U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 28, 2001

Gil Morgan

GIL MORGAN: Well, I'm not sure I can remember the holes, to tell you the truth. As little as I played it so far. I even had to get my caddy in there to help me with my scorecard, so I'm in trouble. I don't know, you want to see the birdies? My first birdie was at the 6th hole it looks like. The par-5. I actually drove it in the fairway there and hit a 3-wood right up by the green, pitched it about three or four feet and made that one for birdie. And the very next hole I hit it in the rough and tried to hammer it out of there with a 9-iron, I think and left it a little short of the green, putted it about 3 feet by and missed that one. And then hit a pretty good shot at 8 and missed a little putt from about 10 feet there and ended up making par there. And then at the 9th hole I hit a pretty good shot. It went in the left rough off the tee. After that I tried to hit an 8-iron from about 130 yards to the front I think I had. And somehow I hit it better than I anticipated and it landed on the green, ran over the green and ran back in behind the 10 at the 10th tee. And I pitched it short of the green and putted it in about three feet from the back fringe and played that one for 5. At 10 I missed the fairway left with driver there and tried to hit a 7-iron out and left it short of the green and then chipped it by about 10 feet and missed a putt coming down the hill. For me that was a hole where I shouldn't have got it above the hole with my chip. I was kind of kicking myself there. At 14, the par-5, I hit a good drive and then I hit a 4-iron on the green about maybe 25 feet left of the hole, exactly hole high and 2-putted that one. And then at 17 I hit it in the right rough, really didn't hit a very good drive. I don't feel like I drove the ball very well today. Then I tried to hit a 6-iron out from about 175 yards out and I hit it a little bit thin. It landed short and ran through the green, just over the green. And I was only about 15 or 20 feet from the hole and I chipped it back and it hit the pin. It was actually going a little bit too hot for that shot. But it happened to hit the pin and just drop in. And then the last hole, just put it on the back of the green and made it kind of a 2-putt from the back of the green. I wasn't sure about that one. That looked really slick. Other than that I thought the golf course played a little tough from the standpoint of the wind swirling around in the channels a little bit. I think the greens were somewhat receptive. I think they got a little firmer as we went forward, obviously, as it dried out. And the fact that it was very difficult to put the ball in the right position where you had to, even if you've got a short putt, it was either downhill or sidehill or something. I thought it was very difficult. And I'm sure that's what you're seeing from the scoring situation. Other than that, I don't know.

GIL MORGAN: That's exactly right. Roger Maltbie was walking around with us. After that hole he came over and said, "Well, I didn't even think you could get it on, I'm glad it wasn't on TV. I didn't think you could get it to the green." I said, "I didn't either." I just tried to chop down and make it jump out there faster once it hit the ground. It came out of there kind of low. I think I had 164 or something to the front. Then the chip, it was a real delicate chip. I debated a couple of times on whether I was going to pitch it up in the air and let it flop up there. The only problem was there's a little bit of grass behind the ball that was leaning against me. I thought I might chunk it doing that. So at the last minute I kind of changed my game plan and I played it back in my stance and tried to chip it into the hill and clipped it a little bit too hard. But it was obviously on the right line. Just lucky it went in. Very fortunate.

GIL MORGAN: Give me an easy one.

GIL MORGAN: I think it's difficult this way. I don't know, I just kind of go place the courses wherever they are. If it's hard, it's hard. If it's easy, it's easy. I don't really think too much about it. I think tradition says that the Open Championship, USGA events have always been a little bit more difficult than some of the other courses, at least set up way. Either narrow fairways and hard, fast greens or deep rough. You know, all those factors are involved with USGA competition. So I think we all anticipated that. I think the rough was a little bit tougher than anybody would like to see overall, I think. But you just go play whatever it is.

GIL MORGAN: Yeah. I'm not too disappointed with that, John. I've been pretty tentative here. I didn't play much from a practice standpoint. I only played 18 holes in two days. I played 9 the first day and 9 the second day. My experience level is not too good at this golf course yet. At the same time -- I don't know, I think off the tee it was very difficult today with the wind. It's kind of hard to see exactly where the fairways are off the tees a lot of times. So it's a little bit of a guess. Even like the 18th hole to me it seemed like you'd have to drive a lot further right than you should just to keep it in play. So I think I'm going through some of that this week, just not knowledgeable enough about the golf course for one. And then I haven't practiced a whole lot. I didn't practice hardly at all while I was home. I'm probably a little bit rusty in some cases, too. Yes.

GIL MORGAN: Yes. I went to the PGA and had to withdraw because I hurt my back. And then I was off a week and I played at Instinet, I played pretty well there. I was off last week. It's kind of bugging me from that standpoint. I don't know. Maybe it will get better. Maybe it's on the way down. Anyway, I don't know exactly what's happening. Each day here it felt a little better. I felt real tentative Tuesday here, and yesterday also along the practice tee it felt a little tentative. Today I knew I was going to have to hit harder, and I wasn't really sure exactly. It may have been causing some of my -- I hit a lot of hooks right at the start and hit it in the rough. Maybe not to be able to go under as much with my lower back.

GIL MORGAN: That was also an effect. Unfortunately, I only had a -- I hit a 6-iron, 7-iron, and I hit some 9-irons and that type of thing trying to get out of the rough. 9-iron, 8-iron. Some of them were short. The short irons don't bother me as much as some of the longer clubs when I really am trying to hit it a long ways. With the 8- or 9-irons, the lofted clubs, you feel like you're at least going to get it out. The other ones you might not make it. That's exactly what happened to me at the PGA. I hit a shot out of the rough. It kind of messed up my back at that point then. Then the next morning I couldn't play. I felt a little bit uneasy about hitting hard out of the rough.

GIL MORGAN: All right. Well, thank you very much.