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FORD SENIOR PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

July 8, 2004

Gil Morgan

DEARBORN, MICHIGAN

DAVE SENKO: First off, thanks for joining us. A very good start, 7 under. Maybe just talk a little about your day and how the conditions were out there.

GIL MORGAN: Well, we started out early, obviously Hale and I, we had a nine o'clock time. So, I mean it was a little bit cool at that point in time and then it ended up misting, raining a little bit off and on for three or four holes but wasn't too bad really. It was intermittent enough, brief enough, that it really didn't cause much of a problem really as far as umbrellas or rain gear and that type of thing.

But kind of got to have a good start. Hale and I both birdied the first hole. Had two good opportunities the second hole and we both missed there and then I birdied the third hole which got me off two, out of the first three, which was a nice start to the round.

Really I had several opportunities early and I didn't make as many as I'd like and then at the ninth hole, I hit a bad drive and hit a tree and came back in the high stuff. Fortunately I was able to pitch it out and then I was able to hit a wedge up pretty close and make a birdie; I made a par there to save the front side.

On the back nine, I made a few more birdies, pretty basic except for a couple holes. 14 and 18 I didn't play very well. I made a bogey at, what was it, 14. And then I was able to salvage a par at the last hole to keep my round going.

The course overall was fairly receptive. I thought it was pretty soft until we got to 18. Hale had run one in there that landed out of the fairway, I don't know what he hit, I'm sure probably 7 or 8 iron, 7 iron maybe, and it landed about three feet from the hole and took a big skip way back there about 25 feet past the hole. That was the only green that seemed to play a little bit firmer than the whole day, it seemed, from that standpoint.

DAVE SENKO: Let's go through your birdies.

GIL MORGAN: Yeah, I hit a driver there and then I hit a little pitching wedge. The wind was into us left to right there and spun back by the hole about three feet and I made that one.

The second hole I hit a little 8 iron, 3 wood 8 iron and I didn't have it more than about eight or ten feet, somewhere and missed that.

And then the par 5, I hit driver, 7 wood kind of through the green a little bit. Inside the bunker I didn't make as good of a pitch as I'd like. I made left it about eight feet short but was able to make that one.

Had birdie putts at the next three holes and all of them probably inside 15 feet and didn't make any of them. At the par 5, I hit a driver and kind of pulled it into that through that tree, the big cottonwood there and was able to hit a 3 wood up on the front of the green from about 250 and 2 putted down there about three feet past and was able to make that one.

I had a putt at 8 I missed about 20 feet.

9, I told you I hit the tree and chipped out and hit a wedge in there about eight, ten feet I guess, and was made that for 4.

12, I hit 7 iron from I think it was like 167 on top or something maybe. I hit a big 7 iron, wind was kind of left to right mostly and hit it in there about, oh, probably ten feet short of the hole and made that for two.

The par 5 I hit a drive to the right in the bunker blasted out with an 8 iron and made that for birdie.

14 I hit it up on the hill from the right with a 3 wood and chipped out and hit a 9 iron from about 125 yards and came up short and I 2 putted for a bogey there. That's my only bogey of the day.

And then at the par 3, Hale hit 4 iron first; actually hit it in there pretty good. I hit 5 iron in there just about the same distance and we were both about ten feet away and I made that.

Next I hit 5 iron off the tee and put it in the right first fairway bunker. Hit 9 iron almost 140 yards, 139 yards out of there, and hit it in there about 12 feet and made that for birdie. Hale made a birdie at the same time.

The par 5, I hit 3 wood off the tee, laid up with an 8 iron, and laid up to about I think it was 93 yards was what it was. I hit a sand wedge, but it's hard to hit it back in there against the water and I was about 20 feet short. Hale was just outside, on the same line, and he hit his just a little low and I was able to make my putt there.

The last, I hit 3 wood to the right, 8 iron, pitched to three feet and made that.

Q. As we were saying, 64 last year, great start again this year, what is it about this place that you go there that quickly?

GIL MORGAN: The year I won here, I played really well. And some of the year s, I just can't seem to make it happen, and then other years it seems to fit my game. I guess it depends on how you're I keep the ball in play. Sometimes I feel like I take too many chances. Like if I get out of kilter, I try to go for the green or something and make either bogey or double bogey sometimes and sometimes getting out of sync with that. And some years I don't putt quite as well as I'd like.

I think this year, at least at the start here, I've played halfway decent most of the day and was able to recover when I made most of my mistakes either with making par or birdie some of the times. And then I putted well. I made some putts, which sometimes doesn't happen.

Q. How has the 14th hole changed over the years, if it has? I heard somebody say the other day they thought it was a great hole, but earlier on, nobody said it was a great hole.

GIL MORGAN: It's a very difficult hole. I don't think it's really changed a lot. I think it's a little bit longer with the back tee playing back there, we played up today but didn't play the back tee today. I consequently, you know, you have to fit it in a couple of times there is the problem. It's not real tight, but when you make a mistake there, you usually end up making double, or a serious mistake, triple or you can make more than that. You can stand there and hit a few, if things happen wrong, you can hit it in the water off the tee, obviously and hit it in the hazard again.

It's just very challenging from that standpoint. It's a hole that I have not played all that well through the years, and then the greens are pretty deceptive. There are plays hard to get the ball really close to the hole I think. When you start getting away, you've got a lot of slope in places, have a lot of curvature in the putts and stuff. It's either quick or curvy, and that in itself probably makes it a hole that's hard to score on decently every day.

Q. How much of a surprise watt the wedge they are morning, it's usually hot and sultry, it rained a lot this year. My recollection, I don't recollect a morning quite this chilly here.

GIL MORGAN: I don't, either. It was kind of surprising that it was, when I walked out of the hotel this morning, I had my daughter go back and get my sweater. She said, "Well, I need a coat."

I said, "Well, I think so, get my sweater while you're there," that type of scenario. It didn't seemed just a little blustery, a little cool. But at the same time the golf course seemed to be still receptive even through all of those diversities of temperature and moisture content.

Q. Hale said the most impressive thing he thought about your round was you hit the four bad drives and were able to play those four holes in even par which you usually can't do here, but how much of that was skill and how much of that was getting good breaks on lies and bounces?

GIL MORGAN: Well, the first one, I had a good break. The ball was sitting up where I could play, I could hit it. I did have some interference from some of the undergrowth. There was a couple of I don't know what it was, it was kind of a weedy looking thing. If that wasn't there, I could hit the ball on the green from the way the lie was sitting because it was sitting on top of the grass. It was up in the air about four to six inches, but it was sitting where I could attack it. But I could not go in that direction because this weed is real the stuck on it was pretty thick and resilient from that standpoint. So I had to change and chip out. Then I was able to get up and down. So that was just, I was lucky that I could find it first and that I could play it, at least play it out.

The second one, I don't know, I didn't even try to I just tried to pitch. It was a lie that I decided to just pitch down the fairway and drag it up and down and I made bogey there.

Then I hit a bad drive at, actually, 15 no, at 16. I hit it in the bunker was able to make birdie out of there. I hit a pretty good shot with a 9 iron from about 140 yards.

Then the last hole, I hit a bad drive. I had never been over there. I didn't know what to anticipate when I got over there. Unfortunately the ball was on the downslope because I needed to get it in the air pretty quick because there was a little tree in front of me and I was able to, with the way the grass was, I was able to take advantage of the ball flying a little bit. So I had to kind of get it over this first little tree and get it between the two big cottonwoods, in that arc, so I had to get it on the right line. Then I was able to get that ball up and down. So that was nice.

Q. What's your schedule the next couple of weeks and what do you think of this compressed round of majors?

GIL MORGAN: I don't really like it. I think it's a good thing for our scheduling. I don't know whether there's any fix for it or not. I keep hearing there's not.

I just think we ought to have a little bit more separation between the major championships. I think that would help the championships, for starts, you know, like the British Seniors is going to probably have some negative impact with the U.S. Senior Open coming the week right after it.

So for me, I'm going to be off next week, obviously. My daughter is getting married, my oldest daughter, and then I'm going to stay around and not go to the British Senior and come back to the U.S. Senior Open. But I would definitely like to see a little bit more separation in our major championships, especially this time of year.

You know if we could pull one in maybe May or something and then maybe June and July, that would be great and keep it more like the TOUR does, the regular tour.

Q. I think last year, the record was 8 under, do you think it's going to hold up today and can you talk about going forward what you have to do?

GIL MORGAN: You never know what's going to happen out there, as far as holding up, but you'd like to think that that would be a pretty good round with the wind blowing a little bit and being a little cool. Hopefully it will maintain its position. I don't know what's going to happen the next couple of days, depends on the weather a little bit. A lot of it depends on putting. All major championships, when the golf course gets a little more difficult, you know, you have to rely on pitching and chipping a little bit, chipping and putting a little bit more.

So I'm just hoping I can have an opportunity to get off to a good start, where I actually know that at least it's receptive out there. Maybe it could change. It's supposed to get hotter I think as we go forward here the next few days so that will be good in some respects, as long as it be doesn't get too muggy.

Q. Hale talked about yesterday, it's been discussed, how this course seems like it might yield to higher scores yet every year the scores seem to be pretty low.

GIL MORGAN: Yeah, it's kind of strange that, I mean, when I first saw this golf course I thought it was going to be very difficult, and then as it pans out, a lot of low scores around here and I don't know exactly why. I think part of the fact is that they try to get it hard and fast sometimes and that lends itself, if the guys that can keep it in play, will hit the ball a long way off the tee and then they have shorter clubs into the green.

Probably my suggestion would be to keep the fairways a little softer and then still maintain the little firmer and faster greens and that would probably alleviate some of that.

Q. You've had a great year to this point, how much does that play in with your confidence coming into a major such as this and shooting a round like you did today?

GIL MORGAN: Well, obviously, the better you play I haven't played I haven't played quite as well last couple of weeks as did I earlier in the year. But at the same time, the last couple of weeks I've hit some really good shots. I've hit the ball close to the hole a few times. Especially last week I had four or five shots that I hit within a foot or two, which is a plus. I had not done that in a while. I feel like my game was kind of coming around a little bit, but at the same time, you don't know exactly how it's going to pan out in this type of championship, especially the way the weather started today. When the wind gets coming out here a little bit it gets a lot harder and I just played better on the back score wise than I did on the front. In fact, I even made an eagle last week and I made a sand wedge in the hole and I had not done that all year. You never know when it's going to happen, I guess.

So, you know I think from that standpoint, my confidence, especially after today's round, you'd like to think that your confidence is high and that you've got a chance to go forward, but, you know, sometimes you back up, how many times you see 63 73, that type of deal on the scoreboard, on all the tours.

But at the same time, you keep it in play here you've got a chance to make some birdies if you can hit the ball, the problem is just making sure you have got it in a spot that I can play it every time.

Thank you.

End of FastScripts.

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