KITCHENAID SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 27, 2021

Cary Cozby

Quick Quotes

Southern Hills Country Club

THE MODERATOR: Welcome to the 2021 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship, Southern Hills, Tulsa, Oklahoma. We're with Southern Hills own Cary Cozby. We can't script the scores, but I don't think that ruins what might have been one of the real special days in your professional life.

CARY COZBY: Not at all. Obviously you want to play better, but it was a really cool experience to stand on the first tee with Tom Lehman and Jay Haas and seeing all the membership and friends and family out there and crew I work with that's over here, it's certainly not anything I'm going to forget any time soon and I'm happy I get to do it again tomorrow and it was just walking the fairway with Banks and looking around and some friends from Wichita came down and it was really, really special day for sure.

THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. Except for the tee shot on 1 you played the first four holes beautifully. Gave yourself some great birdie looks at some tough pins on every hole. You had to be feeling really good after five, six holes.

CARY COZBY: Yeah, if I would have, if you would have showed me where all my tee balls were for the day I probably shot thought I had shot even or 1, 2-under. I hit a couple loose shots, hit a loose shot with 5 on the wedge. I wasn't aiming at the flag, I was aiming 15 feet right of the flag. Pin looked like it was on the fringe any ways, so I was just trying to give myself a good flat putt there and just hit a bad shot.

Same thing on 7. I was trying to hit it the middle of the green, it's uphill and a flat shot and just pulled it a little bit and then hit the looked like it hit to the side of the green or the top of the bunker and shot it way left into a bad spot. Had to just kind of take my medicine.

Then I just thought I hit a pretty good shot on 10 from the middle of the fairway and I think it was probably a pace maybe five feet from getting over the top of that ridge to where Tom's ball was. And I was looking at the flags on the clubhouse is usually what the wind is, that doesn't lie, so when you're in 10 fairway you know to look at the flags and when you're on 11 you assume it's going to do the exact same thing that it's doing on the approach shot on 10. And it just spun obviously off the green and down there in a cruddy, grainy lie and just made a mess from there. So basically that's what I did.

I 3-putted 14 and just, I'm used to that putt being a little faster when it crests the hill and left it short, left it over there and the rest is sloppy golf a little bit.

Q. Some good golf too. Obviously the score's not going to reflect it, but --

CARY COZBY: Yeah, no, I hit some good shots, just on the tee shots and getting off to a good start was really important to me, just to play a good round because of nerves and being here and not playing in this arena often. And I told Julius, my brother Craig is in a bucket hat, I looked, I haven't talked to either one of those guys, but he looks like my dad over there. So it was pretty cool to walk up on the tee. But I handled the first -- loose tee ball on 1, but hit a good iron shot there and then hit it pretty good front nine other than just like I said those two swings there that kept me from maybe shooting even par or somewhere around there.

Q. Your relationship with Banks obviously being your son how did that develop through the round as kind of going from father/son to golfer/caddie?

CARY COZBY: How did he handle me making 8 on 10? He was hot. He was it was all he could do not to say something to me on number 10. No, it was cool and the excitement level that we both had to look around and see his buddies, that he's going to school with and all our kids that play out here, we love our junior golf and the kids that are younger than Banks and older than Banks there were a bunch of them out here and it's a cool fraternity that we have with our all of our professional staff and all the kids.

So Banks and I getting to do this, we, on 18, obviously we wish we would have shot a little lower score, but walking up the fairway with Jay Haas and Tom Lehman again and seeing Jim Furyk and Collin Montgomerie and Ken Tanigawa on 10, it was just cool. And I'm trying to, you want to be narrow focused but you also want to soak it in too and appreciate what the opportunity was.

Q. From your inside the ropes perspective how pleased were you with the course setup and the way that the tournament's been going since the renovations with the first major championship since all that was done?

CARY COZBY: Well I wish everybody could see what the golf course looked like 30 to 40 days ago and what Russ has been able to do to make the -- it's unbelievable and I mean when Ken was here for the media day on 5, we teed off over his staff hitting, laying sod. And that was end of April, something like that. 24th of April. So to see the way the golf course, I didn't see anybody have any lies today -- there may have been one, not in our group -- but it's remarkable to see what has happened. Mother Nature took it away, Mother Nature gave it back I think a little, helped us out. But the golf course, it's fun to see what -- it's the first time that the professionals have been here after the renovation, I haven't even looked at the scores so I don't know what the low score is, but it's a tough golf course. And Bob May and I were talking -- we played against each other in college -- he said, This place is too tough, I don't think I could be a member here. So it was tough. The wind kicked up today and it looks like maybe a north wind tomorrow and Saturday and Sunday, which is definitely the more difficult, it's not a big wind but it's definitely a more difficult wind.

Q. You know in your defense as well you mentioned with all the work you put in the last month with the winter you haven't been able to practice as much as you would like because your duties have been --

CARY COZBY: No, I don't want to overstate how much work I did to get ready. The team that I work with and Nick and every other department and the people from the PGA that are here, I did very little, really. I mean they wanted me to practice. Nick's first thing he said to me after staying congrats was, Hey, your crew's awesome, let them have it, you go practice, find time to do it. So I tried to be more structured than -- well I have zero structure normally -- so unless I'm gearing up for the National Club Pro or something like that. But so I didn't, my work, I mean I guess I could have just not shown up for work, I did show up for work every day to do that, but aside from that I practiced more than I would normally would and but I still -- probably some tournament rounds, more tournament rounds, if I could have played this spring, maybe some of those loose shots wouldn't have happened, but who knows.

Q. Were you able to enjoy it today?

CARY COZBY: Loved it. No, it was great. I grew up from younger than him wanting to do this, right? So the path took me into the club professional stuff but I wanted to be a TOUR pro. So to stand out there and -- my glass has always been pretty full, not half full, and so I have pretty good perspective on what an opportunity this is, but to walk with the greats of the people that I grew up watching play, off the charts.

Q. Not sure it's verified, but seemed like the biggest roar was for you on 1 tee that I've heard all day long. How was that?

CARY COZBY: No, it was great. Breakfast was tough to get down today and driving down here was certainly different than the other days I drive. I know I'm really hungry, it's easier to eat on the golf course when you're moving, but, man, that breakfast was tough to get down. But it was fun to see and of course the officers of the PGA and the starters and all of those things, just a memory of a lifetime.

Q. Last week you told us 13 was a very special hole for you. Birdied it today.

CARY COZBY: Yeah, I did.

Q. What was going through your head? How did it feel?

CARY COZBY: Well, it was just still kind of trying to rebound after the mess up on 10. I tried to just play a smart shot on 11 to the middle of the green and had adjust pulled another wedge, but it was on the green on 12. I thought, hey, just make a got to have a chance to reach this in two and make a birdie and get in the house and play a good round tomorrow. But, yeah, I didn't think about the 13th, it is my favorite hole so maybe there's a reason for that. I hit a 5-iron on and 2-putted for an easy birdie. Because there wasn't another birdie on the card, unfortunately.

Q. When we were watching today, especially at 10, we didn't see a bigger crowd for anyone and we got some big names out here. What did that mean to you and is it more pressure or is it more fun because of that?

CARY COZBY: No, it's pressure because you know you can't help but feel that. It's a membership, the people you serve every day and a lot of your friends. And so it was really cool on 9, the crowd got bigger on 9 and 10 because people had got up and got going and doing all that. So it was, it was cool to stand on the tee box and what it feels like and to hit some good shots off the tee and that was nice -- yeah it was cool, they got a little thinner after the 8 on 10 though, so. Like I'm going to watch somebody else. (Laughing).