NICK PRICE: If you look at my career and you look at that '83 period to '91, where I won in other parts of the world and I didn't win over here that, was a very frustrating period for me. Particularly, '88, '89, '90, '88, the British Open, Seve and I had that showdown. I played really well in a couple of other major championships in that period.
But the frustration came out in '91 after I won the Byron Nelson and then won the Canadian Open, and the next year, won the PGA. All I wanted to do was win tournaments, because here I had gone my entire career, the majority of my career where I had been a sporadic winner, I would win a tournament in South Africa and go to Australia and win. It was just, the winning was just so few and far between.
When I did start winning, I just wanted to carry on winning. And whatever came my way, whether they were majors, regular tour events, I just wanted to win because I had that taste and I had worked so hard for it, and that's what I did.
And then as '94, the end of '93, I had had such a great year but I had won TPC and I had won a handful of other events, the Western Open. The majors are so important and I only had one at that stage. Then when '94 came along, all hell broke loose for me because I played probably a ten-week period there, I played as good of golf as anyone has ever played. I didn't want to let go. That was the most important thing.
I remember Calcavecchia after I won in Canada, he probably paid me the highest compliment any peer has ever paid me. He says, "I've got to look at Nick Price's schedule next year and play all of the other tournaments he's not playing in." That was a very special time for me.
But being No. 1, as with Vijay now, and Vijay and I have spoken about it a lot, it's a by-product of all of that. It's not something that you physically and mentally say, that's when I'm going for the No. 1 spot. It's something that you know that if you win and you play consistently well enough, it's going to happen. Eventually, someone is going to knock Tiger off, be it two or three weeks or five, six months or whatever it is. Someone will.
Q. Are you more frustrated now because you are playing well and the game won't let you -- or were you more frustrated in that period when you were not playing as well -- inaudible?
NICK PRICE: My good old friends, Harold Henning, said it best. When he was my age, he beat me at the Dutch Open in 1982. He said, "You know, I've got a great future behind me." That's what he said. And that's the way I am now. My career has been great. I don't have no regrets and I am not frustrated about anything.
What I think I'm frustrated a little about is the direction the game is going, because in the 35 years that I've played the game or 39 years that I've played the game, I've never seen a change so dramatically has it has done in the last five years. People say, oh, guys are working out and they are doing this. That's BS. That might be five percent of the equation. It's not that. Ernie Els went from -- he gained 35 yards in a month. Now, if he told me that, I'd go and push weights until they came out my ears, but that's not the secret.
TODD BUDNICK: Thank you very much for stopping by.
End of FastScripts.
