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JOHN DEERE CLASSIC MEDIA DAYJune 9, 2009Kenny PerryClair PetersonMike VonderhaarCLAIR PETERSON: I thank you for being here. It is an important event. I think somebody told me we have 27 days to go before the 2009 version of the John Deere Classic. We all year long have been challenged on one hand but also reminded, I think, of the importance of this event. We've gone around town and tried to remind people what it really means to this community. It brings $20 to $25 million of economic benefit when the TOUR hits town. As Commissioner Finchem did during THE PLAYERS Championship, I think it also reminds us that our main mission, we are just one big charity golf outing, quite honestly. We're a 501(c)3 organization whose main mission is to generate money for charity and to improve the quality of life in the region. We feel like we do both really well. Last year we had $4.7 million generated for over 500 regional charities. That puts us No. 1 per capita easily on the PGA TOUR. But just as impressively, I think it puts us No. 6 out of all 46 PGA TOUR events. This little area of 375,000 people helps 500 charities and does it better than all but five other tournaments on TOUR. Congratulations to everyone in town. Volunteerism is the other part of our mission, and it's my pleasure to be able to introduce to you our volunteer chairman for this year. This is also a distinguished group of people. We've been doing this for 39 years now, and many of the former chairmen are in this room. We have one of our former chairmen, John Wetzel, who's achieving a very important award today for his 40 years' worth of volunteerism in the community. Mike joins a very distinguished group, and he's a distinguished guy. He's been on our board, I think, for seven or eight years now, and he's our 2009, Mike Vonderhaar. MIKE VONDERHAAR: Thanks, Clair. First of all, I want to say on behalf of our tournament board of directors, many of whom are here today, and also on behalf of all of our volunteers what a privilege it is for me to welcome our 2008 champion Kenny Perry to the Quad Cities. It's great to have you here. I know you've gone to a lot of trouble to get here and you've got a busy schedule, so we really appreciate that. You'll also be happy to know that most of the people in this room have been working pretty diligently to get ready for the 2009 event, which is 27 days, one hour and 56 minutes from starting. So we're pretty excited about that. One area I'm going to talk about just briefly this morning before you get to Kenny is one of the missions that Clair mentions and that's volunteerism. Many of you know, and you've been helping us with this, I'm going to ask all the media to help us again to get the word out that the John Deere Classic is still in search of some more volunteers. One of our missions is clearly to promote volunteerism and we've been blessed at this event to have many fine volunteers and we're looking to add to that list if we can. You can help by getting the word out. We're in the process of filling a lot of spots and a few more volunteers would be great. This event wouldn't be possible, as Clair mentioned, without our 1,200 plus dedicated volunteers, and we've had a pretty good response so far from the word you guys have gotten out, so if we do it again I have a feeling we'll have no problem filling those spots. One area in particular we're looking to fill is in the area of our marshals committee. Being a marshal on the golf course can be a lot of fun. You're usually out in the middle of the action somewhere whether it's directing traffic or holding a "quiet, please" sign, so pros like Kenny can make a putt without anybody yelling at him. One of the great things about volunteering is there's not many organizations that somebody can volunteer for that someone can say that through their efforts they were able to raise millions of dollars for hundreds of charities. It's also pretty simple to volunteer for the John Deere Classic. Simply go to our website, JohnDeereClassic.com, and click on the "volunteer" tab. I talked this morning about our marshals needing some more volunteers. If a volunteer gets on the website and they see something else that interests them, we will not turn them away if they see some other area. They appreciate you coming out and helping us spread the word about volunteerism and covering our event, and we look forward to seeing you all back here in a couple weeks for tournament week. Thanks very much, and I'll turn it back over to Clair. CLAIR PETERSON: We really never mentioned but should certainly thank the facility here, TPC at Deere Run. Paul Grogan is here in the room somewhere, I believe, the superintendent, and Ian Nichol, the general manager, and they're going to be available afterwards, as well, if you'd like to talk to them. Kenny has talked, since he's been in town, we were just driving up the drive this morning, about what a great facility, about what a great job D.A. did, what a pure golf course, shot maker's type course this is, pure golf, and we're so fortunate to have it obviously here in town. As we are fortunate to have Kenny back, there's no reason why you wouldn't know this, but Kenny came here yesterday and didn't really get into his hotel room until about midnight. He was on the East Coast at a fundraising event the Monday after the Memorial raising money for Boys and Girls Clubs there, got on a commercial flight in Philly and almost didn't make his connection in Minneapolis. He had like 12 minutes to get there. So he's just like one of us in that regard. It was really important for him to be here, and we kind of talked around the luggage carousel, and of course I thanked him for making the trip. He made the comment that some players had questioned, why are you even doing this? We don't do media days anymore, and that surprised him. He said, "Well, that's something that I wouldn't even think about skipping." What a great champion we have in Kenny Perry. His history here in the Quad Cities goes way back, as well. We had breakfast this morning and he was recalling staying in a family's house, the Crest family who he became lifelong friends with. We kid around a little bit because when I became tournament director and went out recruiting, one of my great sales pitches was, we've got an unbelievable new golf course, TPC at Deere Run. Pure golf, you won't believe it. Kenny was one of the only players that goes, doggone, I wish you guys never would have left Oakwood. I always played great at Oakwood. I always Top 10'd at Oakwood. We had to get him over the hump to get him here at Deere Run, but we've obviously been very thrilled and very fortunate to have him here the last two years, and he likes Deere Run now, too. He plays the course really well. You look in your media guides and find out that he's the seventh ranked player in the world right now, third-highest American player. He's won 13 events, the last one being the FBR Open this year. Ten of those events he's won since he's been 40 years old, which really says a lot about his golf game and his temperament. But I think some of the more important things which you might not know about, in 2002 Kenny received the Charles Bartlett Award from the Golf Writers Association of America for his unselfish contributions to the betterment of society. Isn't that a terrific award to have on your resumé? He donates 5 percent of his winnings to Lipscomb University of Nashville. Every time he cashes a check on TOUR, five percent of it goes to Lipscomb University. He is a golf course owner. He has a golf course there in Franklin, Kentucky, and does that to give something back to his community. And last year when he was interviewed after his win here, he was quoted as saying that he'd like to be known for his humanitarianism than his golfing prowess. So today we salute both, our 2008 champion Kenny Perry. KENNY PERRY: Well, it's good to be back. Clair, thank you for all that. You know, I appreciate his persistence. He was always after me coming to the sites at tournaments prior to the Deere, and he'd say, "We really have a great course, you should come back and start playing." I was kind of down a little bit because I loved Oakwood. I lost to Mark McCumber there on the last hole to lose that tournament, and I have a special family here that I used to stay with and I'm really close to their kids. I have a long run and a long history here at this tournament, and it's pretty ironic I've been able to get back here and be able to be your champion, be your defending champion. It's been a really special honor and a bonus for me in my life at this stage in my career. This was a huge tournament for me last year to win. This really springboarded me right into the Ryder Cup. As everybody knows I took a lot of grief last year for skipping a couple of the majors. I had a goal, I had a plan. Here I am at 48 years old, and I'm trying to create what to me was the ultimate golf experience I ever had in my life. I'm not trying to downplay any TOUR event or anything else, but as everybody knows the Ryder Cup was at Valhalla, it was in my home state. I had a little history there - I lost in a playoff there in '96 to Mark Brooks to lose the PGA Championship. I needed to get back there. I needed to somehow rewrite the history books and change the chapter in my life. You don't get a mulligan too many times in your life. You don't get that opportunity to go back. Everybody in my home state always remembered me for that loss, and people were saying I stayed in the tower too long or whatever. I disagree. It was 110 degrees. But anyway, I needed to get back there. This was a huge accomplishment, for me to be able to get in here and to win this golf tournament. I'll never forget playing that playoff with Brad and with Jay. To me it was really funny. Here I am, I've played 23 years out here on the TOUR, and I'm in the playoff here. And I'm looking at Jay and I'm looking at Brad, and they're just so fidgety, they're just so uncomfortable, and I'm just chuckling inside myself. I was like, I remember when I was that age trying to win my first tournament. I was very fortunate that they both hit it in the water and it was easy for me to get it on the green and get the win here. That got me to where I needed to be, to where I knew I was solid on the Ryder Cup team, and then to be able to go the way we did, and to win the Cup for my country was pretty special, but to wear the red, white and blue, that was pretty awesome. And then to have my dad walking on that 16th green, here he is in his overalls and gave me that big hug, and he said, "That was probably the best gift you could ever give me." So that was pretty special for a father and his son right now. I thank John Deere, I thank our sponsors. With this economy the way it is nowadays, I know it's tough. It's tough to get out there and up the money to keep our tournaments running. We do a lot of good things. We raise money for charity. That's what's most important, to me anyway, is to help give back and to help people who need it. I'm excited to be your champion. I look forward to coming back here in 27 days. I didn't realize it was that close. It's hard to believe it's already right here upon us. But I look forward to it. I hope -- my goal is to win 20 times. I've got 13, so this would be another good spot to get me closer to one of my final goals. I hope to come back and to repeat, so that's kind of what I'm looking forward to. Thank you very much. CLAIR PETERSON: We'll let Kenny answer some questions at the podium before we go away and do our one-on-ones, or if you have questions for Mike and I we'd be happy to answer them, as well. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: I'm going to go home for a couple days and probably head up Thursday night or Friday night and play the weekend for sure. They said we couldn't play on Friday, that they're going to take Michael Jordan and Timberlake and they're going to try to break 100 out there on Friday. I may go up on Thursday so I can play Thursday, Saturday, Sunday or may just go up Friday night and play Saturday and Sunday. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: Well, it's very important. At my stage in my career, I figure I've only got seven majors left, three this year, and I'm definitely in the four for next year. I turn 50 next year, so that's an ultimate goal to me is to win a major. To come to close at the Masters this year, I did that differently. I went in there four days early at Augusta. I went down to Reynolds Plantation, which is the Taylor Made facility, stopped in there, worked on my equipment and I got into Augusta Thursday night and I played Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Augusta getting ready for that tournament. I've never done that in the past. I always usually shows up -- Monday is my travel day, put two days in, Tuesday and Wednesday, and I've really never had much success in the majors. I'm kind of focused in on the majors this year, so I will definitely get up there and hopefully make a good charge and be ready to go when the tournament starts. Q. With that kind of focus on the majors, is there ever a thought maybe skip John Deere and go right to the British? KENNY PERRY: No, I'll never skip this tournament. You know, when you get to a place and you win and you've got some history there and you've got great people and family to be around, I just -- to me, obviously the majors are the most important thing for me, but you don't step on the people that have helped you get to where you are on that mountaintop. I got criticized heavily last year for skipping the British and going to Milwaukee, which is something I'd really rather do this year. I'd really rather not go to the British. I think U.S. Bank, it's the last year for the Milwaukee tournament. That's been very big in my life. I've been able to win there. It's been very crucial in getting me to this stage in my life, and this is probably the last year for that tournament. I think they're going to lose their sponsorship, pulling out, and that tournament might not exist anymore, so I'd rather go there and support that tournament. It's probably my last year to ever play Brown Deer Park. Anyway, I'm definitely going to go to the British. I'm going to go try to play. I've never played Turnberry, so I'm going to try to go over there early, definitely will come here and try to defend and then sneak on over there. So hopefully I can get that win and get back on top and hopefully get some confidence to carry over to the British. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: My whole career has been like that. I'm a very streaky player. I won three times in '03, won Colonial and Memorial back-to-back and two weeks later I won again. It just seems like whenever I get in these streaks I can hold my game together for four, five, six tournaments and hold my game together. I did that this year. I played great last summer when I won the three events last summer here. That's just been the nature of my game. I wish I could figure out why I can't contain it more often and hold it together longer, but that's just the way I've always been, I've always been a very streaky player. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: Well, I think I was a winner even though I didn't get the jacket. I had over 1,000 emails, I had over 800 cards and letters, and the letters I received were letters that -- I've never written a letter like this before but I felt compelled to write you. Here I am, I've got two kids, I had countless letters from fathers saying, "You showed sportsmanship, you're a class act." It's true, I've got my mom with cancer, she's probably not going to live much longer, my sister is fighting breast cancer. You think about it, golf is just a game, it really is. I may not have had this perspective back in my earlier years when I was younger, but I realize at this stage of my career how lucky I am and how fortunate I am. Good things will come my way. It showed all the compassion and the love I received from the world. I had people writing me from Europe, from Australia, from the whole world write me letters just trying to pump me up and they said, you'll get it the next time, or whatever. It didn't really matter. It was just neat. I had Phil Mickelson call me, I had Jack Nicklaus, all the greats of the game, they called me, wrote me letters, President Bush. It was pretty neat, all the outpouring of love that I received. I didn't win, but I felt like I won. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: I don't think so. You know, I keep saying I'm kind of smelling the roses along the way. I've laid the groundwork, done all the hard work, now I'm just kind of sliding my way out. I'm going out here on the TOUR and I'm going to enjoy each and every week. If I don't ever win another tournament, I've had a great career considering where I've come from, my beginnings, raised on a little private golf course in a small town. I was never expected to do what I've ever been able to do. I'm just one small guy. I've been able to do a lot of things, see a lot of the world. It's just been a wonderful ride. You know, I don't really put a lot of pressure on myself anymore. I go out, I enjoy, I play, and whatever it is, it is. That's just going to be the way I go out. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: I don't even remember a birdie hole on that golf course. I just remember it was cold, it was rainy, the rough was unplayable. It was chip-out. I made the cut I remember, but I just remembered how uncomfortable I felt, how each tee shot I felt so much pressure because I knew if I hit it in the rough, it was going to be a struggle. But I switched to a new driver, this new R9 driver that I told my caddie, I think we can win a U.S. Open with this driver because it's real straight. I hit it straighter than I've ever hit it. I've actually given up a little bit of distance but yet I've gained in accuracy. It's going to be a nice fit for me when I get to Bethpage. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: I have not, no. Rocco and I have not spoke much on that. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: Well, I've said this: Guys are going to step up. In the smaller markets, you're going to definitely see a change in the scenery, in the landscape here in the next couple years, you know, with the economy the way it is. I think our players are going to have to step up a little bit, going to have to shake a little more hands and look like they enjoy where they're at and be thankful for what they've got to help promote the tournament a little bit more. I've spoken to the guys, and we've all kind of been sitting around the locker room talking about it and kind of wonder where the future of the PGA TOUR is going and what's it going to look like here in five years. It's tough out there. I mean, it's tough. It's just up to us to help promote it. We need our upper-echelon guys to really step up. I know that seems a little unfair, but Tiger, Phil, all those guys, they're going to have to get in there and help us out a little bit. Jack and Arnold, they carried the TOUR for a long time, and you hate to see their groundwork pushed aside, but somebody else is going to have to step up and take their place. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: It helped a lot. It's taken a lot of pressure off me. I think it's another stage of my life where I just walked my oldest daughter down the aisle in November, my son is graduating from Western Kentucky and my little girl is a senior at SMU. It's just my wife and I now. She travels with me every week. I told her, we've been married 28 years but I've only known her for 14 because she was home raising the kids while I was on the road. I told her, we're either going to get a divorce or we're going to fall in love again, that she's going to get on my nerves (laughter). But anyway, it's been great. It's been a lot of positives. She's kind of become the den mother out there for all the TOUR wives. They all kind of come to her for advice and everything, which has been kind of neat. We're just having a blast. We're just having fun. I play all these courses, I know them like the back of my hand, and I'm not having to grind like the young guys are trying to prepare, work the greens or course layouts, if there's a new golf course or whatever. I definitely love the experience part of it. I don't like being my age, but I certainly don't want to go back to where those kids are, either. I like where I am, the stage in my life where I am now. I'm very content with it. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: Well, it would mean a lot. I'm not going to lie to you guys. My son, I'll never forget when I was inducted into the Kentucky Golf Hall of Fame, the last words my son said were, "I hope I can induct you into the World Golf Hall of Fame." That's been a goal in the back of my head. Obviously if I could have won my two majors I had a good shot at it. I had a real good shot at getting in there. But that's probably not going to happen. I'm not trying to be pessimistic here, it's just a tough deal. But it is a goal, and it's what keeps burning inside of me and keeps me pushing and keeps me practicing and hitting balls. I don't really have anything else to prove. To be out here as long as I have, basically I'm just trying to mentor a lot of young kids, play a lot of practice rounds with a lot of young kids. They all kind of want to get a piece of what I'm thinking or what I'm doing out there. I'm really enjoying that part of my life. I'm physically okay, I don't really have any aches and pains besides my knee surgery in '06. That kind of threw me for a loop for a year and a half. But other than that, my back is fine and I still hit it far enough, so I can still be competitive out here. I guess that's what still drives me. I still think in the back of my head, once a competitor, always a competitor. I hate losing in anything. I hate losing, period. I guess that's what drives me to continue to want to be the best that I can be out here. There's still more for me to obtain, I don't know, but I'm still looking at it from a more relaxed days, whereas in my younger days I'd go home and kick the dog. Now I just kind of grin and laugh it off, and Sandy and I will just go out and get a good meal together. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: I got to play with him in The Skins Game on Wednesday. I played with Jack and Tiger and Stewart Cink. That was an honor for me. I was in heaven. I loved it out there. I really paid close attention to Jack, watching Jack play, because that's probably the last time we'll see him play in public. But I really paid attention to Tiger, also, and his golf swing looks a whole lot better than it has in the past. Every shot he hit was in control. He didn't overswing, he was hitting a hard slider, which when he played his best that's kind of the shot he was hitting, and he's got the best short game on our TOUR by far. His chipping and putting has always been the best. But his driving game has always been so wild he can't compete. He's always had to hit that Stinger iron and woods and whatever, but I was really impressed with his driver. Muirfield is a big, wide open golf course. Even though it plays like a U.S. Open, it's got 35-yard fairways. Now, when we get to the 20 yards at Bethpage, it may be a different scenario. He definitely has the strength and ability to move it out of the rough better than anyone else, also. I like his chances, I really do. I think he's not trying to overswing now, and I think he's highly motivated. He's had a lot of time off, and he's got two kids now, he's got college to pay for (laughter). Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: You know, Bethpage is 7,500, 7,400 yards long. I don't know if he can totally put that thing away. He could probably still play 3-wood off the tee and be just fine. I just can't really answer that question until I actually get on the grounds this weekend and actually see how the USGA is going to set that golf course up. I heard they built some new tees and really made the golf course a whole lot longer than when we were there in 2002. But I don't know what tee boxes they're going to use, so it'll be interesting to see when I get there. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: You know, that's life, isn't it? That's kind of -- people love the dirty laundry for some reason. They like to try to -- I guess it makes them feel better when they see somebody else get hurt, I don't know. To me, I see a lot of that. It didn't really bother me because I laughed. The only person I was worried about was Charley Hoffman, and I went right to him and said, "You need to see this. What do you think about that?" He said, "You didn't do anything wrong there." That would be the only person. If he thought I did something wrong, that would have hurt me. I read in the paper they tried to call the same thing on a European guy this last tournament, same rule. They said he improved his lie in the rough. This guy was a reporter from the British -- it was a tabloid paper over in London, the guy who wrote this article, trying to get this around about me. I talked to a lot of guys, and nobody had a problem with it. I definitely didn't improve my lie. If I improved my lie, I think I would have hit it a lot closer than I did. Anyway, that's golf. I mean, they need to change the rule and tell us we can't ground our club in the rough. If you hit a sand wedge behind the ball in heavy rough, the grass is going to go down, no matter what you do. There was no intent there to break any rules. It was interesting to me, how they can come back to you four months later and I've got a camera guy five feet behind me, I'm sitting there looking at him. I didn't understand it, but I just kind of smiled and went on my way. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: You know, normally people will call in and say, I think you broke a rule. Then the rules officials will get you in the room. What I liked about the whole deal is they took -- our rules staff went off into another room. I wasn't present for the meeting, and they came out with their statement, so that made me feel very good. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: That's a great perk. After my travel experiences last night -- commercial flying is tough. They check everything, I'm always packing my golf clubs wherever I go, and so I know my golf clubs are going to get there safely with me, I'm not going to have to be worried about getting them lost or stolen. I was just telling Clair and the guys about this putter, this guy gave me this putter two years ago, he was a member at my club there at Bent Pine, and he's got his name on a sticker on the shaft. He goes, "You need to putt with this putter. You'll putt real well." That's the putter I came in with and won three times this summer. I wouldn't mind losing my golf clubs, but I'd mind losing that putter. So if somebody stole that, I'd be pretty upset. That's a great perk, to be able to comfortably get on an airplane, get to there. Traveling to me is what irritates me more than anything else about my job. It's tough, and to know when you get some comfort and get an easy flight over there and get on a plane everything is going to be there, that's a nice perk. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: Well, to me I've always played a lot of tournaments. I've always played a lot of tournaments in the small markets. It definitely will affect Tiger and the upper-name guys when they only play 15 events a year. It's going to force them to redo their schedules where they play the last four in a row. But I've always played those events anyway. We always strive to get to the TOUR Championship, and I always went to Boston and Cog Hill and Chicago and all those events. So my schedule really hasn't changed much. I've always played 28 to 30 events a year and always worked at my craft and tried to stay out there in the public eye and stay with it. I'm the kind of guy, I need to play three to four weeks in a row to get sharp. I can't take two weeks off and then when I come back, like Tiger, win a tournament. I've never been able to do that. I'm pitiful that first week back. I like it because it keeps me playing, keeps me sharp. That led me into the Ryder Cup last year. I played all four tournaments and I was ready to go when the Ryder Cup got here last year, so I kind of like it. It's a neat thing, it kind of opens the eye to the public, gives them something else to look at, to think about in our sport. It's something new. It's not the same old mundane stuff. It's always good to look at how many FedExCup points you've got, where you stand on the list. It's a pretty incredible payoff when you can go out there and win $10 million. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: Well, it's always good to go back. To me, I mean, I don't mind it. Maybe a few years ago when I was a kid I didn't enjoy it too much, but I didn't win that much, either. But my 40s have been awesome. I've won a lot of times, and I've been able to do a lot of media days and been able to shake a lot of hands and thank a lot of people. I think that's what it's all about. I don't know how much I won here last year, I forget what the check was, but that's a lottery ticket, in my opinion. It's incredible. I think I'm overpaid. But you know what, I've been able to do a lot of good use with this money. I helped start the Boys and Girls Club in our hometown of Franklin, Kentucky. We broke ground, built the building, had 49 kids and now we've got 570 kids. That's pretty neat in a town of 7,000, 8,000 people to be able to do that. Golf has given me that opportunity, it's given me the platform to stand up and do some things that I thought I'd never be able to do. It's been pretty neat. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: Well, I hope my life, the way I live my life, can be an example. I don't really try to push it on them. I hope they -- I kind of had to learn along the way. It was kind of a growing process with me, too. I didn't really have anybody take me aside and try to teach me, but it was something instilled from my parents and from the lifestyle that I was raised that I think was more important, that made me be the person that I am today. I do talk to J.B. Holmes, I do talk to some of the kids that I do play with about what I'm doing and just tell them what I'm doing. I'm not telling them they should do it or anything, I don't want to put any pressure on them, but hopefully they'll get the message. Q. (Inaudible.) KENNY PERRY: I've been struggling. My golf game kind of went away and been searching. Been hitting a lot of balls. I think that's just me, though, personally, because I played great two or three months in a row and then I disappeared for two or three months, and then I come back. That's just kind of been the history of the way I play golf. I wish I could hang in the limelight there longer and more often, but that's not been the way I've been able to compete out here. To me, the courses we play, it just seems like when I go to a course I really enjoy, and that I've always had a lot success at, I do pretty good at it, but it was really disappointing for me this year to go to Colonial and Memorial this year, two of my bread-and-butter courses, and just had average performance the past two weeks. That was kind of tough. So I don't know, we're at ground zero and I'm going to have to figure out something that's going to get me competitive next week. Q. U.S. Open next week at a public venue. Just your thoughts about Tour events and majors being held at public courses, what that does for the sport so people can relate to what you're going through. KENNY PERRY: I think it's special. I own a public golf course. I opened it in '95. It's a little public golf course. It's not much. I told Decker he can come and play it with me, but don't expect a lot. But it's pretty neat when a person can actually show up -- I would not want to go up there and sleep at midnight in my car to play Bethpage, but it's pretty neat when the public can actually get out there and actually be in the arena that I'm in, actually see the golf course, play the golf course and actually kind of have a little sympathy for us where they say, well, I could have done that. It's pretty neat. I think it's great for golf. I think public golf has been -- that's why I built a public course in our town is because I felt it was unfair that all my buddies couldn't play at the Country Club if they couldn't afford to play the Country Club. It gives kids an opportunity to go play, it keeps it out there in the public, and it's just important to grow the game. I'm excited to go there. That would be awesome for me to be success there on that public facility. That would be the ultimate because I'm a public -- that's the kind of guy I am. I'd rather be at a public course than a private course. CLAIR PETERSON: Thanks for coming, and Barry can kind of orchestrate the one-on-ones. End of FastScripts |
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