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SENIOR BRITISH OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 22, 2004

John Chillas

PORTRUSH, NORTHERN IRELAND

Q. Difficult conditions?

JOHN CHILLAS: Yes there are 16 cross wind holes out there today which always makes it a little bit awkward to know where to start the ball out. So it is an awkward golf course but it is a great golf course to play. You kind of get the rewards for keeping it on the short grass. If you hit it in the long grass you are going to take one or two more shots than you were hoping to.

Q. Did you hit driver much?

JOHN CHILLAS: Most of the time, I'm not long enough so I leave that to the long guys to use three woods. I used three wood at the 13th and that was about it, I need the driver.

Q. Comfortable on the greens?

JOHN CHILLAS: I wasn't bad today. I really tried to two putt as much as I could. I made the mistake at five where I three putted, got the borrow and speed all wrong but other than that I two putted most everything. In fairness it is difficult to close to the flag so you are trying to get it on the putting surface as best you can. If you can leave yourself the into the wind putt it is sometimes easier, when you get the downwind, downhill, downgrain putt, it is not the most enjoyable two minutes of your life! I have never played here before this week.

Q. How have you been playing this year?

JOHN CHILLAS: Okay at the beginning of the year but the last few weeks haven't been that good. But who knows, this game does things to you and you start going out and fiddling instead of playing golf, today was fiddle free. Tomorrow it could be full of fiddles for all I know.

Q. Where is your home John?

JOHN CHILLAS: Stirling

Q. Are you still teaching at the University there?

JOHN CHILLAS: I have still got an interest in the University but I have another guy there doing most of the coaching now because this takes up a little bit too much time when the kids are there during the semesters. I am kind of lurking about as a consultant which is great because I turn up when I want.

Q. Do you still do private coaching?

JOHN CHILLAS: No I don't do any at all now. I have given that up. It is a nice office we are in here. This European Seniors Tour is a really nice office. We get to go to nice places every week.

Q. Could you expand on what you mean by fiddling?

JOHN CHILLAS: Fiddling to me is if I do this with the swing or that with the swing, and this with the ball position, just to get comfortable at the end of the day. Tiny little things. I tend to believe that the golf swing is something that you are given when you are a kid. It is a bit like your handwriting, you are never going to be able to change it. You can do it, Faldo did it but it took him two to three years and I don't reckon many of us have that much time. Certainly at this age, if you took two to three years out, you might be dead! So I am not going to change very much and it won't look different but it is more about feeling comfortable. I think we all know that when you comfortable you don't have to think about things. Getting in the comfort zone helps especially when the wind is blowing like it is, it is good not to think, it makes it a bit easier.

Q. Do you deliberately hit it less hard in the wind?

JOHN CHILLAS: Probably. I am inclined to take an extra club a lot of the time. My natural game is that I spin the ball a little bit too much a lot of the time so I have to try and keep the spin down so it doesn't worry me taking a little extra club. I don't tend to punch the ball nowadays, I just take the extra club and let the wind do what it is going to do to the ball.

Q. You seem relaxed?

JOHN CHILLAS: I guess. I am relatively laid back nowadays. As I said, we are very fortunate to be able to play Seniors golf. For me to be able to start a new career when I was 50 years old and enjoy it, why not be relaxed. We are all long enough in the tooth to realise that we are all going to have good weeks and bad week, good holes and bad holes, good shots, bad shots, accept them, get on with it and see what happens.

Q. You have the Travis Perkins coming up soon, what did that win mean to you last year?

JOHN CHILLAS: It was an interesting one because there was a lack of scoreboards between the ninth and the 15th so Eamonn Darcy and I were wondering along in that stretch not doing that much. Carl Mason and Bill Longmuir were ahead of us and we thought that they would be ahead but all of a sudden when we got to the 15th we saw the two of us were top of the leaderboard so that sort of focused the mind over the last few holes. Luckily I managed to scrape my way through to win at the end of the day and it was wonderful. To do it at Wentworth, is there a better place to do it? One of the things that a lot of people don't know about Wentworth is that any person who wins there is automatically made an Honorary Member so I have the free use of Wentworth Golf Club for the rest of my life which is a nice thing to do when you are in that area.

End of FastScripts.

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