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SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY KITCHENAID

May 21, 2015

Jerry Haas

FRENCH LICK, INDIANA

Q. Talk about how you felt out there.
JERRY HAAS: I was very nervous, obviously, starting off. I thought we were at the Scottish Open here or the British Open. But wonderful people out here, great fans on 18. I was just trying to basically stay out of Chip and Billy's way. And I made a nice, hit some crooked shots early, but I got away with them and made some pars. And then I hit a real nice shot on 4. The guy said it was pretty close to a hole-in-one. I made about a 10-footer there. Then I birdied the par-5 next hole. I hit a beautiful 8-iron from down the fairway back left pin to about three feet. And I had a really good look on the next hole. And I thought, man, I'm going to be 3-under here. And I ripped that by. But made it coming back. Then 7 played pretty hard. I hit a really good shot but it had a funny lie in the bunker, didn't get up-and-down. Parred 8. Parred 9. And then 10 I hit a bad drive to the right on road and I was going to take a drop, and I thought, no, so I took a hybrid off there and I hit it to about 15 feet. Billy hit it about 20 and he gave me a perfect read. So, I rolled that in. I think my only shot I would like to probably hit over is 17. I hit a bad 6-iron in the right bunker there. All that room to the left and I kind of had a good feeling I was going to hit it close, but I didn't. It was fun, Billy and I were roommates in college.

Q. What year?
JERRY HAAS: '81 to '85.

Q. Made it a little more relaxing today?
JERRY HAAS: Yeah and I know his caddie very well and, I mean, Billy is one of the best players out here and I play every now and then and Chip got off to not a very good start and man, he played beautifully after that. He ended up hanging in there. So we had a good group for me personally that I kind of two good guys and good players.

Q. With just coming off of the season, you don't get, you're watching more than you are playing.
JERRY HAAS: Absolutely. No, I said that many times. I'm 51 now. I'm a better player now than I was when I played, I think because I've watched good players and I have been lucky for 18 years to have Bill Haas and Webb Simpson and Kyle Reifers and a lot of other kids that are still trying to play and playing, and you watch them, and I think this game, at the end of the day, if you break it down, it's about mental toughness and self perseverance, I guess. I mean you get over a shot and nobody can block your shot, nobody can tackle you, blind side you, whatever, it's all up to you to kind of produce. And I'm not real strong mentally sometimes, but today I was all right. I had visions that I would shoot 68 today and I also had visions I would shoot 98.

Q. But not a bad debut for you in this championship.
JERRY HAAS: No, I was disappointed I couldn't play last year. I wasn't, because you qualify so early, I went last November and I think there was 265 guys and I finished fifth. I played very nicely, down in Florida. I was excited to know that I was going to have something to do in May. And it just worked out that it was between regionals and NCAA, and unfortunately, we didn't make the NCAA, so that made me kind of, obviously, pretty sad. I told them that, when I don't play well, I'm disappointed, but when the team doesn't play well, now it's almost five times as great. I feel for those guys. We had a fantastic year, broke all the Wake records for scoring, won three times, won a tournament by 28 shots. So, I have a very good team. We just, it's golf and it's that one week. If you don't get through that one week -- I was thinking about the old way they did it where they just picked you to go to the NCAA and I think that we would be going almost every year that way. And until you get in there and get into the mix -- it was on TV on the Golf Channel last night, last year's Alabama and Oklahoma State. I couldn't even watch it. I had to turn it off. That's my life. That's my job, I guess.

Q. How much do you get a chance to play right now?
JERRY HAAS: Not much. I play with my little son, Kyle, on Monday I picked him up from school and we went and played nine holes. I always told him he's good luck for me.

Q. How old is he?
JERRY HAAS: He's 10. He's a nice little player. So we went out and played and we had a good time and then I got on an early flight Tuesday and I played 18 Tuesday with actually Billy Andrade and Gene Sauers and Jay. And then I only played nine yesterday.

Q. So when before Monday, because you've been in the middle of a season?
JERRY HAAS: I got back Monday, I hit a few balls on Sunday and then I played nine holes Monday. So that's all I did. I just kind of know my body, I made the prediction this week that we're going to basically have 72 different holes. If that makes sense. Because the wind, like this morning it was cool and the ball wasn't going. Now it's going a little, by Sunday it will be going. So, it's one of those that you can't really, if you keep going playing practice round and practice round you're not going to learn a ton. I think the key is to keep it short of the hole, because the more you get pin high, the more they run off and you've got a lot more difficult up-and-down. If you're short at least you can putt, you can hybrid, you can scoot something along the ground. So it's a, as you can see from the scores, maybe, it's hard out there.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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