PGA Championship

14 Aug 2002 - 18 Aug 2002
Hazeltine National Golf Club, Chaska, MN

CHASKA, Minnesota -- It was a much nicer day out here today, warmer and a lot less windy and I played much better today. Seventy is a good way to finish it. I just made one bad swing on the 17th, but that's the way it goes sometimes. I was much better today, hit the shots I wanted to most of the day, out in the fairway most of the time, so it was much better.

On 17, the par-3, we had the wind playing right to left and down and as soon as I hit it, it came back in my face. I missed my target there more than anything, so that's what was more disappointing. If I'd have hit the target, even though I mishit the shot with my five-iron, it would have carried far enough over the water to be on the green. Instead, it wound up being a double bogey.

Still, I had four birdies today, including another one at the eighth hole, the par-3 on the front nine. That's three times I birdied that hole this week and I think it will wind up playing one of the tougher holes on the entire golf course. Today, it was 172 yards, a perfect seven iron, and I drew it in there four feet. It sets up well for a lefty, actually. For a righty, it's the opposite, kind of a tougher shot, kind of like 17 is for me. It's easier at 17 for a righty to draw it in there. On No. 8, the water's on the right there and it's easy for me to draw it off the bunkers on the left.

The scores will be better today because it's just playing a lot easier than Saturday. It was warm, the greens were still soft from Friday night's rain, though I noticed the wind is starting to pick up now and swirl a little.

Obviously, I'm not happy with the finish for the week, but I did play much better today and I've got three big tournaments coming up and hopefully I can take today's momentum and go with it. The week overall was kind of disappointing but I feel like I'm starting to play better. There were a lot of challenges out there this week. I made three doubles in a row on Friday and looked like I would miss the cut but I fought hard to make it. I take positives away from that. I hadn't driven it very well this week, but I drove it a lot better today.

Part of it before was the wind on Saturday and when you play in a lot of wind, you try to drive the ball down and try to keep it low and the tendency is that you get your body ahead of the shot a little bit. That's what I was doing and my ball was leaking a little left. I just focused on releasing the club and staying right behind it today and I drove it much better that way.

There were actually a lot of good things this week. I felt great about my bunker play, my little pitches around the greens and I putted really well today. I think I had 26 putts today. I hit iron shots really solid most of the day. I'm excited about playing at home in Canada in two weeks at Vancouver and the week after in Toronto.

Next week at Seattle, my coach Mike Wilson's going to be there with me and hopefully I can get some good work done, play well there and take it into Vancouver and Toronto.

Thanks for your support.