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FORD SENIOR PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

July 9, 2004

Gary McCord

DEARBORN, MICHIGAN

DAVE SENKO: Gary, 64, a great round. Maybe just share your thoughts on the day.

GARY McCORD: Today, it was very relaxing. We got into a nice little flow out there with the pace of play. It was good, everything was good. Kept hitting the ball where I was aiming, the right distance and everything else, which is usually not the case with me. It was fairly efficient. Thought about it a lot, thought about where I was going to hit it, hit it where I wanted to. One of those days that it's kind of fun to play.

DAVE SENKO: Birdies, started at No. 2.

GARY McCORD: Birdie at 2, I hit it about a foot. Made that one. Second shot, 9 iron.

Bogey, I hit it in the left bunker. I hit it in a little hole and I couldn't get out at that flag. I bogeyed that one. That's a hard hole. That's toughest hole on the golf course.

5, I hit it about 12 feet with a wedge.

6, I hit sand wedge about a foot.

7, I hit a 3 wood about five feet and left it short down the hill, right in the middle, just teetering on the edge for an eagle, so I made that one from a quarter of an inch.

Next hole I hit an 8 iron about three feet and I made that.

10, I hit a sand wedge about six inches and I made that.

12, I hit a 9 iron about four feet and made that.

2 putted 15 I hit a 6 iron about four feet and made that, four or five feet. Maybe it was longer than that, six feet.

DAVE SENKO: Any other good opportunities.

GARY McCORD: Yeah, 17, I thought I would hole my third shot. It didn't; it slipped by about five feet and I missed that.

But that was a little slant there. It was good. It was nothing. You know, you can see, there's no stupid stuff in there. So it's fairly efficient.

Q. Looking at your other rounds, other tournaments, seems after the first couple of days you're about even, what's been the difference this week so far?

GARY McCORD: The difference is I actually played two weeks prior to coming into this. I think this is my fifth or sixth tournament for the whole year. It's really hard to get a flow when you play. I think before Kansas City I had not played in 13 weeks. Then we got tornadoed out the last day, so I only played two round, played pretty good there.

Then I got to play the last couple of weeks you guys know; you play golf. You need to play a little bit to get a feel to what you're doing and where the club is and how you want to swing it and stuff like that. You know, this is my third week in a row now. I've got somewhat of a little bit of a momentum of knowing where it's supposed to go.

Q. Is that because of TV?

GARY McCORD: Yeah. I'm going to get to play like ten events. So I think I've got five or six so far and I've got four or five probably after. I've got two months off after this, again, going to television. Sporadic at best.

Q. They were talking on TV about you getting a putting lesson at your golf school, has that really been a big help?

GARY McCORD: Yes. I went to Jay Haas at Wachovia, a year ago from Wachovia. So 13, 14 months ago, and I was sitting there watching Jay. Guys that get older don't get better putting. No one does that. You always get worse. And Jay was getting much better.

So I sat there and I watched him and I watched him and I was asking 100 questions for about 45 minutes and he was helping me with it. Then, you know there's a certain amount of kismet with thing. McNulty calls me up and he's moving to Scottsdale and wants to know where he can kind of reside; maybe I can help him get into a club or something and he's going to start teaching short game stuff.

I go to the either of our places, at Grayhawk, and Peter Kostis and said hey he lives us, he lives four blocks away from the entrance. And just before last year, just before San Antonio, I was on the putting green with him for 15 minutes and said Sam take a look, am I doing it right. So I did it and it's becoming very comfortable now. I haven't played that much, but it gave me a process to do, something to think about. And it's helped.

Q. Your wife grew up here in Michigan?

GARY McCORD: Yes.

Q. So you guys obviously like to come back and spend some time here?

GARY McCORD: Yeah, there's sisters all over the place, everywhere.

Q. Any things that you do typically around the Detroit area, places that you go?

GARY McCORD: No. It's been pretty busy with player stuff. And like tonight, I've got to go to a Ford deal with CBS. So between the two things that you're doing, I'm always turning, doing something so we don't have much time to do much.

Q. What are your responsibilities going to be for broadcasting on the weekend, and how much is that going to affect you as far as you're in contention now and you're also moonlighting do doing the TV stuff.

GARY McCORD: Right. Well, we'll have to work it's a work in progress I think. I'll just do interviews on the golf course or something, I don't know what we'll do. We'll figure it out.

Q. You had the sporadic schedule, when you're obviously in the booth, what takes the longest to come back in your game?

GARY McCORD: I was explained this a long time ago but a guy that taught me, basically, my new game. It's a very good application of what we go through, okay.

When you play golf every day, you have a big okay, this is a big chalkboard, okay. And you fill in all of the chalkboard, okay. Today I'm going to drive, took it back a little slow, cut it back a little bit, write it down on the chalkboard. Write it down; basically, it's memory.

So the more you play, the more you've got stuff on your chalkboard and the more that you can refer to it. When you don't play in a while, like I haven't played in 13 weeks, you take the eraser and you erase the whole chalkboard and you start over because you had no feel, you have no nothing.

So the only way to get yourself on the chalkboard is to hit the shot, feel it, write it down. Basically that's your memory, write it down. And that's as good as I've ever heard anybody explain our business out here when you don't play a lot.

The only way to fill that up is to go play. There's no other way to do it. The feels, the ground, the hard ground, the soft ground, the long grass, the short grass, you've just got to keep doing it and write on your chalkboard.

Now I've had three weeks to write stuff and I can kind of remember, I have to get that shoulder going, whatever. It's really true. It's very hard to come back and when you don't play a bunch and when there's nothing in your chalkboard, you have to be very careful of what you're doing. It takes things in the middle of the fairway and middle of the greens, usually first nine holes, to find out where you're going and get some kind of information on your board. You slowly go about it and build it up. That's why it's hard.

Like Gary Koch, I talk to him and he's going, how are you doing this? How are you doing it for three for our years? And Andy North, having a tough time. It's hard when you go back and forth. It's really hard to get any kind of momentum going, just about impossible.

Q. When you're playing well like you are now, do you ever give second thoughts, like if you did less TV?

GARY McCORD: No, of course not.

Q. Is that what pays the bills or it's more fun?

GARY McCORD: This is my sixth year on the Senior Tour and I played pretty well for four years, staying exempt, not playing a whole lot. And it was hard because I was doing 20 and trying to play 18 to 20 out here; so that's 40. And doing 50 corporate outings and all the other stuff, I was whooped. I'm getting a little too old for that stuff now.

Now I like kind of what it is. I've kind of given up the quest to do it out here. I've done that. I've had fun at it, I still have fun doing it, but I'm just cutting it in half and trying not to hurt myself, basically.

Q. How many TV tournaments do you do?

GARY McCORD: 20.

Q. And then try to play 10?

GARY McCORD: Try to play 10 and do all the corporate stuff, because the TV obviously gets you all the corporate stuff, so that's stuff nice. I don't have to sweat a lot doing that.

Q. In the 13 weeks that you were off, how often do you pick up clubs or go out on a course and play?

GARY McCORD: It's hard because those are all TV. We did ten in a row or something, nine in a row, I don't know what it was. It's hard. You've got to go off campus, you've got to go play somewhere after the telecast. So you don't do it much.

I would say maybe two, three times a week, hit balls. And then if I see the daylight where I'm going to play like in about two or three weeks, then I'll start aiming up a little bit more. I'll start hitting ball in the morning and then after, and then I'll start playing trying to get a running start into it rather than just starting cold.

But it doesn't do much good because it's the only way you can do it, you know is you put a gun to your head and say: Okay, if you don't hit this shot good, I'm going to pull the trigger to get your heart going. When you step up on the first tee, your score is going to go on the paper. You get a little more elevated. The only way to get that done is go playing. You can't get that out playing golf with your buddies or anything like that.

Q. You had a 64 today, a lot of red numbers today, this course looks tough but it seems like every year there's at least one day like today where there are a lot of low scores. How tough is this course, is it major worthy, for lack of a better word?

GARY McCORD: Well, you know, it's one of our better golf courses we play on the Champions Tour. I really like it. It's always in great shape. The greens are fantastic, everything about it. They do a first class job here. You can't get any better than that. So the golf course, you know, on our tour, we're just happy to play somewhere. You know, if it's good, bad, indifferent, we're happy to play.

I think this is a great test. This golf course it's going to be tough because there's a lot of second shots you have to squeeze over hazards or you're not going to get knocked down in the hazard or over the green where you have nothing. If the wind lays down like this, it's just party time; we're going to have some fun. You can see some good scores out there.

Q. How tough is the mental adjustment going back and forth in broadcasting, keeping track of the whole field, playing and focusing on yourself?

GARY McCORD: It's hard, I've learned how to do it. I haven't really learned how to do it but I'm still trying to learn how to do it. I have a tough time focusing. I was an ADD poster child when I was in the 60s. They didn't have anything like that but I couldn't concentrate for more than three seconds. So golf was not real good for me.

So you have to kind of learn how to slow everything down and do it. And of course, you get on TV and to the other side of it, you try to go as fast as you can and have some fun with it.

Yeah, the two are totally different. Totally both ends of the Doplar shift. You have to kind of quiet down and not stay out there and stay in kind of your you'll get your little zone going out there, all warm and cuddly and do that and kind of don't get outside of that to play well. Yeah, it's hard. Hard for me.

Q. Do you worry now more about what you have to do with making a TV show over the weekend or are you worried about being the leader?

GARY McCORD: No. CBS, I get my airfare paid for and my room paid for if I get on television this weekend so, Nantz, if I do an interview, he'll let me have that. He's great about that; go out and do what you've got to do. I just happened to get in a position where they will point the cameras at me tomorrow, so that will be fun, because I know where they all live, if they say anything bad.

Q. You mentioned the putter but seem like the wedge was really working today, you put a couple within a foot. And how long and when did the handlebar look start? How long have you been wearing that?

GARY McCORD: I did this 1975, I think, I came on the Tour, '75, and I had a beard in Phoenix. They were going to fine and suspend me for wearing a beard at that time. So I grew a fu man choo and they were going to fine and suspend me; that was two weeks later. So they left me alone after that.

When I got on television, you're not on much, subliminal when you're on. A couple of pictures of you going across and that's it. So I figured one day, I'll just, you know, they are going to see subliminal pictures, I'll give them something that they can't forget; what the hell was that. And that's kind of how it is.

Usually when I play, I just keep it twirled, Rolly Fingers taught me how to do this, and you leave it up so I don't have to screw with it. Otherwise I'm combing it all the time trying to keep it up.

Q. And the wedge play?

GARY McCORD: Just like a mustache. Just trying to keep it real steady, real, real steady.

Wedge play, as you get older, you don't hit it as far. I'm quite a bit shorter than I was when I was like 50, 52, and so you've got to looks like Darwinian roulette; you have to get better at something else to survive. I've kind of made like Phil Mickelson, made it a point to work hard on things inside of 120 yards.

Q. Speaking of knowing where your broadcast partners live

GARY McCORD: Every one of them.

Q. as you were on the course you probably didn't hear this

GARY McCORD: No, I didn't. I can imagine.

Q. There was a bit of disbelief "as Gary McCord walks down the 18th fairway, you are not going to believe what you see as Gary McCord takes the lead." Any comments for your partners in the booth?

GARY McCORD: I'm going to go up in the tower and I'm going to put a paper bag on my head, cut it out and I'll be anonymous when I'm up there. That way they can't get me.

Yeah, it's good fun. We're trying to promote a sport and have some fun. And it's lucky that I've got CBS here, we can really have some fun because they know me better than everybody and Feherty can have at me. But I can always get him, too. There's always equal time, and that's the one thing that you always make mention to the boys. You know I've got a chance to get you, too. The fact that they don't play is, you know, I can go out there and step in front of the camera and show all of my foibles out there and they don't do that. It's hard because you know you're going to screw up, you know they are going to get laughed at, and you've just kind of got to dig in and do the best you can. Yeah, we'll give them something to laugh at, at least.

End of FastScripts.

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