JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Darren, for joining us for a few minutes here in the media center at the Target World Challenge presented by Countrywide.
Good start to the week, and you were just talking about that you hadn't started well here in the past but turned it around today.

DARREN CLARKE: Usually par for me on Thursday here is 82. So if I can keep on playing this way, hopefully I'll give myself a chance come Sunday.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: We have non-American leaders it looks like. Any particular reason you guys play well here?

DARREN CLARKE: Because there's a lot of non-Americans here this week. That might have something to do with it.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: It looks like Michael Campbell is heading for a 62. How good is that out there today?

DARREN CLARKE: That's a great score, a real good score. You know, there's opportunities to make a lot of birdies out there, but there's also opportunities to make bogeys and doubles. One missed shot and you can run into a lot of trouble. So to shoot 62, that's a hell of a score.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Is that the kind of course this is normally, a lot of birdies, a lot of bogeys?

DARREN CLARKE: Yeah, if you drive it well enough, you're going to give yourself a lot of chances, but as I said, if you miss them, you're going to struggle to make pars out of the rough. It's thicker than it has been in the best, so it's going to be even more of a challenge. Obviously Campbell has played really well.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: How is your life off the course, you wife?

DARREN CLARKE: She's doing okay at the moment.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Is she back home?

DARREN CLARKE: Yeah, she's back undergoing chemo again. She's back at home in London.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: And your schedule, from the Amex in San Francisco, where did you go, how many places?

DARREN CLARKE: Oh, I don't know. I have no idea. I don't know where I've played and where I haven't played. I don't know. I was in Japan -- I won three weeks ago in Japan, I lost last week in a playoff in Sun City and then I'm here. Before that I can't remember where I've been.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Does that ever catch up with you? You know, Monty and you and a lot of the particularly British players and Irish players keep a world schedule, and I just wonder, does it wear you down at all at the end of the year?

DARREN CLARKE: Maybe for some of the other guys possibly, but for me it's a little bit different because I haven't played an awful lot this year. You know, any time I have got a chance to play this year, I've really enjoyed going out there and trying to play and trying to compete. So I'm a little bit different. Maybe the other guys where they've had full schedules, they could be a little bit tired at this stage.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: And without getting too personal, we've asked you this, but when you're on the course, are you able to focus or do you start thinking about your wife at all?

DARREN CLARKE: Sometimes. It depends how I'm playing. If I'm playing okay, then yeah, I can focus on what I'm doing. If not, then my mind wanders.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: 16, could you talk about how you played that? Did you have kind of a squirrelly lie on one shot?

DARREN CLARKE: I had 3-wood, just pulled it a little bit into the trap, hit wedge out and was going to hit another wedge, but some of the fairways are testing to say the least. That's a polite way of putting it (laughing), and I didn't have a very good lie at all, and it was all wet, horrible, sandy, just horrible. I only hit it about 80 yards and got it up-and-down, though. We're all going to get some tough lies this week.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Testing because the cut is not real close?

DARREN CLARKE: Just go out and take a look at them and you'll see.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Did you have a chance to speak to Ernie Els at Sun City?

DARREN CLARKE: Yeah, I spoke to Ernie quite a lot.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: How is he coming?

DARREN CLARKE: He's doing okay. He's doing fine. Obviously last week was his first week back, but his knee felt fine. Even for someone like Ernie he's finding his feet again. When you have an amount of time off, playing competitive golf is pretty hard to come straight back into, but his knee is okay.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Could you talk about what part of your game was working well today?

DARREN CLARKE: I putted very solid today. I holed a couple good putts for eagle and made a couple of solid par saves. If you can get up and get a good roll on these greens, then it gives a little bit extra where you can go after an extra flag or two where you might not otherwise do that. The putter was basically on today and I made most of them.

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JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Michael for joining us here in the media center at the Target World Challenge presented by Countrywide. Great round today; get us started with a few comments about your round.

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: I made a few mistakes and we fixed them up, this sort of thing, and away it went. Technique is fine, it really frees your mind.

Today was a perfect example. I just went out there and played and played great. Every fairway seemed like twice as wide, the hole as big as a bucket. Yeah, the greens seemed to be twice as big. It's amazing how you get to a certain mindset out there and just go with the flow. I can speak for probably all the other guys in this field, and if you get a certain wave, you can ride this wave. Darren Clarke played great today obviously, and I played well, as well.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Would you describe the bogey on 18? You needed par for the course record.

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: Don't tell me that now. I feel worse. 18, I hit a 5-iron through the back of the green and hit a nice little chip there and misread the putt. I read the putt as straight, it went from left to right. It would have been nice to hole the putt and hold the course record, but maybe tomorrow.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: When is the last time you felt that the hole was as big as a bucket and the fairways were twice as wide?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: Pinehurst was probably the last time.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER:  What did the greens look like there then?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: (Laughing) I don't know, I walked on the first tee this morning and felt great about me as a person and my golf game, and everything seemed easy. Every shot that I hit today was like pretty good, and I just felt that I could do it over and over again, repeat it.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER:  That doesn't happen very often, though.

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: No, it doesn't happen at all. I mean, six months is a long time since I've had that feeling. It's too long.

I think every single player here today and on the PGA TOUR, European Tour, try to achieve a certain level of playing ability and you try to achieve that somehow and someway, and it comes along, and Tiger seems to find that sense of confidence all the time. We try to achieve that every time we play, but it doesn't come to us that easily.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: David Toms talked about this yesterday, and I realize you weren't there at Carlsbad this year, but he went through a stretch of three days where it's as good of golf as you'll see. You mentioned Tiger; in the pecking order I guess of Tiger and Vijay and Ernie, do they have those days more than anyone else?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: I think so, definitely, yes. We all can golf the ball. We all can do certain things with the golf ball. It comes down to talent obviously and mindset, how strong you are mentally. That's the thing, that's the key. I think preparation is also very important, at least the confidence, the preparation. If you prepare yourself before a tournament, which I did the first couple days on Tuesday and Wednesday, it really freed my mind out there. It just flowed like it should and was flowing just like out there playing golf and enjoying it.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: You had never played what we call a silly season event, had you, until this year?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: I played Sun City and Tiger's event about two or three years ago. It's my second time here.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Does it feel like a vacation, these tournaments?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: Absolutely.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER:  Is it hard to take it serious?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: Yeah, it is, actually. Well, obviously all the guys here are here to win this tournament. Walking on the range this morning, you can feel a sense of -- there's no tension there, just jovial kind of relaxed atmosphere on the range, talking away, and if you just compare that to a major, it's completely different.
My attitude is I always try and have fun out there, whether it's a major or this week or a regular event. I just have fun.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: This may be getting you ready for the Champions Tour someday.

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: (Laughing) well, apparently if you win a major, I think you're exempt to qualify for the Champions Tour, so I'm pretty happy with that.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: You've got a ways to go.

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: Not long, 13 years, Mate.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: You talked yesterday about the back nine at Pinehurst on Sunday. Was there a stretch today or a point today where you thought, "I've got to go in and get that positive mindset going"?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: 7th hole, a good drive and wedge to probably two feet, and then nice putt on 8 from about three or five feet away. Then another putt on 9 from about 20 feet away. Just kept on going and going and going. It was like, okay, don't mess with it, Michael, don't try and change anything, just go with the flow. Go out there and hit it. Don't try and think about anything else. This is working right now, don't try and -- the hardest thing as human beings is to stop searching. We all search for the X factor or search for what makes things go well or whatever, and it's human nature to always push that search button on the Internet.

I'm trying to stop searching right now because I've got the answer that works for me. Sometimes I jump on a vehicle and search for the X factor, but it's just the nature of the beast. Now I've got the ability to stop searching for this thing that works for me. I think I've found a nice formula, a nice recipe.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Let's go over your card. Start with the birdie on No. 2.

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: 2nd hole, I can't remember (laughter). Driver, Heaven Wood to probably just off the green, 20 feet away, chipped on to about half a foot.
7th, driver, wedge to probably two feet. 8, 3-iron to just off the green, 25 feet.
9, Heaven Wood and a 7-iron to about 20 feet away. 10, I hit driver, lob wedge to probably six feet. 11, driver, 4-iron, back of the green to about -- chipped on to about ten feet. 13, driver, Heaven Wood to about ten feet, eagle.  14, driver, wedge to about 15 feet. 16, 3-wood, 3-iron to about -- off the green, 30 feet away, chipped on to about six feet. Then last hole was the bogey.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: How many non-irons do you have in the bag, driver, 3-wood, Heaven Wood?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: And putter.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER:  If you don't mind one more question, how big do you think a transformation that's been this year with the number of additional head covers we're seeing in the bags on the PGA TOUR? Tiger has gone to a 5-wood. I think that's what he calls it.

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: I think what's happened there is because the courses are getting longer, all the par 5s are getting longer, we need something that goes a little bit higher with more carry. The days are gone with the low, boring 1-irons. We need more loft. That's why my Heaven Wood has got 20 degrees loft on mine because I want it higher and softer. Before that was a 1-iron, and these yardages now that I have the last probably two or three years that were a 1-iron and 2-iron, that probably isn't the right club. Vijay Singh has got a 7-wood in his bag. He hits it high. That's the way the nature of the game has gone, just basically gone from more of a bomber's --

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Did you have that Heaven Wood at St. Andrews?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: No, I changed it to a lesser soft, to about 14 degrees.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: But it was still --

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: But it was more of a boring type of flight.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: And what is your yardage on the --

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: Heaven Wood?

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER:  Yes.

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: It flies about 225, 230 yards, which is a nice --

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER:  And that replaced, what, the 2-iron?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: Yeah, I used to have a 2-iron in the bag. Well, a 1-and-a-half-iron.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: So it's the same distance but more loft?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: No, it goes a little bit further because we're seeing par 4s and par 5s that we need to hit a bit further with second shots. That's why Tiger, I think, has gone from -- he's almost 30, and he needs something longer now. He's joining the over 30s club.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Do you think we'll ever see what they used to call the LPGA bouquets with someone out here, someone with six or seven head covers?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: No, I don't think so (laughing).

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