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THE SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY ROLEX

July 22, 2016

Jesper Parnevik

North Berwick, Scotland

GORDON SIMPSON: Another week, another Swede, it's a smorgasbord, not the leaderboard. Jesper, a really nice round today, as you said to TV, no bogeys, a nice eagle, a couple of birdies. That's a really good score to set yourself up for the weekend.

JESPER PARNEVIK: I don't know what to say. I'm overjoyed. I haven't played much this summer. I've been in Sweden. Had a lot of fun with my family and friends.

I hurt my back about a month ago. I felt so good in the gym, that I ended up working out with a couple of MMA fighters. That was a bad idea. My back was out for about three weeks. I was going to go play in New York a few weeks ago but I ended up not going.

I didn't know what to expect. All I can say, probably Stenson, inspiration, and Scottish, British inspiration. I always love coming here. I love this type of golf. I always loved this golf course, even though it was a little bit of a torture in '99, but it's a great golf course. It's a lot of fun. I get inspired just coming here.

GORDON SIMPSON: Don't forget, a Swede in Alex Noren won up in the North of Scotland in Inverness; then Henrik on the West Coast at The Open and now we're on the East Coast for the Senior Open. What a hat trick is Sweden can win again?

JESPER PARNEVIK: Going for the try to see if I can do that.

Q. What is it, apart from the obvious, the last three weeks, Swede everybody golf, Alex, Henrik and yourself, a big statement about golf in your country?
JESPER PARNEVIK: I think we have been on the golf map for a long time, especially the women. They kind of spoil us with majors and the way Annika played and so on.

In Sweden, we grew accustomed to that's the way we play, and we had a lot of them. Many players have been playing well. No one maybe played like Henrik has played the last five years.

So this was just a matter of time I think the way he's played. I think he's as overjoyed as the rest of us Swedes ^ that it happened sooner than later. I think he can get a lot more now.

Q. Are you aware of a sudden boom?
JESPER PARNEVIK: No, because we needed this one in Sweden actually. We had a huge boom, when I won the Scandinavian Masters in '95 -- the British Open '94, '95, we had a big boom in Sweden. We built a lot of golf courses and everybody started playing golf and there was a golf craze.

Then it find of fizzled down, just like it has in the rest of the world a little bit, about six, seven years ago. And a lot of golf courses have had to shut down, and it's not as many playing anymore. Hopefully this is a new boom because we need a new generation.

We've been able to produce new players, but not as many as we were hoping for. The kids today, it's tough to get them out on the golf course. They do all the other stuff. They do the X-Game stuff. I hope this is going to inspire a lot of young kids to start playing. Because definitely in Sweden, we need a lot of golfers for the next generation to start playing.

Q. Yourself, what were your expectations coming here, very high or very low?
JESPER PARNEVIK: None. I was actually, I played two practice rounds here and I probably had about 20 different swing thoughts. I was just trying to sort out which I was going to use when the tournament started. That was pretty much the level I was on. Because Monday, that was only the second round I played since the beginning of June.

So like I said, it must be just pure inspiration from Stenson and links golf. Because I was not coming here like normally I would, because I hurt my back and so on. I hit balls twice on a mat with yellow pinnacles (laughter). I had no clue. I could hit it fat and it could fly straight. In that way, I felt pretty confident. But I find out on the first tee, it was pretty much the first tee shot I hit in a month or so. It duck hooked into that creek so fast, it was unbelievable. Someone told me Seve did the same thing way back when, so I guess I was in good company.

It's coming around though. I'm starting to get more and more confidence on the shots. I've got to go to the range and sort some stuff out. I was a little stiff in the back today. Apart from that, I'm very happy to be where I'm at. I couldn't ask for anything more than that.

Q. Do you still have a coach?
JESPER PARNEVIK: No. That's the bad news. I'm my own coach. I'm a terrible coach (laughing).

Q. Touching on your back, how did you manage to get with two cage fighters?
JESPER PARNEVIK: I've done a lot of stupid things when it comes to my body, I have to say. This one, and I swore to myself, when I cut my finger off and I fell on the segue, the year after that, I told myself I wasn't going to do anything more stupid.

I was in the gym and I felt so good, and I watched these guys doing all these, whatever, and the way they were training, and I said, I'll try some of that. I'm going to be able to do that. And I actually felt okay. It was when I got home, I couldn't move, and then I couldn't move for about two weeks after that.

Q. Are these famous guys?
JESPER PARNEVIK: Not on the level of, you know, The Mauler, Alex Gustafsson, I'm good friends with. They are friends of his but not on that level.

With our TV show in Sweden, we have a show called Parnevicks that's in the second season now and he was on the second season actually, great guy. Had a lot of fun.

Q. How did you cut your finger off again?
JESPER PARNEVIK: It was on a boat. It was the left one. It was on a wench. The wind, I couldn't pull the boat back on the document and there's a wench you could tie it up to. The bad thing is the -- the bucket (ph) was on the floor, so I was going to adjust the winch and I stepped on it and as it started, my hand got caught into the machine, and so I mangled this one and this one snapped straight. It was three quarters through, and had surgery the next day and put it back on. I have no sensation in it. That was three years ago.

I just got back after hurting everything else in my body, and I made the cut in Tampa, which was kind of my comeback tournament, and I cut it off on Monday; how about that.

GORDON SIMPSON: Of course not even the most famous Parnevik.

JESPER PARNEVIK: It's funny how my dad was very famous in Sweden, and then he kind of became, you know, oh, you must be Jesper's dad. And now, everybody in Sweden is talking about me as being Peg's dad, because she's touring now in Sweden. She's now a singer. She's been No. 1 in Sweden for the last four months I think, and she's now big into Australia and Germany, which is unbelievable. It was part of the TV show, she did a song, and it became No. 1 the same week. It's still No. 1.

Q. Is that her own composition?
JESPER PARNEVIK: Yeah, her and two other musicians. It is funny. A lot of those 12-, 13-, 14-year-olds, they don't even know how to play golf. They want to take a selfie because I'm her dad.

Q. Surprised to be in this position halfway but you won already on the Champions Tour this year; that must give you confidence going into the weekend?
JESPER PARNEVIK: Of course, yeah. If you compare this to last year, last year was just pure survival mode. I didn't know what to expect. I had not played for so long.

I played a lot better this year. I practiced a lot, and like the win, of course, gave me a big boost. I just wish I was a little more prepared for this one. Like I said, you never know. Might find something super sharp on the range. But I have a different mind-set than I had before. Winning is not in the back of mind.

Q. The eagle --
JESPER PARNEVIK: I hit a great 4-iron yesterday, about the same distance that I missed. So I kind of made up for it today. I counted down, about ten yards left of the pin, it's two perfect mounds here landing, and I might have hit both of them up to about ten feet.

Q. Apart from your previous ailments, you look exactly the same as you did 20 years ago. How have you done that?
JESPER PARNEVIK: That I don't know. I do everything wrong. I love wine. I drink wine. I'm out in the sun all the time. My cap is not blocking out the sun, so I don't know what's going on there actually. Maybe that's the recipe, be out in the sun and drink a lot of wine.

Q. Can we just clarify, the TV show you referred to, is that your TV show?
JESPER PARNEVIK: Yeah, we started a TV show two years ago. It's called the Parneviks. It's about our life in Florida. It's a little bit of a reality show about how we live. But the concept is that we invite two, three politicians, musicians, athletes, celebrities from Sweden to come and visit with us for three or four days as we get to know them and then they get to talk about their life.

Because the funny thing is, because I've lived outside Sweden for probably 30 years now, we don't know and the family don't know any of the celebrities. That's the funny thing, they are super famous in Sweden, but when they come to our house, our kids have no idea who they are; I don't. We kind of get to know them from the beginning, which is kind of funny and interesting. They open up in a different way, when they realise we have no clue who they are, it becomes more like a friendship than a normal interview format. It's more like we chat around the barbeque and have fun for three or four days. It's been a huge success.

Q. Did you invite ABBA onto the show?
JESPER PARNEVIK: Both Bjorn and Benny wanted to be on the show the first season. But I don't know which one of them -- he was too shy for it. It was not his -- he heard that it was a very good show, so he wanted to, but if we do season three, I would love to have them on.

Q. So is it like the Osbourne and you're Ozzie Osbourne?
JESPER PARNEVIK: No -- you don't have the Feherty Show over here, do you? It's more of -- it's not a talk show. It's reality but it would be the same way that you would go and see a talk show because you get to know people.

But the people are just the way you are at home in their underwear and breakfast kind of. They are celebrities, but they let go, because they just live at home. It's been a lot of fun so far.

Q. You said you had some politicians? Donald Trump?
JESPER PARNEVIK: No, the only one we got so far is actually the far left Communist Lars Ohly. He was in the Communist party for 16 years. He turned out to be a very nice guy actually. We had a lot of fun. We're good friends today. We had him and a pure reality show, like a really bad reality show celebrity, that he just drank. So it was them two together, which was a very good combo; and a Swedish princess, how about that.

So my wife now, she's become so famous, she's probably more famous than I am. She's going to have her own TV show this fall, so there you go.

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