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KITCHENAID SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIPMay 22, 2019Colin MontgomerieRochester, New York JOHN DEVER: Good morning, and welcome back to the 2019 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship. I am thrilled to be joined by Colin Montgomerie, who is the 2014 and 2015 KitchenAid Senior PGA champion. Colin, no wins yet this season, but looking at your ledger, you've had some remarkably consistent play, and it just seems like it's a matter of time for you. COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Well, that's kind of you, and thank you for inviting me here today. Yes, I'm playing consistent, as you say, but consistency out here on this Tour doesn't always win. You can make a good pension being consistent, but I don't think winning is going to happen. There's always someone that has a hot putter or is on their game, and it's amazing, the standard. We all say it and we all keep saying it, the standard out here is exceptional. You know, the last major we played a couple of weeks ago, Steve Stricker there to score 18-under around a very tough golf course, just shows you the standard that's required to win. One can play well and finish, yes, in the top 10, but winning is always hard. It doesn't matter what level you're at, from the college level up. It's always difficult to win. JOHN DEVER: Let's go back in time. You have a little bit of a history at this golf course here in Rochester. Back in the '95 Ryder Cup, a stunning Sunday comeback, a victory. You had a singles victory that was key to the European efforts. Maybe tell us about your recollection of that match and about the whole momentum switch and how your squad turned it around that day. COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Yeah, it's amazing coming back to these venues, the PGA venues. Obviously the PGA involved 100 percent in the Ryder Cup, and it's amazing, you come back to these venues sometimes, and here we are again. Yeah, the memories flood out, even driving into the car park -- excuse me, the parking lot -- here at Oak Hill brought back memories of our celebrations there with Prince Andrew there afterwards. He was there, the Duke of York was with us that particular trip, and amazing to think about finishing the 18th green yesterday and even in the pro-am, we played with Suzy Whaley there yesterday and Jeff Fettig, the chairman of KitchenAid, and your own president, Suzy. And we holed a 40-foot putt. I think one of our other members holed a 40-foot putt, and it was like, Wow. I remember the celebrations on that green, and I remember Seve, the late Seve, talking to Bernard Gallacher and Faldo behind that green, and I was sitting behind them. And yeah, it brings back all sorts of memories, and good ones here, because it happened to be one of our victories. It was the first time that I had won a Ryder Cup as a team member. I'd started in '91. I'd lost at Kiawah and also lost at the Belfry. It was the first time I'd been on a winning team, and it was a much better feeling, believe me, than it was on a losing one. Great memories. I played Ben Crenshaw actually in the singles. He was the Masters champion at the time in '95, and managed just to finish with a few birdies. I birdied 14, 16 and 17 to get my point and, as you say, help the cause. But yeah, it was a tremendous week, and it brings back huge memories of what a great golf course this is. And I think that people that have been in here before talking about Rochester, talking about Oak Hill and forgetting, I think, how good a golf course it is and how demanding a golf course it is. I was on the first green yesterday in practice, and my God, I forgot, one, how severe the green complexes are and how fast it was and how good we must have been in '95 to even contemplate making birdies. And although it was breezy yesterday, everyone is saying, you'd take level par right now, being a par of 70, a very tight par of 70, you'd take level par right now and run. Wind or no wind, I think that remains the score that people are looking for. Q. You were just talking about par being something that -- COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Mm-hmm. Q. What do you take of Jay Haas winning this the last thing it was here at +7, and what do you make of what the conditions might be given the fact that things are warming up? COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Yes. The warmer this course plays, the tougher it'll play because of course it'll dry out the greens. And they dried out a lot on Monday, I believe. We flew in Monday, so I didn't play Monday, but it was very windy. It was breezy yesterday. So a drier course is always a tougher one. It's going to play very, very difficult. There's danger around every corner. It's actually set up very, very well, as well. 28-yard fairways, a good couple of yards semi, and then you're in trouble. And I like that. I think we still play too many courses which don't favor straight driving, and you saw it last week, as well, the PGA, and all credit to the staff of the PGA, to Kerry Haigh on down, for setting up this course the way they have. This is a demanding test. You're going to be penalized if you miss the fairways, and that's only right. I know it's tough to take and tough to accept, but it's only right. We still play too many courses, I believe, where it doesn't always favor the straight driver, and you know, we talk about shots into the green here, the second shots into the greens, but you don't have a second shot if you haven't hit the fairways. So it all starts with the tee shot, which I'm a great believer in. Q. And Jay Haas? COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Sorry, Jay Haas's +7 doesn't surprise anybody. In fact, if the weather was at all inclement, a hell of a score. That doesn't show you who finished 20th, who did extremely well out of 156 starters. 20th finish must have been +15 at least, which shows you how tough this course is. We didn't understand how tough it was because when you play match play on this course, or any course, you have the freedom, it doesn't really matter what you score. It doesn't matter, as long as you score one less than your opponent of the day. It doesn't really matter what you score. But it does in stroke play; it adds up, sometimes too quickly. Q. We've talked about how level par is a good score this week. Do you prefer that mentality going into the week as opposed to the pace we go at on a weekly basis out on the Champions Tour? COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Sure. I think a few of us out here much prefer that situation. I do personally. My best record in the majors was the PGA, the U.S. PGA and the U.S. Open, and this is set up àla U.S. Open, U.S. PGAs were in our day: Tough. And I used to like that. That was my preferred course setup. My record in the Open and the Masters wasn't as good because there's more room off the tee. So this does suit my own game. Unfortunately it might suit some others' too. But at the same time, yes, the setup suits some people. It doesn't suit others. It does suit my particular game, yes. And it's good that if you do start off late, we're starting off late on Friday, but you know, as you so rightly say on the PGA TOUR Champions where I might start an hour and a half before the starters have started and I'm already five behind. Then you go, bloody hell, you know. And you race one by at the first and three-putt and you think: What the hell am I doing here? So there's a different mentality you've got to accept, and it's the most difficult thing to accept in golf. Bogeys are going to happen. You're going to miss the fairway, make a bogey, don't make it a double and get on with it. Because otherwise are doing the same. I think that's why Brooks there at the end there, Koepka, Dustin was catching him, but he hadn't finished. And you saw how difficult it was. Dustin still had to par 16, 17 and 18 and couldn't manage it. Played them in 2-over. It's amazing how a tough golf course, you expect the guy that's chasing just to continue making birdies the way he was at 15 -- an incredible birdie at 15 Dustin made, but you've got to finish it off, and it was that tough and he couldn't do it himself. So it gave Brooks a bit a of a leeway. It was a super championship, and so good to continue this major season. Q. Five years ago, in 2014, this same week, you won this championship. It was the first major of your career, and about 10 days ago our Ryder Cup captain, Steve Stricker, came through in the same fashion. What's it like when you break through after years of some near misses perhaps, but to break through on this Tour and get that? What were your emotions, and what might have Steve felt a few weeks ago? COLIN MONTGOMERIE: I think people might have a different view about the Senior Tour or the PGA Champions or the KitchenAid Senior PGAs, whatever. When you walk up the 18th here, this -- I said to Suzy yesterday, your president, and also said to Jeff Fettig of KitchenAid: This feels like a major championship. And I don't mean a senior major championship, I mean a major championship. She looked around, and you couldn't not agree. It was set up amazingly. And the one at Harbor Shores was, as well, when I first won in 2014, the Regions Tradition the same. Our next is the U.S. Senior Open, which I'm sure will be set up, as well, and it really is -- the feeling, the emotions coming up the last hole, winning a major championship, and that's how I felt. I happened to be playing with Bernhard Langer, okay, a good friend of mine, in 2014, but someone who I had competed against to win majors in my day, and it really felt like a major championship, and this will, too. You know, someone who needs to finish 4-4 -- three 4s around here and pulls it off in a major championship will really feel it, and it's great that we have that feeling. That's why we do it. We'd be walking our dogs on St. Andrews beach otherwise. We're not. We're here to compete, and we love to compete, and that's what keeps us -- that's the drive. That's what keeps us driven, and it's super to do it. Q. It's the second senior major in a space of three months. How difficult is it managing yourself both physically and mentally over the major season? COLIN MONTGOMERIE: It is, it is demanding. People don't realize it, you know. For amateurs that play suddenly three or four days in a row, they're tired out. They're knackered out there at the end of the thing. They really are. And it is difficult, especially when you commute from 4,000 miles away as I do. I live in Sunningdale in London, and it's not easy to commute across and the dehydration levels, the fitness levels, the concentration levels, the jet lag, the timings and all the stuff that goes on, to compete at this level. It is a busy summer. You know, when I turned 50, I thought it was going to be time to actually calm down a wee bit. I've actually been as busy as I ever have, and that's good. That's great. I've thoroughly enjoyed it, but it has been busy. I mean, my next week off as such is when I get back from India, of all places, in the middle of December. So that proves that -- you keep going. You keep going, or else you'll be overtaken if you stop. In any business. Doesn't matter what you're doing. And out here, yeah, I'm 55 now and there's more people I'm seeing on the range now that -- oh, it's his first week, it's his first week, and that means they're five, six years younger than I am, and age is against us. So you've got to push harder and practice harder and prepare, and it's not easy. It's hard work. Which it should be. It should be hard work. I'm not saying that's bad. It is, though. (Chuckles.) Q. Getting back to '95 again, where does that experience rank for you in all your Ryder Cup memories? And when you come back to a place like this, do you reminisce with maybe some of the teammates that you had that year that are in the field or even your American counterparts, too? COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Yes. I remember I've spoken to Corey Pavin and Tom Lehman here. That was our first match. I was with Nick Faldo, and we lost 1-down to Corey and to Tom Lehman the first match off. Yes, you reminisce with them. I think there's only Bernhard Langer and myself that remain playing here from the '95 team, which is -- yeah, I don't know, seems unbelievable there was only two of us left. I think there's five of the American team playing here, but there's only Bernhard and myself that remain from the '95 team. Yeah, of course we have memories. Yeah, we have great memories, and as I was saying earlier on it was the first time that I was a member of a team, of a winning team. I'd only known defeat in '91 and '93. So what a difference in a two-horse race to come out on top. So yeah, this was good memories. Yeah. Don't take me back to Kiawah or take me to the Belfry, but yeah, take me here is different. I look forward to, as we all do, to challenging the course again from tomorrow on. It'll be a super championship. It really will. Yeah. Q. Do you think that win in '95 really started the European run? COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Well, I suppose it was -- to win '95, '97 was a good time for us. It was just '99 got in the way. But then the first time we'd ever won three in a row started in 2001-2, and then we managed to win in '04 and '06, so that was -- yeah, to win five out of the next six was the start of something special for the European cause. But hey, who knows, it could switch itself for the next 10 years, could be the American domination. You never know. That's why it's such a great competition. But yeah, this is a special place for me here, yeah. Q. You've done some really good television work for Golf Channel through the years, and I asked Scott McCarron this, maybe put on your handicapping hat. Are there a few names maybe outside of the top 5 or 10 players that you think their games might match up well on this course here at Oak Hill? COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Interesting you say. If I was put on the spot, I'd have to say straight drivers of the golf ball. Although it's playing quite long, it's not too long that straight driving -- because straight driving usually means shorter driving. So I'm looking at the likes of a past PGA champion, the likes of a Jeff Sluman, who drives the ball extremely straight, or a Glen Day, someone who you might not, say, put money on in a way as opposed to the McCarron or the Langer or the Stricker or that type of guy, Vijay Singh. I would say Jeff Sluman, Glen Day would be a good bet, straight hitters of the golf ball off the tee. You can't play this course from the rough. You just can't do it. You're going to make bogeys. So straight hitting is key. And not have to hit the ball 300 yards. 280 straight will get you around most courses, and this is a classic one. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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