FORD SENIOR PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

July 10, 2003

Gil Morgan

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Gil Morgan, shoots 8-under 64 which equals the lowest first round score in this tournament. Hale Irwin had 64 in the 2002 event for the lead.

GIL MORGAN: Tied a good guy.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: But you also had 64 in 1998 in the second round, so you matched your best score ever at TPC of Michigan. Maybe a couple general thoughts about the round and then we'll go into birdies and bogeys.

GIL MORGAN: Well, we just kind of got off to a regular start. Obviously I didn't anticipate this type of round at this point in time. I just kind of kept going. Really didn't shoot -- a couple under on the front maybe, I don't know, and then kind of got started on the back.

The golf course itself seemed about like it was yesterday. Maybe a little bit firmer on the greens than it was yesterday, but overall, the fairway play was very similar.

So the main concern, obviously, would be to keep it out of the rough, and I tried to do that as much as possible. I knocked it in there a couple of times but nothing that I couldn't recover from this time, at least.

Then it kind of all happened right at the end, starting with 16. Actually, at 15 I hit a pretty good shot in there and from about five feet with a 5-iron and missed it.

Then I birdied 16, eagled 17 and birdied the last hole, which kind of kept off my round.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Do you want to take us through the birdies, what you hit in?

GIL MORGAN: 3, hit driver, 3-wood and a sand wedge about 70 yards to about ten feet from the hole and then I made that one.

Then at 6 I hit 5-wood off the tee and hit a pitching wedge to within about 15 feet and made that one.

I parred the 7th hole.

And then at 9, I hit it in the right rough with a driver and hit an 8-iron on to the back fringe and made that one from about 18 feet.

On the back at 11, I hit 3-wood off the tee. I hit a pitching wedge to within about five feet and made that.

Then at the par 3, I hit a 7-iron about 15 feet kind of behind the hole and made that 1-down the hill.

Parred the par 5. I should have -- felt like I should are birdied that hole. I only had about 200 yards to the front edge, but I hit a bad 5-wood and put it in the rough and couldn't get it up-and-down.

And then 15, I told you about that one.

16, I hit 5-wood, 9-iron about five feet and made that.

Then at 17, I hit driver off the tee and then had about 220 yards to the hole, I guess. I hit a 7-wood about 15 feet behind the hole, 12 feet behind the hole maybe and I made that.

Then at the last hole, I didn't hit a very good drive but it kind of -- out to the right. I had to go underneath the tree. I had a little over 200 yards in there. I hit a knock-down 4-iron I hit in there about 15 feet to go past the hole to the right and was able to make that one.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: What did you do at the fourth hole?

GIL MORGAN: At 4, I tried to hit 5-iron and I kind of looped it and put it into the left bunker. Actually, I knocked it about five feet and missed the putt.

I missed about two 5-footers today, and I guess I didn't really have too many other opportunities.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Everyone that's come in before you has said that conditions are pretty perfect for scoring; that greens were soft and very little wind.

GIL MORGAN: Yeah, wind got to blow a little bit more toward the end, but it still wasn't -- didn't seem -- when it kind of gradually increases during the day, sometimes you kind of adapt as you go forward, as opposed to just starting out in a 30-mile-an-hour wind or something.

Q. Looking at the leaderboard seeing a lot of 4s, 5s and 6s, we figure somebody is going to go even deeper than that. When you started out there were already a lot of red numbers out there. What were you thinking about what might be the lead?

GIL MORGAN: Well, I think as a player, also, you kind of watch the scoreboard to kind of give you an idea of how receptive the golf course is. So if you see some numbers up there, you just feel like, well, maybe if I can play well, I can get in that same category. And so that's kind of what happened, especially after I got about 4- or 5-under, I felt like, you know, the groups in front of me and on the leaderboard were all shooting low. Even when I kind of -- right after I made the turn, I could see the scoreboard at 18 there on 13 tee and just kept watching that.

So I think it was something that sort of pushed me forward to try to keep doing better and it just -- actually it just happened coming down the stretch. When I got to -- after I came out of -- going into 7, I guess I was coming off 17 green, I couldn't remember whether I was 4-under or 5-under and I remember I made a birdie on 16. Sometimes you get hung up on it and you don't know exactly where you are. I try to keep watching the scoreboard but I got a little bit lost there by a shot. But after the eagle, I could tell I was 7, and eventually ended up 8.

Q. Given the way the weather forecast was set up all day, were you concerned about having a later tee time and running into the rain everybody was expecting?

GIL MORGAN: Well, there's not much that you can do. I don't really worry about it too much. Always there's a possibility. Usually in the afternoons, the greens dry out a little bit, the wind blows a little bit more. So a lot of times, it's a more difficult time to score, especially to score low, but I didn't feel like the golf course was going to change a whole lot from yesterday, especially with the overcast and stuff early.

So if it had been a bright sunshine when I got up, it might have been a little different thought. But it doesn't really bother me too much.

Q. You've played a lot of good rounds here, are you ever surprised by how low some of the rounds get on this golf course?

GIL MORGAN: I really didn't anticipate this type of scores, especially they talked about they were going to move the tee back and add the bunker at 13. The rough was going to be a solid four inches or more. I kept thinking that the scores were going to be higher this year, but it seemed like every year when I come here, I'm kind of surprised at how low people will shoot. Hopefully you're just in that category at the same time.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Talk about the first half of this year for you; you've come close several times.

GIL MORGAN: Earlier I had a couple disappointments early at Key Biscayne. I felt like I had a chance to win and kind of let it get away at the same time someone else played well.

Then in L.A., i felt like I was going to win that tournament coming down the last hole and ended up losing. So those two were the most disappointing. I played well during that time. I had quite a few Top-10s. Played consistent.

Then I had kind of a down period and then this year at Nashville, which is a tournament I play exceptionally well at over my career. I had the worst tournament I had since I started playing out here.

So it was kind of a turnaround for me, that situation. But the last couple of weeks, I played a little it better and just haven't been driving it quite as well as I'd like. That's kind of a thought -- like playing the PGA Senior Championship and the Senior U.S. Open Championship, but I seemed to play well in those events, even though I didn't feel very confident.

Now I changed drivers for the Senior Open but I just didn't play it very much. I only hit I think seven drivers in the whole tournament. Coming here, I was hoping that maybe it would help my confidence and I seemed to drive it a little better today. I drove it really well yesterday. Played almost excellent tee-to-green yesterday in the Pro-Am.

So I think that gave me a little bit of confidence that today, I think just driving it in play a lot -- every time you come into these events, you have to drive it in the fairway pretty much to do well. I think this year is no exception.

Q. Having a birdie-eagle-birdie finish, do you remember the last one you had?

GIL MORGAN: I can't remember the last time I did something like that. I think I've had some birdie finishes, but I can't remember throwing an eagle in there in the recent times. It may have happened somewhere out there, but I can't recall it.

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