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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP


March 20, 2001


David Duval


PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA

LEE PATTERSON: David, thank you so much for spending some time with us this morning. I know this is a special championship, that's always been close to your heart. Maybe just a couple thoughts about that, and then we'll open it up for questions.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, it's the biggest event of the year, I think, and the toughest event to win. So it's exciting to be playing again. I'm looking forward to the weekend. Sorry I'm a little late this morning. I went to the ocean to check out the surf. It was pretty big this morning. No, I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully everything is fine. My wrist is not 100%, but I'm going to play and see what happens.

Q. Of all of the things that make this tournament what it is, where does the purse rank for you, where do you think it ranks among your peers, and does that make it more pressurized on Sunday knowing that it is that much money?

DAVID DUVAL: No, I don't think it adds more pressure. Where would I rank it? Probably, I'd say first as quality of field. Probably second, counting the prestige of the event. Third is the golf course. And the purse is in there somewhere, as well. But, I think it is -- a lot is made of the purse here. But personally, and I don't know if you've asked the other players, if they would tell you the same thing, but I don't even know what it is this year. I know they keep it high and keep it as the leader of all of the events. But it is more the golf tournament than anything else.

Q. Did you decide on an MRI?

DAVID DUVAL: Well, I haven't had one, but that's not to say I won't. I'm talking with the doctor I've been seeing, Bruce Steinberg and Mike Ryan, all of the symptoms I've shown them and have described and the work they helped with. They are pretty confident that it is just tendonitis. And Bruce has seen a lot of it. He kind of feels that at times MRI's can give you too much information and can muddy the waters a little bit. You might see something that's some inflammation or something in a different spot that really isn't a problem; it's simply caused by the tendonitis. The plan, I talked last night with them, is play golf this week. If it goes backwards and gets worse, then I'll have an MRI next week.

Q. If if goes backwards and you're still playing, would you consider a cortisone shot?

DAVID DUVAL: I will. That's personally my last resort to play at Augusta.

Q. But not for here?

DAVID DUVAL: No.

Q. Are you able to practice much?

DAVID DUVAL: I'm not so sure that the venue is open, is it? It is.

Q. Are you going to play next week?

DAVID DUVAL: I'm planning on it.

Q. Why?

DAVID DUVAL: Why?

Q. I mean if you're not feeling 100% now, logic could seem an extra week would probably help you?

DAVID DUVAL: You weigh that with the fact that I have not been able to play a whole lot of golf in the last six or seven weeks -- so, it's a tough decision. But, you know, there again, like I said, that's based off of what happens this week. If it continues to get better like it has been, then I don't see any reason, nor do Dr. Steinberg or Mike, to.

Q. Does it seem any better?

DAVID DUVAL: Mm-hmm.

Q. But not the pace you would like it to?

DAVID DUVAL: It's actually probably healing fairly rapidly, but it's like anything. When I first saw them, the first thing he said was: If you were not an athlete trying to compete, first thing I would tell you is, you know, sling it up in three or four weeks and let it heal and let everything go away. But your time frame is ten days, so, you know, it makes it a little harder.

Q. The progress you said you were making with your swing at the time the injury occurred, do you feel like that whatever pain there may or may not be, you can play through that and still have that progress continue this week? Do you still feel good that you found part of the problem and then you can continue doing that?

DAVID DUVAL: I hope so. I mean, I can't tell you until Thursday or Friday, Saturday are over with. I don't know. I see no reason why, you know, a pain in my wrist would cause me to swing the golf club poorly. You know, it's not like it's -- you know, it's kind of more of a nuisance at the moment. That might change after hitting a couple shots out of the rough or something. I don't know. I have no idea.

Q. Can you talk about how your swing on a weekly or monthly basis, how things have evolved over time, and when you look at it a year ago or two years ago, how much tweaking is there with what you do consciously, unconsciously?

DAVID DUVAL: Well, most of the tweaking that has occurred in the last 18 months has been unconscious due to, I think, compensation for a back that was bothering me for quite some time. Now, you know, really, the things I feel like I kind of hit on ten days ago or whatever it is now, two weeks ago, wasn't anything, any major changes, and simply just turning away from the golf ball better than I was, as opposed to kind of rolling my hands away. And that let me keep the golf club on plane for the whole swing, and that's something that I had not been doing for quite some time. You know, I can sit here and tell you why I think so, but I don't know. I think it is based off of the back and the film I've seen and video of tournaments, even back to the beginning of January of 2000, I wasn't swinging well. I was making some compensations in my address and take-away to kind of swing around on my back, it seems. Now that's not an issue. It's easier for me to stand up and swing like I normally would.

Q. When you are swinging well, are you consciously trying to work on things? How do you maintain?

DAVID DUVAL: When I'm swinging well, I try to work on timing. That's all I'm doing. You know, just trying to be patient in the golf swing and let the club sit at the top, and go from there.

Q. David, we have talked about this in years past, but the more you travel and having won this tournament before, how enjoyable is it to play in front of the hometown folks, knowing they are out there, and also, be comfortable in your surroundings, the more you travel, or is it more fun building up to more pressure?

DAVID DUVAL: I don't see why it would be more pressure. Having not won this event, maybe it would be. But, you know, it's a golf tournament, and it's one of the biggest events of the year, and it just happens to be where I live. So I treat it like any other, though, except that I get to stay at home.

Q. After missing quite a bit of time last year, is this any more frustrating to win a tournament late last year, play well at the end of the year, and now have to go through this?

DAVID DUVAL: What do you think?

Q. More frustrating --

DAVID DUVAL: It stinks. It's not fun. It seems like I kind of have gotten into a little flow of bad things. It's kind of funny, I was actually, if anything, laughing about what happened that day when I hurt my wrist, because it was like, you know, you've got to be kidding me. It's one more thing. You know, the first thought I had was, you know, I don't think anybody is going to believe me. (Laughter.) I think everybody is going to think I hurt my back. I was like -- you know ... But the best way I can look at it, there's no way that you can keep going. There's no way. I'm looking forward to that upside here soon.

Q. Can you talk about the transition with the Nike clubs, how that is going, and the whole Nike positives and negatives?

DAVID DUVAL: That's kind of a broad, what do you mean, the second part of your question? That's very broad.

Q. I'm sure you enjoy being with Nike, but -- (inaudible)?

DAVID DUVAL: The equipment is -- I'm very excited about the equipment, the golf ball, the golf clubs I'm using. It's exactly what I want. The other stuff, you know, I can't talk about it. I'm not going to talk about it anymore. I mean, it's, as I've said before, it's in the court's hand. And somebody is talking about it somewhere because I see a lot of articles and a lot of "sources close to" yada, yada, yada. No sources in my camp, if you will, like everybody is saying, but somebody is talking about it, and I've got a pretty good idea who, but I'm not going to say. And I don't mean on my side.

Q. How did you actually do this, and was it a by-product of you putting in extra work to get used to those new forged irons, wear and tear, or was it one particular flash point with the wrist?

DAVID DUVAL: It was kind of what you said, but not completely what you said. It was probably just overuse of a lot of practice the week of Honda, that's all. I had hit so many golf balls, it just kind of gave out.

Q. Masters, obviously, is always a special tournament. Do you get a sense that this year is even more special because of, A, what Tiger can possibly accomplish, and B, you and 60 or 70 guys trying to stop him?

DAVID DUVAL: I don't know. I haven't even -- I haven't even thought about the Masters a lot. I've got more pressing things right now, this week playing well, and hopefully I'm feeling good. Maybe we can talk about it next week or the week after when we actually get there. But, you know, maybe we should say 60 or 70 guys should look to stop me, I don't know. (Smiles.)

Q. You've got to play more often.

DAVID DUVAL: That's true. Semi-retirement.

Q. Because of everything that's happened this season, are you as unprepared going into this stretch of the season as you've been in the last few years, and does this worry you with the significance of these events coming up?

DAVID DUVAL: Well, yes and no. I mean, I guess I am fairly -- I'm not as prepared as I would like to be. But at the same time, last time I came back from ten weeks off, I won a golf tournament. It's actually, I guess, the third or fourth time I've done that. I did it a couple of times coming off snowboarding, having not hit a golf ball and won a golf tournament. So I'm pretty excited about the prospect, really. You know, the one thing that I've said before, like going into Callaway, is that my golf game might not be where you want it, and you might not know exactly what to expect, but I know my mind is going to be really fresh.

Q. At the Mercedes, you said that you disagreed with Phil Mickelson who said he saw records falling and more low scores than ever. Would you be willing to reassess your evaluation on that, or do you think this has been sort of fluky early this year with some of the low scores?

DAVID DUVAL: Well, I guess, obviously, some records have been falling. I guess as much as anything what I disagree with was the tone of how it was being -- yeah, and acting like it's just the scoring records, getting beat by eight or ten shots. It's kind of the same reaction that I had at Augusta when Tiger won. He just shattered the tournament record was the response, but, oh, you forgot he did it by a shot. It wasn't five shots or something. It's pretty clear that the depth of the fields is getting better and the scores have gone down. You know, you combine a lot of great players with good golf equipment and the hunger to win on perfectly prepared golf courses and, you know, you don't get any wind and you don't get any rain and you get 75-degree temperatures, some good things can happen.

Q. I was just curious, as you're on the range, do you look at less-conditioned people than you are, of which there are a few, and think about the irony that you are getting these injuries and these guys are not, or are they just not talking about it? It's kind of ironic.

DAVID DUVAL: I've thought about it. I actually thought I might just go back to the couch and eat Oreos and Doritos, Nutter Butters -- double-stuffed. See, you peel them off, the one cookie layer, and make them quadruple-stuffed.

Q. A few weeks ago a 16-year-old goes out and plays some great golf. Can you recollect a little bit, I remember you back many years at the U.S. Open as an amateur, what is it like getting out among all of these big names and having a week like that?

DAVID DUVAL: It's extremely exciting. I think that -- you know, I wasn't there, so I don't know how much he was at the golf course. I would imagine he was there kind of like I was -- kind of from sunup to sundown every day. I think that that is probably helpful, actually, and helped him playing well. If you can just spend two or three days at the site, inside the ropes around all of the players, a little of that all might get knocked off before you tee off on Thursday. That's certainly how I approached it when I played at Medinah. What was I? 18, I guess. You know, you get rid of what that natural tendency of wanting to watch the other guys, your heroes. That way, you can go out and play yourself. I think it's just amazing how he played.

Q. The equipment, still the same irons that you had at Doral, the latest forged set?

DAVID DUVAL: To set the record straight, I've seen just crazy reports that it is like the fifth or seventh set. It's the second, number 2. It's the second set that I have tried, I've used. It's not the fifth set or sixth set; it's the second.

Q. With all of what was written about Tiger's quote, unquote slump, do you think he was in a slump, or is that laughable?

DAVID DUVAL: Extremely laughable.

Q. Do professional golfers live in a fear of falling into a slump, that they might just wake up one day and find themselves in a slump?

DAVID DUVAL: I don't think so. I don't. I doubt the other players do, too.

No, I guess I don't think so. I thought it was pretty laughable that Tiger was in a slump.

Q. At the outset you thought this was the biggest, toughest hardest tournament to win. You listed several reasons. Is that including major championships?

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah, I think this is the hardest golf tournament to win.

Q. Why so?

DAVID DUVAL: Because everybody is here.

Q. On that same subject, what would you think about this thing if they did decide to move it to May, and would that enhance the prestige of it in the eyes of everybody else, as well as the players?

DAVID DUVAL: My initial reaction would be that I would not favor the move. It seems to me that around that time of year, this is just -- what I'm going to say I have no basis for because I don't know the agronomy of how it will all work. Fred Klauk would know, but it seems to me as I recall that that time of year around here, it can get warm, and there's a lot of transition going on with the grasses. And I would think that -- I don't know if they are going to then try to maintain the ryegrass and overseeded bent greens or if they are going to try to make it back into a bermudagrass golf course for the tournament. I don't know how that would work and I would imagine that would be a difficult proposition. I would also think that you might have to -- you know, the field might have to get smaller, too, because at that time of the year we start to encounter typical afternoon storms and such. So, just changes the complexion of it. For better or worse, I don't know.

Q. Is this your favorite course in Florida, and why, if it is?

DAVID DUVAL: In Florida? I haven't played a lot of courses in Florida. So I don't know if it is or not. I don't really have a favorite golf course anywhere.

Q. What do you like about this course?

DAVID DUVAL: I like that I've won on it. (Smiles).

LEE PATTERSON: Thank you, David. We appreciate it.

End of FastScripts....

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