BOB HOPE CHRYSLER CLASSIC

February 14, 2001

Harrison Frazar

HARRISON FRAZAR: Yeah. It was a good day. I felt pretty good on the driving range this morning. I told my caddy, I said, "This usually isn't a very good sign, but I'm striking it." I was hitting really solid, hitting everything at the flag. I had some extra time to work on some things with my putting. I felt something in my arm position that was causing me to hit a few short putts, not very solid. I made a change and really rolled the rock good today.

HARRISON FRAZAR: My arms were getting way too close to my body, and so I just tried to get them a little bit more separated. A little bit more space. Create a little better angle. Let the putter head flow more freely instead of trying to time it with the hands.

HARRISON FRAZAR: No, I wasn't disappointed. I think it's funny, a lot of people keep asking me that. You know, I played well the first nine there Sunday, but things just really weren't happening for me on the back. So, you know, I had two, two and a half hours to realize that I wasn't going to win that tournament. I saw the guys -- I looked at the board I think on 16. I didn't really know. I guessed that the guys were going to be at 16 -, 17-under and I think I was at 14 -, 15- maybe. What was I? 14-, 15-under. When I looked up, they were actually at 17- or maybe -- Phil might have been at 18- at the time. There wasn't a whole lot of disappointment. I was proud of myself for making as many birdies as I did and playing as well as did I this early. I never play well on the West Coast. I worked real hard in the off-season and it's starting to pay off. I'm trying to find all of the positives.

HARRISON FRAZAR: I think on all these courses you've got to pick your spots. You've got to make a lot of birdies. It takes a long time to get to 30-, 33-under par. You can't get it all in one or two rounds. You've just got to go play golf, shoot the best round you can, and hope you've got the putter working. Today, this golf course, with the way the weather was, par was probably 4-under here. You know, the par 5's were fairly simple. You know, there's some short par 4s that you can hit good T-shots, you hit little wedges in. You've just got to take advantage of the opportunities when you get them. But La Quinta is a tougher track. Indian Wells tends to play pretty tough if you get some wind blowing. But the scores are going to be low. The guys are going to shoot low. They always do. It doesn't matter what the weather is doing. You've got to make a bunch of birdies.

HARRISON FRAZAR: You know, if I'm not playing well, I like it to be tough. I want it to be really hard. But if I feel like I'm putting well and hitting my irons well, I want it to be like a track meet, because I feel like I've got a chance to distance myself at certain times. I get streaky with the putter and I get streaky with my irons. I can run off a lot of birdies at any given time. The problem is you just never know when it is going to happen. But I prefer either one. You know, I'd hate -- I don't like it when I'm playing well at a golf course that's playing really hard because I feel like certain strengths from certain players kind of neutralizes everything everybody else is doing. I consider myself a good short-iron player and good driver of the ball, and places where it is a track meet, like this, if I'm doing all of those things well, all of those things benefit me.

HARRISON FRAZAR: I don't think it matters. I don't think it matters which course you play. I think if you try to make an issue of it, it might matter. You've got to play it all. I don't think it matters what the rotation was, I could have looked at it like I got a bad break starting on 10 today here, but you've got to do it all. I hit 3-wood off the tee and 4-iron into the green, and I've never hit that much club in there, but I think it was a little bit cooler, things were playing a little bit longer. It has not warmed up and the course shortened up and I took advantage of it later on.

HARRISON FRAZAR: Oh, no, I'm under the weather. I have a sinus infection that's creeped into my chest and coughing up some stuff. But I feel like my head weighs about 40 pound right now. I deal with this right now all the time. I have terrible allergies, because on the West Coast, we're cold in the mornings, warm in the afternoons, cold in the evenings and it just wreaks havoc on me and I get them every year.

HARRISON FRAZAR: No. I feel fine.

HARRISON FRAZAR: Last Memorial, I broke my hand and we didn't know it. We kept diagnosing it as being tendonitis, so I just kept playing through it. The pain just kind of kept getting worse and worse and worse, so finally September, I went to see a doctor. They did a whole bunch of tests and they found the break and told me I was done for the year. So leading into how it has affected me this year is usually I play hard all the way through, and I will go to -- this past year, I was supposed to go to Japan for two years, and in the past I've gone to Mexico. I've done those things. I've played a lot of golf all the way up to Thanksgiving. And then when it is time to take time off, I take two or three weeks off and then start practicing a week to 10 days before the Tour starts. Well, I ended up spending the first three or four weeks trying to get ready. When I wasn't able to play the last seven or eight weeks of the year, when everybody else was done where their years, when the doctor finally cleared me to start playing. So I was out there beating balls and working with my teacher and spending a lot of time putting and chipping and playing a lot of golf in December, even though the weather was bad. We had a cold, terrible, wet winter, but I spent five, six, seven hours a day down there in sweaters and rain suits beating the ball because I was excited about it again. That's what's helped me the most is I'm going into this year more prepared.

HARRISON FRAZAR: Yes. You know, you hear the best players out here all tell you that it is not how many tournaments you play; it's how you feel when you play them. I had never really believed that because I had never tried it, never taken time off so that I felt good. I'm a believer now. I felt good this whole West Coast. You know, physically, I feel good. I feel like I've got my strength back. I've lost weight. I feel like I'm in better shape than I've ever been. You know, the work that I put in with my short game with, my swing, I feel like it's paying off. So confidence is high, which usually produces better attitude. Better attitude means better scores. So there's no substitute for hard work.

HARRISON FRAZAR: No. 11, I hit driver to the right and laid it up with a 3-iron. I hit a lob-wedge from about 80 yards to about three feet. 16, I hit-4-wood off the tee and I hit a pitching wedge from about 110 yards to about 12 feet. 17, I hit a 9-iron about 10 feet. Made that one. 18, I hit -- I hit driver and a 5-wood into the green just a little bit left. Chipped it past the hole about 10 feet and made that one. No. 2, I hit driver, 3-iron on the front edge and 2-putted from about 40 feet. No. 4, I hit 4-wood, 9-iron to about 12 feet. No. 6, I hit driver and then I hit a 4-wood about 12 feet from the hole and 2-putted for birdie there. Next hole, I hit 4-wood and then a 7-iron to about 15 feet. No. 8, I hit 4-wood off the tee and then I hit a sand wedge to about eight inches.