CHAMPIONS TOUR MEDIA CONFERENCE

January 27, 2004

Jerry Pate

JERRY PATE: Appreciate it. Looking forward to it.

JERRY PATE: Well, first of all, need to expect that these guys can really play, watching the MasterCard last week in Hawaii, watching Fuzzy Zoeller birdieing the last 3 to shoot 20-under. The guy I am really following closely is Dana Quigley and his skills, he's really become an accomplished player, although he didn't have great success on the PGA TOUR. Craig Stadler, my close friend, is going to be a threat as well. So you have got to really play your game to the highest level to be competitive on the Champions Tour.

JERRY PATE: I had surgery in -- June 17 Jim Andrews -- that was the third time he had operated on my shoulder. Frank Jobe operated on it the last time in 1987. I had a torn head of my biceps and the cartilage in my left shoulder joint the same one that had been operated on three previous times. Then and had capsular shrinkage which is called a thermal capsular shrinkage where they go in and put heat inside your joint three or four hundred degrees just like you would melt bacon or heat bacon and the tissue actually shrivels up, it compresses around the hemoral (phonetic) head of your shoulder which tightens up your joint. It's very common surgery nowadays. The last one I had Frank Jobe did, was an open procedure which was very invasive in my shoulder back in 1987 which really kind of led to the end of my career. I had so much scaring and pain from it that it was over a year before I could even think about hitting balls and Dr. Andrews and the new procedures now, they do it on baseball pitchers all the time, anyone who has multi-directional instability or lose-jointed athletes, and whether it be tennis or golf or football, quarterbacks and pitchers primarily. And I have been working out. In fact, I worked out -- I stayed in Birmingham at Dr. Andrews house, at his home, actually, until December, my wife and I, and I'd come home on the weekends to Florida in Pensacola but I worked out anywhere from 3 to 6 hours a day, four days a week for about five months so needless to say, I am in good shape physically (laughs).

JERRY PATE: I know nothing about the golf course in Miami, Key Biscayne. I hear it's a good golf course. I want to say I was told it was a Dick Wilson course, I am not sure, but I will find out when I arrive on Tuesday. My expectations are to just be competitive starting out. I want to just get out and get into the feel of being competitive. I haven't played competitive golf much last year due to my surgery, so I am excited about just being back with my friends and having fun playing golf everyday. I made a serious commitment starting last year, the first of the year, unfortunately my shoulder had problems, and I really put off the surgery for ten years even though it had been, oh, 15, 16 years since the one -- or 15 years before, but I had a lot of problems with it and I just didn't really want to fess up to it and so Dr. Andrews decided to tighten it up. Physically I feel great. I have been hitting a lot of balls, been putting a lot and chipping a lot. Again I just have to get out on the Tour and, you know, be in the heat of the battle and to be competitive. I think that will take me a couple of months to get to that point.

JERRY PATE: I had a good day.

JERRY PATE: The game, I think at my level or anyone's level, at the Champions Tour, the competitors, the game is a short game, it's just putting and chipping. I was impressed to watch Dana Quigley hit that bunker shot on the last hole at Hawaii last week and everyone had talked about his game and what a good player he was, and shoot, right under pressure he's leading in sand saves and he almost holes the shot from a very difficult 70 -- 80-foot bunker shot. So Fuzzy holes three critical putts the last three holes to win. So heck, everybody can hit it in the fairway; everybody can hit it on the greens, it's the guy who putts the best is going to win.

JERRY PATE: Well, I don't think I am going to skip very many at all. I really haven't committed, but to the first few events. I have committed to some to -- all of them in Florida and the ones in California and I am sure I will play in Pensacola, Savannah, Birmingham, Austin, debating on whether I am going to play in Mexico. I haven't played there in years, but I have played in Mexico many years ago and enjoyed it very much in Mexico city. So I am looking to play at least 25 events, Ted.

JERRY PATE: Well, you know, I never heard anybody -- I have never even heard my wife ever even comment about it, but the other day we were watching the Tour and saw Jay Haas do well on the regular Tour and he and I are the same age. My wife had said, you know, if you hadn't been injured you would have still been playing on the regular Tour even at 50 because I have always stayed in good shape. She said, just think what success you might have had. I said, Susie, I have had a lot of great success and I don't want to bore you with you with this conversation, but I can go on for 20 minutes of my success off the golf course, in business, my success with charities, my success with families, I could give unbelievable interviews about just that. Believe me, if I had not have been injured I would have never had those opportunities. It humbled me a lot in life, you know, I don't expect to have everything given to me anymore. I think you jump out and you win the U.S. amateur at 20, you are the youngest guy -- same as Bobby Jones and Nicklaus. You win the U.S. Open at 22; again you are the same age as Bobby Jones and Nicklaus and you are getting paid well as a 22-year-old flying in private jets back in 1976. I ended up owning my own airplane. You had Palmer, Nicklaus and Jerry Pate all had an airplane back in the '80s. I was on a pretty big roll. I made one swing, popped my cartilage in 1982, after just winning THE PLAYERS Championship, just getting beat a shot by Stadler at The Masters; just winning Pensacola and Memphis, I was probably ranked, if not one of the top players in the world, one or two. And it just -- there it went. But, hey, God had a different path for me, a different plan, and you know, again, heck, I did broadcasting for 10 or 11, twelve years. I built 30 some odd golf courses. I have been involved in all kind of businesses, and I have had a great life. So don't feel sorry for me. I will just feel happy when I get out and get to stretch my legs again down the fairways.

JERRY PATE: You know what, probably you weren't even born then. But I think the last time I played 25 events would have probably been in the '80s, in the middle '80s after I tore my shoulder up. I played on and off but I went a couple of years and didn't play any when I had surgery, so, it's been a while. I was averaging ten or fifteen events at one time there, but it's been, shoot, it's been over ten years, so it's going to be a new thing for me. I will say this, even though I am 50, I think if you saw me, you wouldn't think I am 50 physically. Without a doubt I am 100% better conditioned than I have ever been in my whole life physically. I played golf yesterday here in Pensacola, Tiger Point and I was telling a guy that rode around -- a friend of mine watching me play. I said, you know, every swing, I just don't get tired anywhere more. I feel better about myself. I just wish I had known what I knew now and that's the beauty of the Champions Tour, you have got all these guys that have experienced things and I wish I knew what I knew now back then, I would have been in better shape. I admire guys like Tiger Woods who raised the bar by being the best conditioned athlete with the best swing and the most concentration to get out there and be the players he is. That's what it takes to win, you have got to start out by being in great shape.

JERRY PATE: I have been working for about three years. In fact, I did a lot of yoga for a while. I felt like a rubber band, like a pretzel and I was always loose-jointed, but I was in very good shape up to that, and actually when I played the Bob Hope was my first event a year ago. I was really playing well. I felt well, but the longer I played, the more my shoulder hurt. So I knew there was something I had to do and what it was, was a looseness in my joint was just causing the hemoral (phonetic) head to rattle around in my capsule and everything and on the cartilage and banging on my biceps tendon and I was rubbing a hole in my biceps tendon and that caused the inflammation and the pain. But just the whole procedure of how I condition and the type of workout program I go through today that I started with with Kevin at HealthSouth in Birmingham and with Dr. Andrews, the conditioning program that I have gone through is so different than what I had 20 years ago when I had surgery, 15 years ago, it's much different than the extensive program even that I had on the fitness center on the PGA TOUR out at the fitness center there because I have a specific injury that we focused in on and they have operated on so many pitchers' shoulders and so many other athletes and golfers that they know how to rehab your shoulder in a much compressed timeframe. And actually, you know, heavier load at the same time. So it's something that you just don't go down to Jim and say I am going to charge -- get charged up my credit card and join the local fitness center, I had a physical therapist and a trainer and several of them, like three of them working with me everyday for six months. So that was the difference.

JERRY PATE: First of all, it was power. I could remember coming back in the '80s and literally going home and crying after a round. I was 29 years old and just sitting there and talking to my wife and saying, I can't even hit the ball 250 yards off the tee. I was averaging 266, 270, which was around 40th in distance on the Tour which is plenty long enough. There's always, as I say, there's always 39 gorillas out there that are going to outhit you. There's some guys that are 6'4", 6'5" that are going to hit it nine miles but you have to figure that's not the total package. It robbed me of my strength. Then once my strength left, when I wasn't driving the ball as far and then I had a tougher time hitting long irons, then it started wearing on my confidence and then you start losing your concentration. Then you start thinking -- you are in a spiral going down. I seen it happen in other athletes. It's a difficult challenge to come back. The thing that I can commit to this time, that's what Jim Andrews said he said, look, you are 50 years old, almost 50 when I had surgery. He said, you are not 26 years rehabbing, I want you hear in Birmingham at my house. He and I are very, very close friends. And I have served on their foundation board on a couple of different foundation boards. He said, I want you here, I want you to work out everyday with my guy. That's what I did.

JERRY PATE: We'll use the math as well, we're only playing three hounds, though, it won't be quite like 25 events. Take 25% off that, it will be like 20. How about that? How does that math work?

JERRY PATE: Sinking putts cures a lot of illnesses. Again, all you have to do is turn on the telecast of any men's event and all they do is make putts. I think Annika Sorenstam said that when she played at the Colonial she was shocked, she felt that the men could really hit it, but she said she could not believe how good their short games were. I think that's the difference. They are very good out of the bunkers. They pitch the ball well and they can really roll their golf ball. I think that's important.

JERRY PATE: In fact, that's a terrific question. I have used a Scotty Cameron putter. I use all Titleist equipment. I have used a Scotty Cameron putter for, oh Lord for many years now, and I just felt like I was becoming more and more mechanical in my stroke and not working on feel. Then I started trying to get more feel. I started putting more handsy. When I played in the Office Depot father and son tournament, this December in Orlando, I putted just horrifically. So I went back and pulled out my old 1962 Wilson Arnold Palmer putter that I used when I was in college. I used it when I first went on Tour and used it when I won THE PLAYERS Championship and U.S. Amateur even though I won other tournaments with other putters, it's a blade putter, it's a heal-shafted putter. The 8802 was copied after the original Wilson Arnold Palmer and -- after Arnold left the Wilson Company. It was one that I could really swing the toe. I got a lot of feel with it. I have been putting with it for a while now. I feel good. My stroke is feeling good and that's what I am working on, putting and short game.

JERRY PATE: I know exactly how it felt. In fact, the irony of it, if I look back of -- it was in May. I was trying to -- I rebuilt the driving range tee at about nine other tees for a country club where we hosted the Pensacola Open -- Pensacola didn't have very much money to afford a big-time tournament and the club was actually going through some bankruptcy. They were being funded and so I went out there with a crew of people and donated some money, the club put up a little money, and the PSA put up some money. I spent about a week and a half working on equipment, actually operating equipment. And I remember one afternoon, a huge storm blew up from the south and it was a real strong wind. It was in the middle or end of May. I started thinking about how well I was playing, and knew the open was coming up. More than that, I really wanted to do well at Troon at the British Open. So I went to the far end of the driving range on some hard ground, and I started hitting 1-irons, knocking down just this great feeling of hitting these low knockdown 1-irons back to the south into this wind. As I hit them -- one of the shots I hit I felt -- it really was a swing flaw of mine, the way I used to try to knock the ball down and hit it low is not now how I hit it today. I actually was kind of delofting by not releasing the club, sort of holding on my left side, and as I held on and pulled through with my left arm and didn't release the club, the club caught in the ground and popped. I felt a big pop in my left shoulder joint. So I went down, hit another ball, when I made a backswing I stopped because my shoulder was just -- boy, it was like disjointed. So I tried to shake my arm and shake it off. I hit a couple more balls late in the afternoon. I couldn't hit any. I will never forget, I got in the car, I drove home, and I pulled into a drive-in of a liquor store, I bought a beer. I said, boy, if I have got a pulled muscle maybe this beer will relax me. I drank one beer and drove home, and when I got home my shoulder was just killing me. I am thinking to myself, I have never been injured, I am thinking, boy, I have got a problem here. Then I woke up the next day and my whole shoulder was like inflamed. I couldn't move it. I knew I had done something. In 1982 you were not even -- they were not even scoping shoulders really. Dr. Frank McHugh (phonetic) at the University of Virginia had started, I think. Jim Andrews did a little bit of it at the Houston Clinic in Columbus, Georgia. So nobody knew what to do. Everybody was scared to death. Hell, I was Leading-Money Winner at the time going through that part of the Tour. I was kind of the new guy 28th, you know, the heir apparent to come on and take the thrown and run with it. That was the end of my career on one stupid swing and it wasn't until 1985 I met Jim Andrews that fall at the Southern Open. He was at that time living in Columbus, Georgia. He said, I think I can fix your shoulder, probably have a torn cartilage but X-rays didn't show torn cartilage. We didn't have MRIs in 1982; didn't have CT scans. So I was the part of the practice medicine. I became someone they figured out, well, finally Jim decided we would go in 1985 and he convinced me to scope my shoulder. He had just recently had done Jim Simons and Hubert Green. They seemed to come back. He removed a torn cartilage, and I just never got better. I kept hanging onto it when I swing at it with my left arm, I never released my club. I just stayed in a downhill spiral. That's kind of how it happened.

JERRY PATE: To be honest, and the way you phrased that is a great way that I look at things. I thought I was, but I didn't really think I was. I was very insecure. Most insecure people are super outgoing, you know, braggadocios, cocky and all of the above. I would have fit that mold in a minute. Even though I love people, I still like to joke and have fun, but I was extremely cocky, and I never dreamed I was going to be a good golfer. I had dreamed of it. I never thought honestly I would be. When I went to college, I went there at the University of Alabama because Coach Bryant was coaching football. I wasn't offered a scholarship to go anywhere in the south. My dad was one of the sponsors, Coca-cola Bear Bryant television program. That's how I got books and tuition, coach Bryant gave it to me, not the golf coach. So when I ended up winning all these golf tournaments it was just like a dream come true so there was a lot of insecurity. I think the fact that if you go back and look at my record and took the first seven years, if you could have carried that out for the next 15 years, let's just say, for the next ten years, if I had played 17 years, if you just to look at my record and carried it on for 15 more years it would have been quite a record. No question, and I look back and say, hey, I had a hole-in-one at Cypress Point; a hole-in-one at the U.S. Open; a hole-in-one at Augusta. I had a second at the U.S. Open. I got beat by a shot at PGA, a couple of times. I got beat by a shot at The Masters. Won THE PLAYERS Championship. I dove in the lake twice, started orange golf balls. I was 28 years old, I had done all that. And I was done. I can't go back and cry over spilt milk. I took that opportunity and I ran with it. I said to myself, I must have an ability to do something else and so I found other niches in the golf world to drive into.

JERRY PATE: I think the beauty of the Champions Tour is this: It's like life, if you go out and you wanted to learn something about medicine, would you talk to a 26 year old guy about medicine? Would you go out and ask an auto mechanic who worked on your car that had worked for one year? Would you go out and talk to a professor of theology about the Bible and about religion if he had been out of school one year? Or would you talk to a guy that's done it for 25, 30 years? The beauty of the Champions Tour is we all learn through our own successes and failures and you are looking at a group of men out there that have the most success of any golfers on the earth and it's amazing to me we don't have more fans because it's an opportunity that people can go out there and get up close and personal and talk to people assuming the people are polite when they introduce themselves to the champions and talk to them about life, talk to them about their golf game. I would much rather talk to the Byron Nelson about the golf swing than to talk to a 25 year old that's winning on the PGA TOUR about his golf swing. I used to laugh when I had done all these things at age 28 that someone told me once, that Ben Hogan says you don't learn your golf swing until you are almost 50. I kind of laughed. I know my golf swing, I said, but guess what, Mr. Hogan was absolutely right, I didn't know a thing about my golf swing. I didn't know much about the golf world. It took a lot of failure and a lot of successes along the way to humble yourself to learn about why things fall into place the way they are. When you are younger, you always feel like you are in control of your destiny. You want to be in control and you try to work hard and you strive to be in control, but in the big picture, you are never in control. There's outside forces that control what goes on. You have an ability to sort of point your past -- your travel and the direction, but you know, who would have thought I would have not ever won a golf tournament again after doing what I had did at 28. I would have loved to think I would had a longer record in the Media Guide, but hey, I had a lot of fun and a lot of success and I look forward to being with my friends again.

JERRY PATE: I think you have to step in and out of the moment to be honest. When I watch people on television, and I don't care whether it's Jack Nicklaus, Fuzzy, Ray Floyd, Tiger Woods, Hubert Green, who I think is one of the best players, and Larry Nelson, guys that are unsung heroes, I think two of the best players in the game that we ever, had Trevino, you can keep naming them on and on. They have to keep jumping in and out of the element of that moment of being great. You certainly have to believe in yourself. If you don't believe you can leap high mountains and cross great valleys and rivers, you are not going to do it. So you can call it cockiness, you can call it confidence. You can call it really vision, or direction, I think you have to have some vision and you have to have the confidence and belief in doing it. I think the cockiness comes from when you are unsure when you have never done it, but you have the dream and the cockiness helps build your own self esteem and ego to help create the dream or to turn the dream into reality. That's where the cockiness comes from. But I don't think you see many cocky players on the Champions Tour. I think you see guys that have fun. I am sure people would probably say I am cocky when I get out here, but I want to laugh and giggle. The first two guys I am looking are* for Chi Chi, Trevino, Fuzzy and have a big time because that's how I relax is having fun. I think it should be fun out there playing.

JERRY PATE: The first part of my venture to Miami, Naples and Tampa is going to be with Susie and Sugar and myself. I got to tell you a little bit about Sugar. She's a year and a half old Jack Russell that my wife bought in Amsterdam when I was at the Dutch Open the summer before last. This dog does not leave my wife's sight. We're going to take Sugar with us on the road. As far as caddies, John Considine who works in the Jerry Pate Turf and Irrigation Company, he's been our receiving manager, is going to work part-time for me out on the Champions Tour caddying. He's the same person that caddied for me when I won the U.S. Open. He's the guy that when I pulled the 4-iron out of my bag to hit to the final hole to win the Open, he told me to hit a 5. I thought it was a 4. I thought to myself, hey, he's been out here on Tour one year caddying and I have just been out here for six month, I am going to listen to him. Thank God I listened. He's a huge New England Patriots fan. He's from Fall River Massachusetts. He lives in Pensacola now, probably 20 years, and worked for me on and off working in our business now for six years. He used to work out of Tiger Point golf course when I used to own Tiger Point. But John will caddie. Probably Wesley who is at the University of Alabama. He's finishing up his degree in May and he was on the golf team for four years there. He's my son. He will probably come out and caddie some. Right now I am just scheduled to have John and we set the schedule out and I would think John will caddie the whole year, to be honest, unless he doesn't want to. It's going to be a new thing for John again. He hasn't been on the road in 20 years so he will be back out and of course he has lots of friends out there as well as I, and we're looking forward.

JERRY PATE: That's a great question. I believe that you have to have great people to work with you. Our course business has gone on, we have done over 30 projects and we have been lucky to have had so many good projects. I don't do as many golf course as say Reese Jones or Jack Nicklaus or Tom Fazio or some of the big named architects but I think we build really a terrific golf course and we do it without spending a king's ransom. But Steve Dana who is my senior design associate here -- Steve is an architect, a graduate from Princeton so he's a smart kid, he's from California. And he's moved to Pensacola several years ago after working on some projects in California for me. But he's going to take over there. And as far as our turf and irrigation business, it's a very fun business. I have got Brian Masterson who is president of that company, and he runs it day-to-day and does a terrific job. In fact, it runs better when I stay out of it. I help sort of guide the vision and help solve some of the major problems as in any business you have day-to-day problems. But I think I sort of set the pace and the path and they just make it happen. They fill in the pieces.

JERRY PATE: You have a terrific golf course going to be opened in New Orleans. I am excited for everybody in Louisiana and your area. Pete is an idol of mine. Ironically when I won the U.S. Amateur, which was basically a fluke, I was lucky to beat a couple of guys, -- in fact they said earlier it was at Ridgeway -- it was at Ridgewood Country Club in Ridgewood, New Jersey right across the street from New York City. And that was in 1974, I was invited to play on the World Amateur Championship team and it was a Casa de Campo. Curtis Strange, George Burns, Gary Koch and I went down there. We had never heard of it. It was a Pete Dye creation, a masterpiece that he had built for Gulf and Western in the early '70s. We played the -- they only had one golf course. I think there's four of them now. It was called the Teeth of the Dog. It was the damndest golf course you had never seen in your life. If people thought the stadium golf course was tough when we played in '82 it made it look like a pitch and putt. It was right on the Caribbean, the most gorgeous development. I have only been back once. I went back in 1984 and had a 10-year celebration with Carlos Morales who was running the whole project down there for Gulf and Western. You can't say enough about Pete's creativity. That's where I got indoctrinated to Pete. From there, I was always a fan of his. When I went on the Tour as a rookie he was building Long Cove. I got to play Harbourtown the year before I went on the Tour, I played as an amateur. I saw that great creation. I played Long Cove. Watched him build that. Then I followed him around some other golf course he was building and I just think he has -- you know, he builds basically what the customer wants even though people say, well, a lot of them are tough, or mischievous, but I tell you what, he builds a terrific golf course, it has one of the greatest looks, and I just admire his work and his wife Alice is really the brains behind the operation. Pete is just an old insurance salesmen from Indiana.

JERRY PATE: Oh, my goodness. I didn't see that.

JERRY PATE: I do. I just remember his putter, and noted as a great putter and a gentleman of the game. He's a great loss to golf, and I know he will be sorely missed.

JERRY PATE: I tell you what, it's come along way. It's all come for the good and betterment of the game. I think our continual struggle with the game of golf is making golf affordable to the masses. I have been extremely interested in The First Tee programs that the governing bodies of the game of golf have put forth and the success there for the First Tees. I built one in Alabama. I am involved in building one in Memphis, Tennessee. I am involved with one in Birmingham, I am the vice chairmen of The First Tee for the state of Alabama. Actually I made the chairmen and I appointed a person as a vice chairmen because I don't have time to do everything. I think that's what we have to do. But the great thing is equipment has made the game easier for the masses. You hit the ball longer and straighter. It's more forgiving. This controversy about the ball goes too far, equipment is too good. It only affects one 10th of 1 percent and that is the top players in the world. As Trevino used to say, give me a hickory nut and a stick and I'll beat your butt with anything. The truth of the matter is the best player is going to win on Sunday, I don't care what kind of equipment, he's going to win. So if the manufacturers can continually make affordable equipment that is improving player's games it's going to be good for the game. It's nice to see the openness of the game of golf and if you look at the rules of the game of golf, where does it start? It starts with etiquette. That's the most important part of life is being responsible human beings to other citizens on the earth. If we just look at the rules of the game of golf and could apply it to life we would all be a better society and a better civilization and unfortunately, people are takers. People are cheaters, and people want more, and they are greedy, and they don't have a higher power to look up to and they don't have someone to say that's wrong or that's right. The game of golf provides all that for us. It's hopeful that if we can get the masses to afford this game and that's the struggle is making golf courses less expensive, equipment a little less expensive and fees to play less expensive and we're headed in the right direction with the First Tee and we're headed in the right direction allowing women to play on the men's Tour. It doesn't hurt a thing. In fact, it humbles a lot of people. I am glad I didn't play in either one of those tournaments because I am sure both Annika Sorenstam and Michelle Wie would have worn me out. God bless them, I am happy for them.

JERRY PATE: I think it's going to look like the human race, it's going to become very diversified. It's going to be a mixed collection of all types. It's going to be again, a game that people are going to realize is the greatest game in the world. Where else can you go outside, walk around, get fresh air, be honest with yourself, be challenged against the element, be challenged against good fortune and bad fortune, be challenged against right and wrong with your own conscience of did the ball roll or it didn't roll. And socially involve yourself with other people and have fun and you can handicap the game where any age or any person can play and have a fun day playing. So I think the game is just going to continually grow. The challenge is just singularly and that's making it affordable for the masses because we have got a lot of golf courses on the earth; we have just got to make them more affordable.

JERRY PATE: I don't know whether she would want to or not. You could probably make that case for Babes Saharias or Mickey Wright, or Patti Berg or anyone. I think it's a matter of her choice and I don't know whether she'd want to do that or not. But I will tell you what, it would certainly be exciting. I don't see how it's hurtful at all. The only thing that I would like to see Michelle Wie do, if she really is 14, she looked like she was about 22 to me. I think they have got her birth certificate wrong. What a golf swing, Lord of mercy. I am telling you half -- less than half the guys on the PGA TOUR have a swing as good as hers, I am telling you, she has got one of the greatest golf swings that I have ever seen. If it's true that she worked with David Leadbetter to groom that swing or whoever she worked with, I'd like to go see them because she's terrific. But I think she could probably compete anywhere. She's a terrific player.

JERRY PATE: Thank you, Jeff, and thanks to Dave. Look forward to seeing you in Miami.