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CHRYSLER CLASSIC OF GREENSBORO

October 13, 2004

Jay Haas

GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Jay Haas, thanks for joining us. You've had a great season. And I'm sure just like Davis you would like to capitalize on a good season with a win here. Close to where you went to school.

JAY HAAS: Yeah, I've had a good feelings about coming back here every year. I really like the golf course now. Since they made the changes. I think it's, it suits me much better. But I always feel like I'm kind of home here, I guess, when I come to this part of the country and see a lot of familiar faces. But, yeah, I would like to finish off the year strongly. I'm 29th on the money list so I'm obviously trying to hold my position there or go forward not back. That's my immediate goal right now is to qualify for the TOUR Championship.

Q. There were thoughts I think Bill told me you were maybe going to try to qualify for both, but is that out the window?

JAY HAAS: Yeah, this week is the last Champions Tour event before the TOUR Championship so I'm 32nd or 33rd or something so I'm not going to be able to do it. I was going to maybe play last week, I just didn't know and I just said, well, you know, it's not that important to me. It would have just been nice. And I could have done it even in just three events if I would have won one of them I would have had enough money probably. So that would have been a lot of fun. But what are you going to do?

Q. If you were where you are on the Money List now and you had a chance to play on the Champions Tour event next week, and yet take away from your opportunity to keep your position or improve your position on this tour?

JAY HAAS: Well, I've kind of done that. I could have gone to San Antonio this week and I really wanted to play there because I won twice there. I really enjoy playing there. And if I had played well enough to get in the top 30 and the following week is the TOUR Championship, but I may have tried it, if I would have been 20th on the Money List here, I probably would have gone to San Antonio just for the heck of it, just to see. But then if I'm in the TOUR Championship, it's the following week and then it's just I'm playing a lot of golf. So I'm trying to balance that. I mean I love to play 50 weeks, you know, but I just can't do it. It's there's just not enough time. I've been gone quite a bit this year, it seems like. So again I'm going to play quite a bit in the off season too this year again. So it -- had things been a little bit different timing wise, I think I would have added one to it.

Q. Are you becoming a victim of your own success?

JAY HAAS: I wouldn't say a victim. But it's kind of nice to have those problems. But, yeah, it's funny, a few years ago there was no question at the end of the year it was just, that's it, I got October, November, December, really pretty much off. And now I'm getting into some of the silly season events, which is a lot of fun. Bill and I are going to play at the Shark Shoot-out tournament, which I'm really looking forward to. That's my six Major of the year. The CVS one that we won, that was the fifth Major, I guess. Yeah, it's -- I wouldn't even consider thinking that in negative terms, but it's at a time three or four years ago when I was thinking I need to start winding down here a little, I'm gone too much. I need this as -- I need to know joy my time at home a little bit more. And then I started playing better and it's kind of hard to turn down going to these events. The World Tour events, the Masters, the Open, all the tournaments that I wasn't in there for a year or two. It's nice to have that, those tournaments on the schedule. For me, if I'm playing well, I enjoy playing. If I'm not playing well, it later on in my career I've had a harder time kind of fighting it, going to the range until it got really, really bad and then I decided I needed to do that.

Q. Is there anything major difference beside the rough you mentioned from this year to last year on this course? Obviously you said it matured a little bit.

JAY HAAS: I don't see much. I think just that rough is -- I think it was just thinner last year, you could play out of it. You could advance the ball to the green a lot of times. I think this year if you don't draw a pretty good lie in the rough it's going to be pretty difficult to get there. I think that if I remember right it seemed like they had maybe some light frosts last year before we got here because it seemed like the Bermuda had a little yellow tint to it and started to thin back a little bit and I don't think they have had that this year. So that may be a factor, plus this morning they had a little, it was wet, rough is a little thicker, a little heavier. I think it's pretty much the same golf course other than it just is a little bit thicker rough.

Q. Do you think 22-under wins it again?

JAY HAAS: Is that what it was last year?

Q. Yeah.

JAY HAAS: Wow. I don't think so. But weather will dictate a lot of that. I think if the wind blows here, it's always, the greens get firm. I thought they were a little firmer this year just yesterday. I didn't remember the balls hitting and bouncing so much last year. But I think until you get into the competition for me I always think the course is harder than it maybe is. I try to really think, man, how am I going to bird this hole or par this hole. And once you get going and you play well then those things happen. But I would think 22 was safe. Mid teens I guess. But you just never know. Guys seem to, one guy gets hot, brings the rest of them along.

Q. You mentioned something like your home here, do you have fans in the gallery that have kind of followed you that you see this stop every year?

JAY HAAS: Yeah, there's a few that show up and some that show up every third or fourth year, you know. I haven't seen them in a while. But not a lot. But I think just the people they know, that I went to Wake and been around here for awhile and anybody that's over 50 now is my biggest fan. But, yeah, I see people, I see faces that I haven't seen in a year's time or sometimes more. But it's fun to reminisce a little bit. I might see some college guys, fraternity brothers, things like that that we'll tell some stories. Bring back some memories.

Q. Better chance for you to win with this redesign than the old or is that tough to say?

JAY HAAS: I wouldn't say that. I just personally, I didn't care for the look of the other course, it just, it seemed to have a lot of holes that didn't fit my eye. Just didn't, I didn't feel comfortable on the tee shots. And now a couple of them have been changed, number 3, for example, to me is, it looks better to my eye standing on that tee shot.

And number 18 is a little flatter out there. A little better chance to hit the fairway. The longer hitters can kind of go over some of the corners or used to, could go over the corners and I could not. So that made it a little more difficult for me.

But all that being said, the scores I think were maybe lower in the past or the winning score was worse, 8, 10-under would win, because I think the course was kind of awkward. It was kind of hard to hit fairways and I think maybe his redesign made it more friendly to the membership and the players too, the professionals. But still, I don't know what I shot last year, I think I finished top 10 last year, but I don't think I was 10-under, I don't think I was as low as that. I don't know. I don't remember what I was. But I guess I never look at a course thinking oh, now I can win here. I guess I go into every week thinking that I have a chance if I play well.

Q. (Inaudible.)

JAY HAAS: I was kidding one of the guys here. We try to do a little bit of lesson there on the last hole. We had kind of a hole ahead and I gave them a little short game lesson out of the high rough there to try to show them a few things. And then we were, I said to Montana that I was going to take him to another place and play. But I think a couple of them were just here for the day and they had to get going or something like that.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Okay. Jay Haas, thank you.

JAY HAAS: Thank you.

End of FastScripts.

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