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CHARLES SCHWAB CUP CHAMPIONSHIP

October 24, 2003

Tom Jenkins

SONOMA, CALIFORNIA

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Tom, 67 today, with a spectacular hole-in-one on television live at 17 put you at 11-under through two rounds. Just a couple general thoughts about your round today.

TOM JENKINS: Well, it started out very similar to yesterday. Being in the last group, it always kind of gets your adrenaline going.

I felt like I was swinging well after yesterday. My timing and rhythm felt pretty good. I had a couple of makeable putts early that I missed. And that's always a little bit of a concern starting out. But I kept hitting good golf shots. Finally, trying to think, we finally birdied, I guess No. 4. I hit a great 3-iron in to 4 about eight feet behind, ten feet behind the hole and made that for birdie.

Then the only green I missed was No. 6 to the left. It kind of pulled a wedge shot left of the green a little bit and hit a pitch up and made a 2-footer for par there.

Routine par at 7.

Hit a great 3-wood at 8 and it got a little bit of a bad break. It carried over the right bunker hit on the downslope and skidded to the back about two yards over the green and kind of a tough little lie. Hit a very good pitch down about eight feet by the hole and missed that.

Parred 9 to turn at 1-under. At that point it looked like Thorpe was starting to run away. He was playing awfully well, hitting the driver probably better than I've ever seen him hit his driver before. But then I made a great wedge shot at 11 and made birdie there. It was probably about 15 feet at 11. Tough pin at 11, only five steps on and tough to get it close there.

Routine par at 12. Hit a bad drive at 13 and had to kind of punch a 4-iron down the middle of the fairway, and then hit a great sand wedge about, oh, five feet by the hole and made that for 4.

Then hit a great 3-iron at 14. 14 was playing about 227, I think, a little downhill. I hit 3-iron about maybe four and a half feet. Larry Nelson hit a great shot in there about six feet right behind my ball. He hit a putt. It went left. I putted mine on the right edge and it goes right. So that was a little bit disappointing there.

And then 15, hit driver, 9-iron and had about a 20-footer. Hit a great putt there and somehow the valley didn't pull in and stopped on the back edge. Hit a bad drive at 16. Had to kind of hit a 9-iron out of the gunch and the ball squirted right. I had another tough lie. I played a sand wedge, trying to play it short of the green there, and ended up 2-putting from about 25 feet. I was about maybe eight feet off the green there.

Then 17, I had 138 to the pin. Both Jim and Larry kind of pulled their 9-irons. The pin is tucked up against the right bunker I'm trying to hit a little three quarter 9-iron starting out just left of the flag and hit it perfect. Landed about four or five feet in front of the hole and released in the middle. It's always nice when you can walk up to the green and not have to pull a putter out, believe me.

18, I decided to hit 5-wood off the tee at 18. I knew that Larry hit driver and Jim hit driver but the pin was left and it's very difficult to keep the driver in the right side of the fairway going over those bunkers. 5-wood turned out to be the perfect spot, I had 162 to the flag, perfect view of the pin and then hit a very good 7-iron about 18 feet pin-high to the right and left it right in the mouth.

All in all, it was a very good day. I hit a couple of bad drivers. I'm probably going to have to work on that a bit this evening. But all in all, I feel good. The putter feels good. Maybe the next couple of days I can make those early birdie putts and get it started a little bit sooner.

Q. (Paired together) do you like to look him square in the eye?

TOM JENKINS: Oh, certainly. It's just like today, you know what you have to do. I'm not a scoreboard watcher and certainly playing in the last group, you won't have to look at the scoreboard; it will be right there in front of you.

But it's still early. We have two more rounds to go. Tomorrow will be certainly a key day. You certainly want to kind of keep the momentum going. We've got two great players, Thorpe playing well, and of course Watson always plays well. So it will be certainly a fun day.

Q. How different is this event, four days, plus everybody is walking, is there a different pace, does it play a little slower, what are your thoughts on that?

TOM JENKINS: Well, four days, we don't have many of them during the year. Although the majors, all of the majors we play are four rounds. It's something that you are aware of when it starts, so you know you've got to go four days. Most everybody is walking. I'm riding a cart this week. I have a bad right foot. I tried to walk in the Pro-Am and knew there was no way I could walk four days here.

So they do have some regulations that allow some of the players, think Tom Purtzer is riding a cart, I think Jay Siegel has the opportunity to ride in a cart if he wants, and I think there's a couple other players that have opportunities to ride.

But the pace of play is always the same, especially in the last group. Usually the last group, there's no need to hurry or anything, and the pace is usually four, four and a half hours. It shouldn't be a problem.

Q. How much of a difference did the Ace make in the round, having five shots to overcome tomorrow, as opposed to just three now?

TOM JENKINS: I wasn't really thinking of it like that at the time. I'm just trying to post a number and really wasn't aware of how Jim stood, really. But certainly when you pick up two shots all of a sudden like that. It probably means -- it would probably mean more if this was Saturday. We do have two more rounds to play and as long as you can kind of stay within the one, two or three, going into the last day or last nine holes, you've got a shot at it.

Q. Instead of having to chase for two extra days now, the way it sets up for you for the weekend you have three shots, is it a little less stressful to overcome?

TOM JENKINS: Well, that's certainly true. The fewer shots you have to make up the better. But certainly at that point, I'm not thinking about that. I'm just trying to hit good golf shots and make some birdies and stay within striking distance of him. But it certainly helps a great deal, yeah.

Q. Do you think yourself and Thorpe are better players now than you were than when you were on the PGA TOUR, and why?

TOM JENKINS: Oh, most definitely.

I can't say for Jim, but for me when people ask me the question, what's the difference between the Champions Tour and when I played the regular tour. When I first started playing in 1998, when I went to the qualifying school -- I started my Champions Tour career in 1998. I kind of sat down and thought about what I was going up against. And all of a sudden I realized there's a few things that made a big difference for me.

No. 1, there's only, at that time, 78 players that you're playing against, as opposed to 156 on the regular tour. Now, out of 78 players, there were at the time maybe 20 to 25 Super Seniors. There that were 60 and older. So now all of the sudden I'm thinking well I'm 50 years old, I'm one of the youngest guys out here, you're looking at 60, you're looking at maybe 58 players that you've got to beat. Not to say that the 60 and olders couldn't play, but mentally I'm thinking 25 guys over 60.

And the third and probably most important aspect was that now all of a sudden there wasn't a distraction about having to make a cut. And I think that's probably the biggest difference in players that had decent careers on the regular tour. You know, the cut was a major, a major thing on Fridays out there. For some reason I never got over that. I was always concerned about the cuts. And now all of a sudden you don't have a cut, you go out and play, and mentally it made it so much easier and I think those three things alone, if you had any game at all and you work at it, you should be able to succeed out here.

End of FastScripts.

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