U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 29, 1995

J.C. Snead

J.C. SNEAD: I didn't have any par saves.

J.C. SNEAD: Second hole, hit 2-iron about seven feet right behind the hole; almost made one there, almost. That is the story of my life. 4, I hit it about two feet and 3-putted 6.

J.C. SNEAD: I hit a little cut 6-iron.

J.C. SNEAD: 3-putted from 15 feet; missed it from about a foot and a half. I don't know what happened to it. I don't think I hit it bad; it almost didn't hit the hole, hit something and bounced just straight right. I think it was my putter.

J.C. SNEAD: 8, I hit a driver and wedge about probably eight feet maybe, maybe that far. Looked like about 50. 11, I hit -- I laid up, hit a little sand iron about 6 feet.

J.C. SNEAD: 17, was about 25, 26 feet, 27 feet -- 9 steps it was, I think. I stepped it off.

J.C. SNEAD: Any time you are leading it is not all that bad. I would rather have been about 5 shots ahead, but -- but I hit the ball really pretty straight. I missed one fairway; I didn't miss a green; so I can't do much better than that. If I hadn't miss that one fairway, I would have been really happy.

J.C. SNEAD: Did I think it would?

J.C. SNEAD: Well, I was kind of surprised to see as many guys under par starting out. Of course, the greens are soft, but the greens are not very smooth. And it is playing very long. It is still playing long. You are not getting any rolls off the tee. So I imagine -- I hit a lot of 6-irons, 7-irons today, but I don't hit my irons very hard. I just kind of hit, try to finesse it in there and play -- played a lot of little cut shots and things like that. But I think that the longest club I hit, like I said, I hit a 2-iron off 2 and 4-iron 13, the long one up the hill?

J.C. SNEAD: I think it is 13.

J.C. SNEAD: 14. Yeah, they slipped that 3 par in there. So -- yeah 14, I hit 4-iron there. I hit 190, 4 iron, pin on the right side of the green. Overall my putting was okay. My approached putting was pretty good and when the greens are kind of -- any time you play late in the afternoon 2:00 o'clock; especially the greens are not real smooth anyway, and I really expected them to be worse than they were. I noticed the officials and the players, the group in front of us was tapping down spike marks and really wasn't too bad around the cup, so that helped a lot. But that is, you know, that is not us tapping down the spike marks before we putted, that is the group in front of us tapped them down after they played, and I think they asked -- I heard somebody say something about doing that, so the officials asked the players and to be considerate with the group behind them and try to do that. Overall, I think the greens were a lot better than I anticipated them being going off at 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon.

J.C. SNEAD: Sure. Yeah, I could see -- I mean, it was what three or four of them at one time, Weiskopf and Tom Joyce and one of them -- Jay Sigel, he was 4 under, yeah. Jay played real solid. He just made a mistake on the 5 par; ended up with a double bogey. That was really -- I think he had one other bogey but other than that, he played real solid. He had a miscue there, but that is -- we missed a couple, you know. I mean, everybody misses some. But had a few other opportunities, but a golf course this long, you figure that you know, you are only going to get a limited amount of birdie putts and when they are bumpy, you never know whether you are going to make them or not. But I think I heard somebody say Ringer had 23 putts or something like that?

J.C. SNEAD: That is pretty good. Not bad. I did that once, I think, somewhere.

J.C. SNEAD: Nothing. I have seen him before. Other than that, I don't know. He must play pretty good. But that is kind of the history of The Open; there is always somebody jumping up there that people don't know anything about. A lot of good players around hiding in the bushes; they come out of there every once in a while.

J.C. SNEAD: I, you know, this might sound silly, I really don't pay too much attention to the board. I don't look at it that much. I don't go look at the board after I finish and worry about what I have to shoot tomorrow. Only thing I can do tomorrow is tee it up and do the best I can on every shot; play one hole at a time and see what happens. Too many times where you-- "man, I have got it;" you go out there and shoot 80 and literally I am better off I go to the first tee scared to death every round, I feel better. Any time I feel little cockey, I usually play my worst rounds, but golf is such a fickle game just when you think you have it, it can turn on you any minute, so I don't know. It is -- I think if you are putting and playing bunkers and chipping, you don't lose that as quickly as you do other parts of your game. The swing has a lot to do with your rhythm and your timing, tempo and all that, I guess, it all means the same thing, but your anxieties change, all of a sudden -- you could be playing just absolute lights out; all of a sudden something feels -- something feels different that didn't feel right. It gets a little bit worse and next thing you know, you are hitting hit sideways. It is a funny game. I don't think anybody really can say they have a handle on it. It is just -- it could turn on you any time, so I don't -- I never get too cocky about how I am playing. I always think I am playing bad; it is going to get better, so --

J.C. SNEAD: No that is not me. I can't remember that far back. I am getting old. But, no, I don't think -- I don't know if I have played well here before or not. This golf course always kind of been a long hitters golf course. I know Stadler, maybe you got me mixed up with him. He always played good here. Guys that hit the ball long usually have a bit of an advantage here. If these fairways would firm up a little bit -- Sigel knocked it on -- 6th hole he knocked-- he went -- he played absolutely fantastic pitch shot up there, that was -- what a shot he hit there! Hit it about a fifth from the hole. Everybody should try that one. That impressed me.

J.C. SNEAD: If I keep striking the ball the way I am, I should do halfway decent. You never know what is going to change. Like I said, I just missed one fairway today and no greens, so that is not too bad for me. Somebody else can do better, maybe, but I guess I could have hit it closer, but The Open is -- major tournaments always been a tournament of consistency; not who gets real hot. The guy who gets hot puts it on the fairway and the green; that is why Trevino has always been such a good player at The Opens; he drives the ball so straight and hits a lot of greens. He does everything pretty good most of the time. It is pretty difficult to win an Open and drive the ball crooked.

J.C. SNEAD: Well, I got started off good this year. I practiced real hard before it started and I got started off real strong. I have had, I think, four second place finishes, counting the Legends, but I have just hit the ball pretty consistent all year. The last couple of months, I have hit probably better than I have hit it since in the '70s; not far or you know, anything like that, but just I have hit the ball pretty straight -- you know pretty much what I wanted to do, which the only part of my game I am really disappointed in is my pitching and my bunker play and just generally around the greens, I have been playing kind of lousy. Today I had a good round because I didn't miss any greens. I didn't have to pitch or chip and play bunker shots today. The last couple of tournaments I mean, all year I used to be-- that is like the old saying, the older I get, the further I used to hit. I always felt I was a good bunker player and my bunker just stinks. I want to throw up every time I hit one. It is really pretty sad. But it is not like -- like last week I worked on my bunker game a lot and it messed up my other part; I start doing something -- hitting the ball -- I ended up the last two rounds not hitting the ball very well at all and just simply from practicing so much hitting bunker shots and pitch shots. But that is what I meant a while ago when I said the game is so fickle. You work on one part of your game; something happens to the other part. It is -- sometimes I think you need a file cabinet to put down everything that you are doing to go back and find out what happened, but it is just so easy to mess up one part of your game; then you work on something else. Bunker games stay on your left side; you don't move; want to stay a little ahead of it; hit down through it and last week, I -- all of a sudden I have been driving the ball really good and all of a sudden I started getting pulls, hitting the right and "what in the world is going on" and I was setting up almost reverse pivot and on my backswing, luckily, a friend of mine picked it up, and helped me out on that and I fixed it real quick. But I could have struggled with that, could have gotten a lot worse if that hadn't happened.

J.C. SNEAD: I played really good until the last round. I played real solid first three rounds. I think I was leading after three rounds or tied. I was right there and last day I kept driving it about a foot off the fairway and just ate me up. Opens, the worst place you can hit it, is about the first 5 feet off the fairway. That is where the rough is always the worse part of it; if you get over in there a little bit most of the times you get over in the gallery, you can catch a good lie, you can hit it. But inside the ropes, just off the fairways, the worst place you can be. But I do remember Michigan. I kept driving it just off the fairway. I couldn't even get it on the greens. I played lousy the last round and it starts eating you up. You get it going sideways like you can't stop the bleeding.

J.C. SNEAD: Just like I did today. I just go out there and my swing if it stays feeling good and I feel like I am in control of it, I just try to play the shot I am trying to play. I have played a little fade (sic) today off the tee and most of my second shots all day and that shot generally is easier for me to hit than trying to turn it over. When you turn them over, they go a little bit further, but I rather be in the fairway. I hit one or two clubs more any time if I am out of the fairway than trying to be in the rough. But only fairway I missed was the hole I bogeyed and I shouldn't have bogeyed it. I had a good shot there. I had 50 something yards to the pin.

J.C. SNEAD: Fairly, yes, I was shooting at the pins, but I was trying to work the ball into the pin.

J.C. SNEAD: I wasn't trying to outdrive anybody. I just wanted to put it in the fairway. I hit a couple -- I thought I was swinging at it hard, but nothing happened. At this age, you know, you swing hard and nothing happens.

J.C. SNEAD: Time to go home and get something to eat.