U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 13, 2000

David Duval

DAVID DUVAL: I sure hope so. And this is the week to do it. I had a chance last week, but I'm excited everything about everything that's going on, and I'm glad to be here.

DAVID DUVAL: I think after last week, it speaks for itself. I'm obviously playing well. I had a chance to win. I'm excited and looking for some good things this week.

DAVID DUVAL: Having the lowest score when we're done. I've played well the past few weeks. I played well on several other occasions this year. I'm not the only one who controls it, me winning a golf tournament. There are other factors involved, and we all know that. There's a lot involved, depending on how some other people play. It seems that everybody is worried about it more than I am. I feel like my game is getting very good again, and it's where it should be. I'm looking forward to this week. I had a chance to win last week, and that's exciting stuff to me.

DAVID DUVAL: Not at all. It's no different now than where it was a year ago or three years ago. I work hard and I look for some good things to happen. And they're there. They're going to happen for me. It might not have been last week, and it might not be this week, but I expect some great things are right there for me.

DAVID DUVAL: No. I simply haven't holed the putts I did last year. I believe if there was one thing that I wasn't doing as well as I have in the past, that was paying attention to the pace, the pace of my putts. And I was very conscious of it last week and worked on it. And having done that well last week, I realized that I really wasn't paying as much attention to what I needed to be, but everything else is the same.

DAVID DUVAL: I have wonderful memories. He was a veteran player, who was 15 years older than myself, and who had always treated me well. And then to get to experience such a tremendous Ryder Cup with him in September, I have only great things to think about. And to think about the fact that at last year's U.S. Open, we were paired together on the final group on Saturday, that was an exciting day. So, just some great things.

DAVID DUVAL: Right.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, I think the first thing you think about is the setting, the scenery involved. The next thing that I like so much is that, regardless of the club you have to play off of the tee, and the same can be said for any green, whether it's a sand wedge or a long iron, you really need to pay attention to where you're aiming at and what's going on. And I guess even though you might only hit a 2- or 3-iron off the 4th tee, it demands that you really be very precise and be very careful about what you're doing with those shots. And then into the greens, it's the same kind of thing, where you've got to be very conscious of where you're trying to play and why, and try to keep the ball near the hole and all those things. And then I guess it would be the setting again, the scenery.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, I guess the answer to that depends on whether you're talking about playing the hole with no wind, downwind, cross-breeze, into the breeze. On a day when there's no wind, it's not a terribly difficult hole. You can hit a 3-wood and layup with a middle iron and pitch in with a wedge and 9-iron. But that hole is very dependent upon the wind. When it comes from virtually any direction, it becomes a very, very difficult golf hole. And it looks to me like they've expanded the green a bit, to the left, especially, and that fairway bunker on the layup area is out a bit more. So, you're going to have a bit more narrow area to hit. Maybe they haven't, but it sure looks that way. You have to be very conscious where to hit it. And in the setting of a U.S. Open, you can't just hit it -- you have to hit it into the fairway off the tee. Certainly, you can aim way right and take an iron, but at some point you're going to have to hit a couple of great shots, because if you do that, you have to hit it that much longer to layup. There's so many ways to play it. It's a great hole.

DAVID DUVAL: Do they mean driving the ball off the tee or hitting the club, the driver?

DAVID DUVAL: Well, I think that's a pretty fair statement. But then again, I haven't played a lot of those holes. I've played maybe eight of them. I've yet to be in one where you can hit it in the rough and still be in the tournament. You need to keep it in play. And that's every U.S. Open I've encountered; it sets up the rest of the golf course.

DAVID DUVAL: I think I'm driving the golf ball very well. I think it's pretty good right now.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, it's very thick. It's not terribly long, but that doesn't mean you can play out of it, either. I don't know what the height of it would be. But the thickness is such that I think they would accomplish it being what it is, as opposed to it being six-inch longer grass. I don't see you hitting 6-irons out of it, unless you get a very, very good lie.

DAVID DUVAL: Yeah, I think it's a bit longer than that around the greens. But off the fairways, I probably wouldn't even have guessed it was that high. Maybe less than that even. But it plays, like I said, such that it's six or seven inches because it's so thick.

DAVID DUVAL: As if I had won the playoff?

DAVID DUVAL: Yes, I feel great about my golf game. Playoffs are just -- it's just that you don't know what's going to happen in those things. And as I said Sunday when we were done, I didn't feel like I should have been in a playoff. I feel like I should have been two or three shots ahead of the field. But I also said that Dennis Paulson might have very well felt the same way. But that's just me sitting there -- it's hard for me to be upset about losing that playoff because I don't think I should have been in it. So I wasn't disappointed so much about that. My biggest disappointment was the fact that I failed to get clear of that playoff, which I felt like I should have done.

DAVID DUVAL: I don't know. Obviously, a lot depends on where the ball ends up. Maybe there's some skill involved in making sure you miss the greens below the hole, I don't know. But there's a lot of luck involved with the lie you get, whether people have trampled it in front of you, or maybe the grass is growing into the ball or growing with it. But that's -- it's every year. And really, it's every week on Tour. And it's just -- you can talk about it until you're blue in the face, but I guess it's just golf in the end. And why is it that you can have one guy hit a golf ball into the rough and the other guy hits it right next to him. I might hack it out and hit a 3-iron to the green. You're going to have those situations occur, and you have to chalk it up to the experience of playing in this event.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, I think it's wide open. I think at this point right now, too, you're not -- it's not a fair comparison, comparing Tiger and me. He's really outplayed me for the past year. But I think when you enter a U.S. Open, it is a great equalizer. And whoever is on top of their game and on top of their wits and nerves and their attitude, all that, is the guy you need to look to as the favorite. So, I'm not saying I will be the favorite to win, but I feel like my golf game is good. I feel like I have my head is where it needs to be. I'll be the first to tell you it hasn't been where it should be ever since Augusta. But then again, I haven't played much. But I feel great about everything else going on, and I'm looking forward to playing. I think any time Tiger plays a golf tournament, you have to look at him as a favorite. But I think this is the kind of event that brings everybody closer together, and it becomes a real patience contest. You've really got to be careful of what you're doing.

DAVID DUVAL: The way I feel about that and about this game, we play 18 holes and it's a progression of numbers. A 6 can be offset quickly by two 3's following it. Whether that hole is a 4 or 5 par, in the end, it doesn't matter. 278, let's say, is the winning score. Well, it doesn't matter if No. 2 is a par-5 or par-4, to get to 278. So I'm not concerned about that. I think that -- I understand completely the reasoning behind it, and I would tend to agree with the USGA. That tree being gone has changed that. And it sets it up -- before, you had to kind of work around it, which made it difficult at times to get it on the green. Now you can play out left and bring it in the other way, and it makes it a lot easier to get it -- to access the green. So I'm going to play it on the back tee every day. They'll probably move it up another tee for a day or two. I don't have any problem with that. It's fine. I agree with their thinking.

DAVID DUVAL: I hit a 4-iron, I think, this morning. But I think that that's about -- I might hit a little bit less. I just teed off. It was early; it was still wet. You've got to think, we're used to being -- playing the course in February is entirely different than what you see out there right now. And when we're used to it in February, it's a driver and 3-wood. The ball flies out and plugs, and you pick it up, clean it off, and set it back down. And you hit it up on the green, and it plugs up there and you're left with a 3-wood. Now the ball is running a lot more. You'll be able to chase it out there. I don't think you'll see people hit woods and stuff -- I think the middle of the long irons.

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