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BELL CANADIAN OPEN

September 8, 2004

Bob Tway

OAKVILLE, ONTARIO

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Bob, for joining us for a few minutes here in the media center at the Bell Canadian Open. It's a been a long time since you've been a defending champion. Talk about that and also maybe just being at a different course and how unusual that might be.

BOB TWAY: It's great to be back. I've always enjoyed coming to this event. I guess it feels a little bit strange because we're not back at Hamilton. Even though I'm defending champion, it's a different venue and I guess the good thing is I have played Glen Abbey a number of times so I am familiar with it.

But to come back like you said, it's been a long time since I won a golf tournament, so it's great to come back as a champion. The golf course is exceptionally hard this year. It's the deepest the rough has ever been since I've played here, with the addition of the new tees, and if you don't drive the ball in the fairway you're going to have a difficult time. It's going to be a tough golf course, a tough test, especially if the wind blows like it did today.

Q We're supposed to get some rain overnight, do you expect that to soften up the course?

BOB TWAY: It will soften some. Hopefully we won't get too much. As long as the golf course is playing, we need to have the ball running. Like I said, with the addition of the new tees, it's a long golf course.

Q I'm not sure you're familiar with Moe Norman or not. He passed away last week. Have you ever watched his ball on the driving range? Did you ever take a look at his swing?

BOB TWAY: I watched him many, many times. Obviously it was a unique style, but if you watched the flight of the ball, it was awfully pure. He was quite a character. I just enjoyed watching him and listening to him. I don't know if the stories are embellished, but there is a lot of great stories about Moe. Like I said, as a ball striker he was pretty cool to watch.

Q What did the win do for your confidence level last year and has that continued on?

BOB TWAY: Well, I don't know how much it does to your confidence, I guess you're always wondering if you're able to win again. As I said last year when I won, I hadn't been displeased with how I played, but we're out here to win, so to win was wonderful. I'm not going to say I have so much overconfidence it was exuding out of my body, but it's feels good to win. I'm getting older and even though I enjoy playing the game very much, I don't have that many opportunities left. It was great.

I haven't played as well this year as I did last year, but I haven't played poorly. As long as I enjoy playing and have a chance to win golf tournaments, I'll keep doing it.

Q You're not playing in the Ryder Cup, but just in terms of the players on Tour who aren't involved in it, is there a sense of a buzz in the dressing room and sort of a feeling that, that's coming up and it sort of enters the tournament, not overshadows but comes as sort of a package this week?

BOB TWAY: I don't know how other guys feel about it, but I'll probably play San Antonio next week, and when I'm not on the golf course, I'll watch. I've always enjoyed watching it, I think it's a great competition, and it always seems to be a lot closer than I think it should be. So like I said, I'll watch with a lot of interest and hopefully the guys will do well.

Q Keeping with the Ryder Cup theme, what are your thoughts of Stewart and Jay Haas as the captain's picks? Obviously it's going to put some pressure on them. How do you see them reacting?

BOB TWAY: I don't think Stewart will have any trouble, he went out and won the next week, and Jay hasn't had trouble playing. They're do very well, they're obviously accomplished players and they'll do great.

Q When you were out a couple of months ago, I don't think you played the course that day, but you drove around it. Now that you've played it, do all the changes make sense to you?

BOB TWAY: To be quite honest, no. I always thought 16 was a wonderful par 5, and now it's still a wonderful par 5, it's just they've just changed it to a par 4. In some ways it's always a knee jerk reaction to things. Somebody said Tiger in 2000 hit a 9 iron to 16 so the hole was too short. Today it was a drive and a very long iron. Some afraid people probably hit a wood.

People don't take the conditions or one time happening, they take that into consideration instead of the norm. Like I said, it was a better hole as a par 5, but that's just my opinion. The other ones aren't that much different.

Q Along the lines of the changes, they lengthened No. 13, which I always thought was a difficult par 5 to go for in two anyway. As a spectator, too, I'd like them to move it forward and give them a chance, what do you think about that?

BOB TWAY: Your right in line with my thinking. I thought it was a great par 5. The second shot into that, trying to go for it in two was an exceptionally difficult shot. Today it was straight downwind. I was able to go for the green in two. But in normal conditions, I don't think many guys will be able to. I'm just like you, I thought it was a terrific hole, a very good risk/reward hole. It wasn't a gimme par 5, by any means, just like 16 wasn't.

I'm with the same thought as you, I like to see chances s for guys to go, and they can make 6 and 7 or 3 and 4. I thought it was good the other way.

Q When you were up for the media day, you talked about how important the golf course is to bringing players back. Is it going to be a lot easier if the RCGA decides to go back to Hamilton in a couple of years, a little easier for Bill Paul to recruit top names after the buzz?

BOB TWAY: I think it would be very easy. I don't think I've ever played a golf course where no matter if you missed the cut or played well, everybody thought it was wonderful, long hitters or short hitters. The golf course we talked about last night at dinner, 6,800 yard long and 8 under par wins the tournament. It just goes to show, length is not the hole deal. It's a wonderful venue and I don't think they will have any trouble getting a great field there if they go back.

Q In some ways are the changes that have been made here, you said they were kind of not specifically this course, but a lot of courses react with a knee jerk reaction, could more of them they take a lesson from what happened last year on that course?

BOB TWAY: I wish they would. I guess the easiest answer is to keep going back. You can bring the fairways in and grow rough like we have there. If they brought these fairways in to 25 yards wide and had rough like this, you've got all the golf course you want, but I'm just afraid that the fairways contours basically say that stay the same, tees go back, and I'm not saying the short hitters don't have a chance, but it makes it more difficult. I just don't think well, I don't know what the right words are. You just have to kind of look at the golf course from everybody's perspective, and to use a little bit of maybe some players input. I don't know who does all this and makes the decisions, but if you tighten things up and have firm greens and high rough, you don't need length because people have to put the ball in the fairway, so they'll hit different clubs off the tees. I don't think anyone is against that, but to keep going back, sometimes the golf course can't do that. I think if you use a little bit of ingenuity, I think you can come up with other ideas.

Q The overall perspective of your career, are you most proud of the longevity you've been able to ascertain and the success you've had through such a long period of time?

BOB TWAY: To be quite honest, I look at my career as sort of a roller coaster ride. '86, I thought was going to continue forever, and then kind of a rude awakening where you have peaks and valleys and try different things and some things backfire and some things are good. But I would have thought it would have been better. All you can do is what you can do. I put a lot into it, I enjoy playing, so to be able to do what you enjoy, that's probably the most important thing. It's been fine, it's been good. I'd like to have been better, but maybe I'll get better from here on out. I don't know.

Q Based on what you just said then, when you see a guy like Jay Haas make the Ryder Cup team, is that more incentive for you to keep plugging away?

BOB TWAY: Like last year, why are the 40 somethings doing so well, I don't know if it's coincidence or what it is, people stay in shape, they still enjoy the game, you still work at it. We laughed last year, the ball doesn't know how old you are. It's really true. I guess as long as they don't keep going back too far, we can keep up.

Q There's a change in the World Ranking, is that a good thing for golf and for the tour or a bad thing, now that Tiger is no longer No. 1, or there has been a chance?

BOB TWAY: I think if you were to ask anybody who has played the best the last year, you will you probably would have had I would have said Vijay. I don't know if everybody would have said that, but just in the last year, so I think maybe it finally is catching up to what it should be. I still don't understand how the system works, to be honest with you. I don't know that anybody does. I know they're trying to keep it more current. He played awfully well for a certain length of time. Not that Tiger has played poorly. Unfortunately, he set some pretty high standards, but I think it's great for the game. I think it's wonderful.

Q In the locker room, has the buzz been that Vijay has been No. 1 for a while but the World Rankings are lagging behind?

BOB TWAY: I don't think we make as much of a buzz about it as everybody else. We realize both of them have been playing really well. Some people have asked me who has played better, and I would say in the last eight or nine months, Vijay has. If we look at the record, Vijay has, but if you look at the last five years, Tiger has. You just do you want to look at a five year period or one year period.

End of FastScripts.

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