BOB HOPE CHRYSLER CLASSIC

January 21, 2000

David Duval

DAVID DUVAL: Well, I felt like that the first two days that even though I was five shots behind, I kind of felt, to myself, in actuality, I was only three behind because I felt like I had played La Quinta Country Club and PGA West, which I think are probably the two hardest courses. So whether I'm right or not, that's what I was thinking. Or maybe it's just a psychological thing just to help myself out. But coming in here, knowing you have a good opportunity to put up a good number -- but one thing you need to be conscious of as a player is try to not force that to happen and just let it happen.

DAVID DUVAL: Well, I believe I have a good chance. I like the -- I play the celebrity format, or the celebrity draw, if you will, I think I've played it all but one year, and the one thing I like about it a lot is that I can get into -- play the first three days, and I'm out there in the lead. Well, I get to play the course, the home course two days in a row, which I kind of like. You know, I feel like you can get a good rhythm going this way. Seeing as I'm only two behind now, I feel like I have a very good chance.

DAVID DUVAL: I passed it at some point, I guess. I missed a very little putt from maybe two feet and missed a couple other putts I could have made. I don't know if I could have quite gotten to 59, but you could probably make an argument for 60. But I played pretty well. I'm pleased. Felt like I was fighting my putter for a while; was 2-under after 8 holes and felt like I should have been 4- or 5-. And then hit it real close on my 9th hole, 18, and made eagle; so that kind of jump-started me.

DAVID DUVAL: I guess to further explain, I feel like what happens here at this event is that we play golf courses that are usually -- I think with the exception of PGA West, the other three courses are a little bit shorter than we normally see on TOUR. And to top it off, the greens are as good as we see, ever, all year. And you have a combination, and for me, that puts a lot of wedges, sand wedges, short irons in my hands; so I'm going to have a lot of putts from -- anywhere from six to 15 feet. I might see a dozen of those every day. And as we all know, you're not going to make -- you're not even going to make half of them. So what happens is you're facing a lot of these putts where you take some good shots, but you're not making as many putts -- as many of them as you feel like you should. And I think it just goes that you see so many of them during this tournament that you don't get a lot of balls going in, and I think that's why you kind of -- at least for me, I feel like I'm not putting as well as I actually am here. Is that a better explanation?

DAVID DUVAL: I hit sand wedge to about six -- about seven feet, eight feet on the 12th hole. 14, the par 5, I hit 7-iron there and 2-putted from about 30 feet. And 18, the par 5, I hit 8-iron -- I'm sorry -- I hit 5-iron to about seven feet, and I made eagle. And then I made the turn and hit an 8-iron about 25 feet behind the hole on the 4th hole, par 3. I made that for birdie. 6, I hit wedge to about 12 feet and made that. 7, I hit sand wedge to about 18 feet, maybe 15 feet, something like that, made that. The 8th hole, I hit 3-iron just to the green and chipped down to about two inches maybe. Almost chipped in for an eagle, but I made birdie. On the 9th hole, I hit 9-iron to about three or four inches.

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