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SENIOR BRITISH OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 20, 2005

Sam Torrance

ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND

SCOTT CROCKETT: Sam Torrance, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks as always for coming in. There's been a lot of speculation about your back at the moment. Just tell us where you are. Tell us what happened and tell us where you are at the moment with it.

SAM TORRANCE: I just woke up last Thursday morning, no indication whatsoever. I went to bed and woke up in agony. I couldn't move, really. I saw the physio and chiropractor and they said it was my sciatica or something.

So I rested it since then. I hit balls yesterday before the pro am it was actually all right. But the bending down getting the ball out of the hole was the worst thing. And after four or five holes it was agony, so I stopped.

I got some treatment yesterday afternoon and it's pretty much the same today. I can hit balls, but I don't know how far I can walk. So I'll find out when I get out there.

SCOTT CROCKETT: What is the treatments? Just physio or

SAM TORRANCE: Physio. I had the cracking of the bones. And then physio.

SCOTT CROCKETT: Obviously you're going to give it a go this afternoon and any decision will be tomorrow presumably.

SAM TORRANCE: Yeah.

Q. Have you had this

SAM TORRANCE: Never had this before in my life. Never. A long time to wait for it too.

Q. Was it wear and tear?

SAM TORRANCE: No, I think it's something different. I don't know what it is. It might be a disk. I don't know.

Q. We were talking with Norman about the back problems and he's had a history of the last seven or eight years of back problems. When you look at guys like him does it concern you a bit to start getting these problems?

SAM TORRANCE: No. Absolutely not. You know it's going to happen, so. Wear and tear. I don't think this is anything serious. It was just a one off, hopefully. It will be gone soon.

Q. Are you playing tomorrow?

SAM TORRANCE: I'm pretty confident I'm playing. I might be in agony by the time I finish. But hopefully it will get better every day.

Q. Could you make a good impact here this week?

SAM TORRANCE: Absolutely. I feel great, I've been playing great, I've been playing well for awhile. I have been looking forward to it for a long time. A great golf course, one of the best we'll ever play. The greens are just quite astonishing how good the greens are. They really are almost perfection.

Q. Obviously as a Scot yourself, how well of this part of the country do you know for golf?

SAM TORRANCE: Not as well as I probably could have done. Well, no, I played it as much as I could really, to be honest. When there was a tournament up here, I played in it. But I lived along the west coast growing up so I you never came up here for a game of golf. I played down here. I think the last time I was here it was '77. I played every time I did. When Peter Alliss beat Greg five and four, just in case you didn't know.

Q. What was your treatment now between now and tomorrow morning?

SAM TORRANCE: Nothing now. Two solid hour sessions yesterday and the day before. And it needs to rest a day, really.

Q. What do you take?

SAM TORRANCE: Advil. Three Advil in the morning. But that's normal. That's nothing extra.

Q. Inevitably, Sam, does it make you a wee bit more tentative when you're swinging?

SAM TORRANCE: I might swing a little bit softer, which is never bad for a golfer.

Q. If you haven't had this problem, what, given your busy schedule with everything else between commentating and captaining and everything, is the motivation to play stronger than ever?

SAM TORRANCE: It's as strong as it ever was. It's not stronger. It's always been very strong.

Q. Do you think the mindset is easier as you get older?

SAM TORRANCE: No. Not really. Not really. Because you've made a mess so many times over of your life that it adds up. You get into a situation where you know you messed up before and you know it's possible to mess up again. So you need to be stronger as you get older, I think. Which I guess we all are.

Q. Given the domination obviously of the Americans oversees guys on the Regular TOUR and the Majors, is it important, do you think, fingers crossed, a Scot can win here this week or at least a European?

SAM TORRANCE: Yeah, but it's not important. It would be nice.

Q. You were saying that you won't have any treatment before tomorrow. Does that mean it will do more harm than good?

SAM TORRANCE: The problem is, when you get a lot of manipulation it really inflames the area around it. So you need a day for it to settle down. I would have love to have some more treatment, but I don't think it's right thing. I'll have some more tomorrow when I'm finished.

Q. Since you stopped playing regularly in America are you happy with the balance in your life? Are you pretty much now where you want to be?

SAM TORRANCE: Yeah. Yeah.

Q. You're not hankering after anything?

SAM TORRANCE: Home boy.

Q. Any secret tips for links golf?

SAM TORRANCE: You hit a lot of half shots in links golf. There's an awful lot of shots that are at half power and run on to the greens. It's a knack, you can't really tell anybody.

Q. When you hit the big 50, did he gather you around and say, "Welcome to the club"?

SAM TORRANCE: I did see him last week and he said welcome to the club, yeah.

Q. Is that a general practice?

SAM TORRANCE: Yeah, it is. It's an old farts club, isn't it?

Q. I'm looking at your draw here, are you happy with it?

SAM TORRANCE: My draw? Oh, sorry.

Q. How happy with it, the draw that you got tomorrow?

SAM TORRANCE: I haven't seen it.

Q. Bob Charles and Robert

SAM TORRANCE: Excellent. Doesn't matter who you're playing with. What times?

(Laughter.)

Q. 9:20 tomorrow, 1:40 after.

SAM TORRANCE: Very good.

(Laughter.)

I hope that's right then. If I'm there at 9:40 and it's wrong, you're in trouble.

Q. The point Greg was making is he feels that there's a lot of gap between age 45 and 50 for a lot of players and he would like to see maybe a six, seven, eight events that would be specifically for people of that age group that would help them to bridge the gap between them.

SAM TORRANCE: I'm surprised he's calling for that now that he's at 50.

Q. I think he was genuinely thinking about other people. You don't think that would be a very good thing?

SAM TORRANCE: I did five years ago.

(Laughter.)

It's to hell with them now, you know.

(Laughter.)

To be honest, to be honest, 50 now isn't 50 ten years ago. I would say 50 now is 45, maybe even close to 40 from 15 years ago. Just with better health, better conditioning, just everything is better. People are younger now at 50 than they were. If that makes sense.

Q. You figure people like Fred Couples is 45, isn't he. And he's top 20 in the world.

SAM TORRANCE: Yeah. Yeah. I don't see a call for that at all. But if you like you can bump it to 51.

SCOTT CROCKETT: Okay. Thank you, Sam.

End of FastScripts.

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