BOB HOPE CHRYSLER CLASSIC

January 15, 1998

Bruce Lietzke

BRUCE LIETZKE: I teed off on the back 9 today at Indian Wells and for the guys that know, No. 10 and No. 11 are probably two of the toughest driving holes on the Tour, not only at Indian Wells or during the Bob Hope, but maybe two of the toughest we have all year. So, getting off to a good start on the back 9 is sometimes hard to do. Fortunately, I hit a good drive on 10 and on the green and made a par that is almost like a birdie. First birdie of the day -- real birdie of the day, didn't come until the par 5, 14, I believe. And I blasted out of the bunker there. Birdied the next hole, which is a par 3, with a 6-iron, and made about a 15-footer. And then I birdied the 16th hole after hitting a pitching wedge to about eight feet. I parred 17, and then I eagled 18 after hitting a driver and a 3-wood to the back of the green, and I made probably a 22-foot eagle putt and that was really the big thrust of the day. Those five holes that I played 5-under par were really the part of the round that got me going. I didn't play quite as good on my second 9. I did make two birdies that were fairly easy ones, and missed some opportunities, but really that stretch of 14 through 18, playing those holes 5-under, is really what got my round going for the day. And, then I strung a couple of birdies on No. 4, the par 3, I hit a 7-iron about twelve feet from the hole and No. 8, I hit a driver and a 4-wood on the green. Par 5, I 2-putted for birdie from probably 45 feet. My second putt was about an 8-footer. The rest of the time I was hitting greens and I had makeable birdie putts. I had some hit the lip; then struggled for par anywhere. Pars were easy and birdies came along at a pretty good pace, so it was a nice easy round, but I also have the easy courses out of the way, or I should say easier, so, I don't know how I stand as far as the tournament goes. I may have one of the lower scores, but I don't know if I am one of the leaders or not -- I don't know if I am because I have played the two easier-to-score-on golf courses so far.

BRUCE LIETZKE: Is that right? I thought Fred was 13-under when I made the turn. I thought maybe he would keep climbing on that.

BRUCE LIETZKE: Like I said, I have the lowest score for two rounds so far. I don't know if I consider myself the leader quite yet. I still have golf courses that I don't have a real good track record on, or at least I don't remember having a good track record. I play the La Quinta golf course tomorrow. I don't remember shooting extremely low rounds there. And, I played just about all the Bob Hope's. I probably only missed two or three, and PGA West, I don't think I have much of a record there. I played in years that we played there, but I don't remember shooting extremely low there. So, it is going to be much harder to shoot low there. And, good rounds there seem to be 68s, 69s. And, of course, it will depend on the conditions too. But shooting 65 on the next two courses that I haven't played, I would say are pretty unrealistic.

BRUCE LIETZKE: I pretty much -- 1997 was an off-season, just about. I didn't -- I played eight times last year from January up through May, and then all I played -- I only played one official tournament after June 1, and that was the Las Vegas tournament in -- I did play the Shark Shootout in November, but that is an unofficial tournament, so I have only played one official event -- you are right, my off-season started about -- (inaudible).

BRUCE LIETZKE: I spent the whole summer chasing my son around the golf course. He has been playing a lot of junior golf lately, and I caddied for him in the tournaments that I was able to caddie. And, if I couldn't caddie, then I followed him around the junior golf circuit in north Texas. Then when the kids got back in school in the fall, I just continued to work hard and spent time with my wife, and I always tried to come home when the kids come out of school and ran them off to soccer games. And gymnastics, all the things that kids do, so, summertime was family activities with my son, and my daughter is playing baseball now, so I was assistant coach on her baseball team and we took a couple family vacations. Then once school started, I would just stay at home. My main hobby when I am at home is working on my cars, but I also try to kind of end that activity when school ends and do whatever my family needs me to do to get them through a school day.

BRUCE LIETZKE: Actually I am 46 years old.

BRUCE LIETZKE: I am pretty much following a plan -- it wasn't a concrete plan, but I knew that I -- main thing was that once the SENIOR TOUR evolved into something that looked permanent, then my plan was to cut my schedule on the regular circuit because I thought I would want to play the SENIOR TOUR if it was still going to be around. And, of course, in the early years of the SENIOR TOUR nobody knew what it was going to be. When the SENIOR TOUR game became successful and as solid as it is, I thought -- three or four years ago I decided I was going to take a little bit of a break from the regular Tour before I went on to the SENIOR TOUR, is kind of what I am doing right now. I have always kept my tournament schedule around 15 or 16 up until last year. That is when I decided I was going to stick to the schedule that I had dreamed about. I played nine official tournaments last year. I am probably going to play ten official tournaments this year and I will continue to do that for the next couple of years until I am a senior.

BRUCE LIETZKE: Exemption for this year is the top 25 career money winners, so I am exempt from the full year but I am still only going to play in ten tournaments.

BRUCE LIETZKE: I am very excited. A little too far away for me to really be too concerned about who is going to be on the team, but I am very excited to be doing something with a very dear and close friend Ben Crenshaw who I have known since the 7th grade in Texas High School golf. Bill Rogers is also going to be one of the assistants. I think that is the thing that makes me more excited than anything is just doing things with guys from my generation of golf and guys that I consider very close friends. But, as the Ryder Cup (inaudible) then the pressure of making the right choices and decisions becomes a little stronger. Right now I am just very excited to be alongside Ben and Bill Rogers and I am not sure who else Ben is going to have help, but I was very honored that Ben considered me to be assistant to him.

BRUCE LIETZKE: No, because I am not -- that will be Ben Crenshaw's decision and yet Ben is very similar to me in that respect. Ben does not get agitated very easily and I don't think Ben reacts to pressure very adversely either. He is a very calm-minded, is a reasonable person and -- (inaudible) of course we will be there to help him gather information. But, yeah, I would say right off the bat, one of the key things of losing this last Ryder Cup was our unfamiliarity with the golf course and the Europeans knowledge of the golf course that they play year in and year out. And, already we don't have that advantage. The country club is not a golf course that we are very familiar with. Curtis Strange would have the most positive (inaudible) with that golf course. I think Curtis will probably be part of Crenshaw's strategy in learning how to play that golf course because obviously Strange has the best track record of the Americans from that tournament. Yeah, we don't have that advantage that we need that we would like to have of playing on a familiar golf course, so, I would imagine Crenshaw will stress our players as the time gets near to playing this golf course more than just the two or three practice rounds before the event itself.

BRUCE LIETZKE: No, I played a couple of nine-hole rounds of golf with my son just after the Christmas holidays. The weather in Dallas was not very good so I didn't really get to get out and play. No competitive rounds. I don't think I even played any 18-hole rounds. Played a couple of nine-hole rounds with my son.

BRUCE LIETZKE: No.

BRUCE LIETZKE: Yeah, I am a fence-rider. I am right on top of that fence. I don't know how you can keep him from playing and yet I am also a firm believer in being able to (inaudible) the rules. I guess I have got an emotional viewpoint, and I have got a realistic viewpoint of the way our rules are set, and I am very happy with those rules. The emotional side of me says that I have two opinions and I haven't been able to sort them out yet.

BRUCE LIETZKE: No, I don't ever -- no practicing. I may have played two, nine-hole rounds since the Shark Shootout. I don't do any practicing or -- if I play nine holes like I might hit 15 or 20 warm-up shots and I will play the nine holes; that is it. But I don't -- when I play golf and I am home, it is always with my son. I never go out. My son has taken up golf in the last three years. If he can't find any friends to play with, then he will ask me to go out with him. We were actually going to try right after Christmas but the weather just didn't.

BRUCE LIETZKE: Why do I play the Bob Hope?

BRUCE LIETZKE: I know the weather is going to be good which allows the (inaudible) -- I don't have to worry about weather conditions very often. I am a past champion. I have good positive feelings about the golf course. (inaudible) mainly it is a week that I know I can come out. It is five days of competition instead of four and that is nothing I have ever shied away from. I like playing tournament rounds. I like tournament rounds way more than I like practice rounds and it is just a week I always know the weather is going to be good and I can play my golf enjoy it. The (inaudible) -- also being a past champion, there is a sense of loyalty for any tournament that I have played there and won before.

BRUCE LIETZKE: Phoenix next week and I think I have got three weeks off and I will come and play Tucson and that will be it. That will be it for the west coast.

BRUCE LIETZKE: Yeah, it is a golf swing that I haven't tampered with or messed with for about 22 or 23 years now. It is the exact same swing. Of course we didn't have video two or three years ago, but I feel relatively confident that if they had had video back then, you'd find that my swing has not changed one bit. And, that is on purpose. I have never tried to change my swing and I am a firm believer - and I have heard some teachers say that there is no such thing as muscles memory; that muscles don't have memory. I am here to tell you - and I will argue it 'til the day I die - there is such a thing as muscle memory. Taking 11, 12 weeks off consecutively and coming back and playing good golf (inaudible) I have done it countless times. I have tested this theory. It is one I have experimented with 15 or 20 years ago when I started taking consecutive weeks off and I found out that -- I found out if I went home and practiced and came back out or if I went home and never touched a club, my ball hitting that next tournament was not any different. I didn't improve any hitting balls when I was home. And so my muscles have (inaudible) one particular swing that works all the time and it never forgets no matter how long I take off.

BRUCE LIETZKE: My daughter is a first baseman on her softball team. My son had a pretty good summer last year. He shot his first 2-under par rounds. He shot a 69 and a 70. He is 14 now. He was 13 this last summer and he played a total of probably 12, 15 junior tournaments. He had two rounds under par and finished fifth -- Texas Oklahoma junior which is the biggest tournament that he played in. And he won his age division in a couple smaller tournaments. The scores right now -- he just had to move back when he was in the 13-year-old age group, he played from the front (inaudible) tees and he was shooting mostly high 70s last year on average, I would say, and the 14-year-old age groups he will be moving back to the back tees or the blue tees, I guess. And his scores now are still about the same. He is shooting high 70s from the men's regular tees. The regular tees, the high 70 shooter, but he shot under par a couple of times this summer. And, he works at it all the time. He doesn't play any other sports now. Pretty much doing what -- at his age, I had been playing all other sports when I was 12. I think it was 11 when he quit all the other sports and he plays nothing but golf; weekends, during the school year, and he plays a lot of junior tournaments during the summer which is exactly what I did.

BRUCE LIETZKE: No, actually he hooks the ball. He doesn't putt with a long putter. So I can't help (inaudible) he actually works with Jim McLain (ph) who was a roommate of mine at the University of Houston who has a teaching school here in the desert and also one at Doral and McLain (ph) and his teachers are all (inaudible) with my son. I don't do any of the physical instruction at all with my son.