THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT

May 31, 1997

Tommy Tolles

TOMMY TOLLES: They've got a little fitness room up in the top of the locker room there. It's probably got 8 or 10 stations, and up to 50 pounds in dumbbells. And then it's got a couple of ab machines there, a couple of treadmills, a couple of stairmasters, a couple of riding bikes. So it's something to blow off some time.

TOMMY TOLLES: I am now, I don't think it would be good to do it before play, it causes a little inflammation, some stiffness. But afterwards, usually you don't get much affect if you give it 12 hours of relief.

TOMMY TOLLES: In the fitness trailer I can go up to -- I can lift all the weights, I think up to 180, but I've been told the weights aren't real accurate, so it's probably closer to a hundred.

TOMMY TOLLES: It's really wet. The ball is almost completely covered in water. It makes it really difficult to get the right yardage out of the club you're hitting. The first hole, I was playing a 5-iron from a little over 190 yards, and I was trying to play it to the center of the green. The ball came off like a knuckle ball and flew to the back of the green. It flew several more yards than I anticipated. That comes with the territory. Rain can be beneficial, but it can also be harmful at the same time.

TOMMY TOLLES: If the greens dry out, I think we could have played now. But I guess some of the greens on the backside, I saw some pictures on TV and they were pretty saturated. The fairways, if you can just find a dry spot, they're playable, ready to go. The bunkers have a little water in them but not much standing water, so they're ready to play.

TOMMY TOLLES: He's still leading at this point. It would be nice to get in 72 holes, whether we can -- what are we doing tomorrow, starting from scratch?

TOMMY TOLLES: Resuming play. There's always an asterisk next to your name, a player that wins a 54 hole tournament. If I were to win a 54 tournament, I don't think it would feel complete, like I actually deserved it. It would be nice to complete. If it comes down to 36 holes, you've got to give credit where credit is due.

TOMMY TOLLES: It has a lot of low spots for the water to go, and there's plenty of creeks, plenty of lakes for the water to go into. It just rained so hard for such a long time, that eventually it's going to catch up with it.

TOMMY TOLLES: We were sitting on that tee -- the group in front of us was just about to get their second to the last putt, and Vijay looked at it and said I don't want to hit this tee shot. We could hardly see the tee, because of the darkness and as much rain as was falling and to have to hit 4-iron or 5-iron or 6-iron or whatever the club it was today, and to look up and hardly see the flag sticking up, it's a tough enough hole as it is, but to play it blind is even more difficult.

TOMMY TOLLES: Not in our group. I'm sure there's some -- when they blew the siren it was almost -- at least on our half of the course, idiotic to finish the hole. There's going to be a lot of water standing on the greens. The conditions were very tough at that point, and you're better off just waiting for conditions to become a little more in your favor. So I'd venture, yes, that there's a lot of marks still out there.

TOMMY TOLLES: It wouldn't bother me, but I know there's 35, 40 guys Monday qualifying for the U.S. Open and I'm pretty sure they'd be upset. And it wouldn't be fair to them to make a choice whether to complete the round here or to decide whether to participate in the U.S. Open. I don't think it would come down to that either.

TOMMY TOLLES: Just make it a 36-hole tournament. I don't think there's any chance of us playing Monday.

TOMMY TOLLES: I'm biting my nails right now. I never thought about it being a 36-hole tournament. I know the weather is supposed to be pretty bad tomorrow. I was anxious to get out there and play together, and unfortunately I bogeyed the second hole. But I still felt there was a lot of confidence from the first two days, that was carrying over today. To play three holes, I don't think I got to show that. But I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. And hopefully we can get in at least the rest of this 18 and hopefully another 18, if we can get that far. So I am really anxious and very much in anticipation.

TOMMY TOLLES: He hit the first three fairways, and he hit a solid iron shot on 3, but the first hole just looked like he just got a little bit ahead of himself, a little bit quick and unsure about what the ball was going to do. The second hole he had to hit it under a tree, and as soon as it landed short of the green the water killed it. There was a little water standing around in front of the green. He hit fairly good tee shots, two poor iron shots. He just couldn't recover. The first hole he was in the front right part of the bunker. He was probably, I'd say, 30 yards from the bunker, just kind of -- it's the hardest shot in golf, a really long bunker shot.

TOMMY TOLLES: The conditions were tough out there. If I could have made or anybody could have made a couple of birdies right out of the shoot, we were right there with him. But the conditions were tough enough that it made it really difficult to birdy any of the first three. So today's or tomorrow is going to be one of those days where you're going to have to take advantage of all the birdie holes out there, all the par-5s, and 14, 17.

TOMMY TOLLES: As dark as -- with the forecast tomorrow, with rain, it's going to get dark earlier than it's supposed to. So the probability, probably will be a 54-hole tournament. If it comes down to the 18th hole or 17th hole, 16th hole, I'm still in contention, but maybe not in the lead. I think if I come into something where I have to make a decision to be a little more aggressive, yes, I don't think there's any question that you're going to have to go with the aggressive choice. You can't play passive.

TOMMY TOLLES: Which one? I had a few of them. Like I said yesterday, my curriculum counselor did everything he could to keep me in school, had everything from computer science to phys ed to math education to marketing, marketing ed, landscape design.

TOMMY TOLLES: No journalism.

TOMMY TOLLES: That's probably some sort of NCAA violation, isn't it? Like I said, I wasn't in school to be a student. I wanted to be a golfer.