. So maybe that's a good omen.

Q. I understand it's early but just how does it feel to be in the hunt?

JESPER PARNEVIK: Oh, like you said, it is early, but I'm more pleased about how my game feels, about how my shot pattern is that I don't hit wicked shots that are you aiming for a fade and you duck-hook it or you aim left and it goes straight right. I did that pretty much all the time a couple of years ago.

That's one thing Vijay is going so well right now, he has a shot pattern he can trust, he can take the left side of the golf course out if he wants to and so forth and so on. That's pretty much where I feel I am right now, but even though my game came back fairly well last year, it was not the same feeling I had three, four, five years ago where I played really, really well. It feels like my swing feels a lot closer to that than actually it did even last year.

Q. You said last week that you had Vijay take a look at your swing. Is it something that he pointed out that has helped you?

JESPER PARNEVIK: It definitely has, yeah. He told me, actually, in San Diego, he watched me on the range and he said, "Man, what happened to your hips? You used to have the best, fastest hips on TOUR a few years ago." And he always kind of watched my hip action and tried to learn from that when he practiced. It kind of hit me after the surgery I had in 2000 that my hips maybe have weakened and slowed down a lot because when I looked at it on video, whatever, it looks like not as fast as they used to be and through the ball, which means you can end up in a stuck move where you slide your hips instead of clearing the hips.

So I've been working on that the last month, I would say, and it's definitely helped a lot. I got back the old pattern with my swing again.

Q. We had Nick Faldo in here the other day and he was talking about how when he was during his serious competitive days, he didn't want other guy the to know what he was thinking, he didn't talk about their swings much because he didn't want them to know what he was doing right. Vijay on the other hand, I've seen him go up and down the range, he gives guys tips, he said he worked with you, I saw him working with Brandt Jobe once last week. Why do you think or what is it about Vijay that he's like this with his competitors where he honestly wants to help you, it seems?

JESPER PARNEVIK: I think that's more about this game, period. I don't know of any other sport where you would give away your secrets or tell someone what you've been doing or what was working. I don't know, this is a very strange game that way that you can actually think you've found a secret, and you actually want to tell your buddy who is hitting balls next to you to see if it works on them, as well.

I don't know, Faldo, pretty much didn't say much to anybody in that sense. So Vijay is a lot more out spoken and, you know, he likes to chat with the guys and fool around and so on. Last, I would say, five, six, seven years, Vijay has done a lot of work with his swing. So I think he started like Bobby Jones and he really got into it and I think that's why he's so swing-interested now and he's the kind of guy that really wants to share whatever knowledge he has with anyone.

Q. Was 40 a tough birthday for you, and how do you feel different as a person now that you're 40 years old?

JESPER PARNEVIK: No, I think that was a lot better than 30th. 30 was a little bit tougher because then all the, you know, you just got married, kids, this whole life changing scenarios coming up pretty fast. Now I feel actually a lot more at ease than I've ever done in my life. So maybe I finally feel a little bit more mature, I don't know.

Q. Do you feel like the clock is clicking from a career standpoint?

JESPER PARNEVIK: No, on the other hand, I feel like with all of the, how should I put it, the experience I've been through and so on, it's tough at a young age to really absorb it all and really use your experience I think on the golf course, because usually when you're a young guy, you just get so eager to win, that sometimes you forgot what you're doing out there.

In that sense I feel a lot better. If I just so play like I did back then I think I would do a lot better now than I would back then if you understand what I mean. Just from a mental point of view, in a thinking way, Bernhard was very mature early, just the way he played the game. Some guys make a lot of stupid mistakes when they are younger, and I was one of them.

Q. A lot of people when they get to their 40th birthday, they want it to go by quietly, and they don't want anybody to know about it. You did the opposite and called everybody and said let's celebrate this. What was your thinking?

JESPER PARNEVIK: No, it was something I thought was definitely worth celebrating. I mean, 40 is a big step. I think honestly, the 40s, I actually got a note from one of my friends, he gave me the gift and so on and he ended off saying that "life is not for beginners," and that pretty much says a lot. Life is a pretty tough thing, and you feel like you're a complete beginner for a very long time. I'm finally getting a little bit of a grasp of what it's all about right now. That's what I mean that 40 feels pretty good.

Q. Aaron was just in here and he's having his own little life experience, and he's playing planning for a marriage. Do guys tend to play better when that stabilization of marriage is either upon them or afterwards; does it depend on the individual? Because Aaron is playing pretty good right now.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I think so. Of course, it depends on the individual, because it seems like, you know, you have the new child syndrome; that means a lot of athletes, as soon as they get their first child they start winning like crazy. Same thing when they get married.

On the other hand, you can see after a few years that when you get a big family and so on, when you get different interests, some guys have to have golf and golf only in their life to do well. As soon as life changes for them, they are not doing as well career-wise.

So it depends a little bit of who you are and how you're thinking is, but usually when you get that feeling in life, Tiger, for example, I think it's just done him a lot of good to get married and get a lot of, how should I put it, comfort in his private life.

Q. What was the most interesting gift you got?

JESPER PARNEVIK: I got a lot of really interesting gifts. The one I'm going to use the most is a little plastic ladder I got from my kids probably a $15 thing. We've been in our house for two years, but that's the one thing we never got was a little ladder.

But then also my two older daughters had a great performance, we do our parties a little different in the Parnevik family. Boring speeches are not allowed, so you're supposed to either do a skit or you're supposed to sing some kind of a song, and it usually ends up being a great performance by the people that are doing it. Either you've got to be rhyming or you've got to have -- you get the picture. Even though we had a sit-down for 125 people, the dinner always ends up being very entertaining, and that's pretty much the happening of the evening is actually the sit-down dinner with all of the speeches and to see how creative everybody gets when they have to do something special.

Like Per-Ulrik Johansson did a great, how should I put it, Eminem hip-hop inspired song for me and was really rocking the house.

Q. Is that on video anywhere?

JESPER PARNEVIK: Oh, yeah I got it all on video. It's going to be a fun one to watch.

Q. Any previews or putting it up on the Internet?

JESPER PARNEVIK: We'll see. I've got to watch it myself first. (Laughter.)

Q. What's the best party, the Parneviks on New Year's Eve or Vijay on Monday of THE PLAYERS Championship?

JESPER PARNEVIK: Oh, I would say that's no comparison really. Not to be rude against Vijay, but --

Q. Your party?

JESPER PARNEVIK: I would say so, yeah. Our New Year's is usually a very special event.

Q. The 125 sit-down dinner, was that at home?

JESPER PARNEVIK: It was at home. We had a very ballsy thing. We sat outside, how about that, with the weather we've had the last few days.

Q. During the off-season, did you make an attempt to come over here and play, to familiarize yourself?

JESPER PARNEVIK: I was over here once with Norman and I think it was Baker-Finch, as well. We came over to have a look at it. It's tough to go here all the time because you have a lot of members and so on. But definitely I do, yeah.

Q. What do you consider your home course?

JESPER PARNEVIK: I would say Medalist, Greg Norman's first course up here. It's a great place, very, very quiet. It's about 20 minutes north of here.

Q. And you have goals remaining, is obviously one of those goals to get back on a Ryder Cup Team and how do you think playing for Woosie will be different than playing for Nick?

JESPER PARNEVIK: I think every captain brings something special. I mean, you have Seve on one end of the spectrum and then you have Bernhard on the other side. I would say Woosie going to be more something in between. He's going to be more like a Sam Torrance kind of captain, more one of the lads who can have a beer with the guys and be more one-on-one with most of the players and really get a feel for what they want.

Faldo I think is going to be more like a Bernhard Langer kind of captain, more strategic, everything is going to be pretty much planned.

Q. Will that be your main goal to get back on a Ryder Cup Team?

JESPER PARNEVIK: Ryder Cup, of course, but definitely winning again, has got to be first goal. But Ryder Cup is a lot of fun as well.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Jesper, thank you.

End of FastScripts.