N.C. State and MacGregor Downs Country Club will host the 2005 Courtyard by Marriott Intercollegiate, April 8-9 in Cary, N.C. The field will include seven Atlantic Coast Conference teams.

Greg Norman Collection announces strong third quarter results with double-digit increases in sales and operating profits for the seventh consecutive quarter.

Q. Hale, thank you for joining us. I know it's probably a little disappointing today, but you won the Charles Schwab Cup again for the second time in your career, and with a pretty strong push the last month or so, maybe you could just talk about winning it and just a little bit about your day.

HALE IRWIN: Actually, I'm -- I really have mixed emotions, simply because when I was in bed last night I literally didn't know if I could play today or not. I don't know from one day to the next, like I've indicated before, what the surprise will be, and the surprise was this is the same problem I had in Raleigh when I had to withdraw prior to the tournament. Although this one is not quite as bad. I think we got to this one with some therapy from the guys at Stryker Physical Therapy. They worked with me all morning, but I still didn't know if I could play. I didn't have a good warm-up session. I played football hurt. That's a different kind of situation. You kind of expect that, but I've never played golf this uncomfortable before.

So it was a very long day, and during the course of the day, very disappointing. There was very little to cheer about, so I guess I'm just sort of in a mild state of shock because I really didn't expect to be here with the Schwab Cup in my possession. It will come to me a little later, I'm sure.

During the heat of battle, you want to play well and you want to contend for the big prize, which is that one over there, but then you look at it in total and this is equally big, if not bigger, because it does represent the entire year.

But I think the one thing I do have to remember is I have an affinity of playing three or four tournaments in a row, and this may be the last time I play four tournaments in a row. I just can't do it, not at this stage. But I think the weather yesterday, the weather this week, but particularly yesterday, probably was the speeding ticket that got me. That's why I'm making friends with these guys.

But delighted, I am. I think it will come to me later. I just felt so fortunate really to play. I mean, I really did not think for one moment that I was going to get in the day, to be perfectly honest with you. I just didn't think it would hold up. In fact, the last probably three or four holes I started feeling pretty good until I got on the 18th tee and it seized up on me again, and then it was just -- I hit it in the rough and you have to hit it out of the rough, that's double penalty.

Q. (Inaudible)?

HALE IRWIN: Well, I can't tell you exactly what it is. Anybody that's had any back spinal problems will understand, you know, if you compensate in one area, something else is going to get overused, overcompensated, and I think that's what I was doing yesterday, because my back, my lower back was very tight, a cool, wet day, I think I was using my upper body more than I might ordinarily. When that happens, my right shoulder, right behind my right shoulder blade, it gets very tight and then starts going into some spasms.

If I were to try to take a yawn or anything, a deep breath or a sneeze would kill me right now, because it's something kind of down in there. But after three or four days in Raleigh, it was gone. Hopefully after a couple of more days it will be gone again.

One of the more difficult things to do, oddly enough, if I'm laying on my back, is to get up and to raise my head. I have to roll over on my side and push up.

Q. Did you think you had blown any chance of winning?

HALE IRWIN: Well, I looked at the board. I saw where Craig had finished at 4-under. So I knew not that I had the luxury of a bogey, but I didn't know what Tom was doing. I really hadn't seen a board. I didn't want to look at a board until I accidentally saw it at the last hole. I say accidentally because I've been trying to avoid looking at those things, because I didn't want to get more depressed than I already was. So I knew that I had not necessarily the luxury of a bogey, but I didn't know where Tom was, didn't know what was happening. I didn't even know who was leading. And so that's why I say it's kind of been sort of a late -- we didn't know until Tom didn't chip it in at the last hole. There will be some fine wine spilled later on.

Q. In the U.S. Open in '74 you've come back. You've lost leads. Are you a little surprised that Tom Kite would lose a two-shot lead on the last day of a tournament, knowing what a quality golfer he is?

HALE IRWIN: I've played enough golf that nothing surprises me. When you have -- these kind of greens don't always instill great confidence. Poa annua greens are difficult to putt if you have any hesitation at all. With Tom's method of putting, he's gone to the claw. That tells you something that perhaps it was -- the putting was not what it once was and you're trying something else.

Now, I'm not saying -- you can sort of write that as a generic prescription, but I'm just reading what you all said Tom did, that he hit it all over the place the first day, second day, whatever. So does it surprise me? Not necessarily, because if you hit it off line in this rough, you're going to pay a big penalty.

Oddly enough, I kept the ball in play better today than I did any day this week, and go figure. I didn't try doing anything, I just tried to get through it. Although I putted worse today than I have all week.

Now, Mark McNulty is a very good putter. He keeps the ball in play very nicely. It doesn't surprise me one bit. Just like I'm not surprised Tom gave up the lead either. Anything can happen and we're seeing more and more high quality golf coming on the Champions Tour.

And those of you who may or may not know Mark McNulty, he's an established player, he's a very, very good player. Probably his strong suit is his putting.

Q. (Inaudible)?

HALE IRWIN: The course -- well, the rains, they had to have put some water on this course prior to us getting here. It was soft prior to the rains. They've put effort into getting it green. I played with members of this course on Wednesday and they said the course was soft before we got here. They were putting a lot of water out there trying to get it green. And water on top of water just made it sloppy.

Also we had four days of ball-in-hand, which I am opposed to 100 percent. Certainly yesterday, you can make all the case in the world that yesterday was -- I don't necessarily agree with Thursday and Friday, but I'm sort of a hard case when I come to -- I just like to see golf, play golf. Had we done that, I think you would have seen lower scoring, higher scores than 11-under, because ball-in-hand is a big difference, with these players.

Q. (Inaudible)?

HALE IRWIN: The rough, with the wet, the rough is very difficult. When it got wet -- and this is the kind of rough where the ball doesn't sit up, it sits down, and it sort of gets enveloped by -- there wasn't one lie I hit in the rough, and I hit a few this week, one lie -- I take it back, there was a 7-iron onto the green, I think every lie I had was one I had to beat on and chop on and hope I could get it up near the green.

Like for instance, the last hole of the day, with my back, my shoulder the way it was, that hurt hitting it out of that and I don't think I hit it maybe 70 yards with an 8-iron.

Q. (Inaudible)?

HALE IRWIN: The first tee. Oddly enough, the thing that hurts the most are the short shots. 50-yard wedges hurt more than a driver, because you've got to bend over a little more and -- in fact, I hit very few irons, went to a couple of 5-irons and went right to my driver today, just to warm up.

Q. (Inaudible)?

HALE IRWIN: Once I made that commitment and got into the first few holes, I told my caddie -- I made a par at the first hole and that's one more than I thought I was going to make today. As the day wore on, I felt like I can deal with this. I don't know where the shots are going, I have no idea how far I'm going to hit it, I hit a lot of pulls today, whereas the last few days I've been blocking everything to the right. Today it was just the opposite, I hit a lot of pulls, simply because this shoulder does not want to go through it, it stops, so the club gets in real quickly so I hit these pulls.

After the first three or four holes, I kind of went out there and I three-putted the second hole for a bogey. I thought if I could just keep plodding along and make some pars and just see where we end up. But as I said earlier, at the about the 13th hole, 14th hole, I hit some pretty good shots and it felt it was easing a little bit. And then I got on the 18th tee and it snapped right back.

If you could tell me, I would listen, but right now I am so tired of talking about my back. If nothing else I'm glad this year is over because I don't want to talk about it anymore. I have two more events to worry about, UBS Cup before Thanksgiving, and the father/son, which are the big tournaments of the year. These are just sort of minor league tournaments. The big one with my son the first week of December. There will be very little golf played this winter, I assure you.

Q. Your favorite topic (Inaudible)?

HALE IRWIN: Lower back. A year ago, May, and I can't tell you. It wasn't one of these lift the suitcase kind of things, it wasn't a traumatic, oh, there is where it hurt, it just started a little low back stuff and -- because if I had it before, I got in the hot tub or took a shower and it went away after a day or two. This one prevailed. We were in Nashville and I started getting some quick little spasms, but they didn't last. We went to the PGA Seniors up in New York and I got some big time spasms, low right, not in the spine but almost over on the spine, above the iliac crest.

I know a lot about this stuff now. It got to the point where I couldn't -- I didn't know when it was going to come, it just seized up, and then after a while it would relax itself. I've been fighting that. But as the specialists say, if something on the right side gives, something on the left is going to try to take over. After the right got all right, now the left started getting -- so that's why I go back to yesterday where it was so wet and so sloppy and so chilly and I was sort of playing lower half stiff, upper half trying to do it all, and I think that's where it got to me.

Q. (Inaudible)?

HALE IRWIN: It's kind of from right in my neck down to the shoulder legs.

Q. Any problems with your legs?

HALE IRWIN: No, that's the fortunate part, I haven't had any nerve kind of stuff. It's always been musculature in nature. I did get through three epidurals last summer and that wasn't doing the ticket, so I said enough of that pin-cushion stuff. It was like tearing a new -- you know.

I think what I've done is I've continued my workout process. I think that perhaps -- and I don't want to say my age because that's sort of an indifferent thing, but, maybe like I said, I'm not going to play four in a row. I was sort of forced -- not forced, but I had to withdraw from SAS. That put four in a row, simply because Craig was doing as well as he was, and winning at SAS changed the complexity of the last month for me.

Q. The epidural (Inaudible)?

HALE IRWIN: According to the doctors, it was supposed to relieve the problems I had, but it didn't do a lick. I figured that's throwing good money away and a lot of thrashing around on that. I'll tell them anything they want. Get that needle out of my back, I'll tell the truth. I'll tell him he's beautiful and his hands are warm. I just said that's enough of that.

After that I just kind of took it upon myself of getting the soft tissue massage. You've got to stretch. I would stretch -- it would be similar if you have a cut and it scabbed over and you stretch it and it breaks open. I told them in the very beginning when I hurt it in the U.S. Open in Chicago, I went into the trailer and I said, I think I've tournament a muscle, it feels like I've tournament a muscle. I've played a lot of sports and I know my body. It wasn't a nerve kind of thing. And that's exactly what it felt like, it felt like you get a cramp. We all get cramps. That's what it was doing. So I've kind of gone to that and continued my workout process over the winter and tried to get my hips stronger so I don't have to rely so much on my upper body now.