FORD SENIOR PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

July 9, 1998

Bob Murphy

BOB MURPHY: I haven't had a good year as you all know. Last week I went to the arthritis hospital and they checked me all out because I really had a rough time in the winter this year and I just wanted to see how we are doing arthritiswise. They think that I am doing quite well, but they want me to increase my medicine. I had decreased what I was taking because I had been feeling so well, but I think they are right. I think I need to keep the original dose that they prescribed and I will feel better. While I was home I got a lesson from Laurie Hammer. Laurie is my old schoolmate from University of Florida and he knows my game very well. He is the pro right there at our golf course and he got me straightened out. I got into some real bad habits. I was taking the club back shut and he wanted me to get it more open so I could hit a better cut shot coming out of there. I played with a lot of confidence today. I was really happy about that. My putter was good. I hit a 5-iron about two feet from the hole at No. 2 and made birdie. I knocked it three, three half, four feet at the next hole and missed it. Made a nice 5-, 6-footer for par on No. 4. I missed the green to the right and put it in the bunker and blasted out and made it for par. Next hole, I hit a good 6-iron, right behind the hole, about 15, 16 feet, made it for birdie. Next hole, No. 6, I put it about five feet, six feet and missed it. No. 7, I put it about a foot from the hole with a wedge on the par 5 and made birdie. No. 8, I hit a good shot at 8. Missed that putt. No. 9, knocked it about, oh, seven or eight feet and made birdie. 10, put it about six feet, made birdie: I hit 7-iron at 10. No. 11, I hit it just a little thin. I was trying to get a little cute there and tuck it in there by the hole, and I hit it a little thin and I only got it about a foot on the green which left me 30, 35 feet straight up the hill there and I made it. So I really didn't deserve that one, but I was happy to get it. Next hole, two putts for par. The par 5 I put it right in front of the green and I caught a bad lie. And I sort of halfchunked it coming out of there. I was really trying to be pretty cute; I didn't get away with it. Putted it by, actually, about three and a half feet; made it coming back for par. Next hole I got lucky. I hit a thin 4-iron from the fairway and only put it about two or three feet on the green and made it from about probably 30 feet. So that was a birdie I didn't deserve there. Real good shot at the next hole, the par 3, and missed the putt. Next hole, 16, I drove it where I have driven it many times right over that bunker on the left-hand side and I got down there and the ball had kicked straight through the fairway and gone underground. I mean, it was six inches deep. I didn't know possibly where the ball could go from there. I knew I didn't want to go in the bunker to the right. So I aimed to the left. I did get it to the left, but I ended up on the side slope downslope for my third shot and made bogey as a consequence of that. 17, hit it in there about seven, eight feet, missed it -- it just had a little bit too much break. I didn't read No. 8, drove it right down 148 to the front. I had a low little cut 7-iron, thinking that it would land right at the front maybe a couple of yards short. And it landed little short of the net, but it just almost plugged in there. So it didn't bounce and release. That is normally very firm down there and we can bounce it on the green. I don't want to be long there. I know that. You don't want to be past that pin coming back to the position in which the pin was in. Chipped it and it hit right in the hole. If it catches any pin at all, it goes in, but it went by and I didn't read enough break coming back. So seemed like a sad way to end, but I got two I didn't deserve and I gave two back coming in. If somebody told me this morning, would you take 67, I would have said, thank you very much and gone right in and had breakfast. So it is especially gratifying to go home to work on your game, to do the things that we wanted, golf swing, to be doing and then to come and produce those shots with a lot of confidence, that was fun. That was fun. I enjoyed that. A lot more fun than I have been having.

BOB MURPHY: I think overall the golf course is playing easy. There is really not much wind to speak of. The greens are holding very, very well. And, they are just in excellent shape. I mean, if you can ever think about where you'd want to go to put yourself on good surfaces, this would be one thought right here. These greens are in excellent shape.

BOB MURPHY: Absolutely. You know, yeah, I guess could you say it is a concern or whatever, something you think about, but there was no way I could win playing the way I was. I had some good days, but I really didn't have enough of them and quite frankly, when I was taking the back shot, that means that I am hitting a lot of shots to the left. Well a fader has trouble aiming shots that go left. So I was in trouble.

BOB MURPHY: No. I did it about a year and a half ago because I hadn't been feeling well. Dr. Murphy, he felt like I could use less medicine than what I was taking and he told me -- basically what they told me was the amount of medicine that I was taking would be like taking no medicine at all. He said it will be like taking two aspirin everyday. So I feel like my arthritis is under good control. He was not in favor of me stopping taking the medicine because he says then we go six months down the road and the arthritis pops back up; how long does it take to get it back under control, we don't know. So --

BOB MURPHY: No, just quite simply didn't want to take it all, that is all. I rather not have to if I don't have to.

BOB MURPHY: Actually it is a very, very small dosage. I take four little bitty pills. They are two and a half milligrams a piece, once a week is all you take it. But, it is -- it is a toxic drug and so I just didn't want to put anymore in there than I had to and I was experimenting really.