10 was kind of a turning point in our match. We were one down. Woosie hit it about four feet. Mark hit it about 30 feet short, and I made it. Kind of take a little bit of wind out of their sails. They'd been on top of us. That one certainly helped.
Then we had some good shots from there in. Mark missed a couple short putts, then he put me real close on 14. Hit it about a foot. I made about a 15-footer on 15 for us to go one up. I almost become the goat of the day, driving it in the hazard on 16. Tried to hit it right, but I didn't.
GORDON SIMPSON: Got it right on 17.
CRAIG STADLER: Actually, had to walk all the way back to the tee on 16. 3-wood, hit wedge about 12 feet. They were there with a 9-iron to the green, hit it short of the green, down the hill about 20 yards short, chipped it about 12 feet by. "Hell, if he makes this, we're going to have this hole." He just missed that putt. Didn't really matter. He hit a great shot on 17, 12 feet right of the hole, made that to go back one up.
He put me about 25, 30 feet on the last hole after they'd already come from short of the green. Lagged it up there, kind of waffled it up there about a foot short. That was that. It was a good match, though.
Q. I asked Scott this, you can give me your impression, at one point you didn't know this, but they were ahead five out of the six matches at one point. Is the result now about as good as you could hope for?
CRAIG STADLER: Yeah. You know, I think considering what it was in the middle of the day, I think we're pretty happy with the way it was. We both kind of turned our matches around. Looked like Lietzke and Fax were going to sneak back in there. Lietzke made a great putt on 18 to have their match. You know, we were down a point. It's not bad. That's very doable.
It was looking like 5-1 or five and a half half for a while there.
Q. Craig, two-part question. 20 years ago, would you have thought you would still be playing golf? Do you think now that you will be playing competitively for the next 10 years or so? What sort of plans have you got for the future?
CRAIG STADLER: Well, to truthfully answer your question, 20 years ago, thinking I'd still be playing golf in 20 years, I actually probably hoped not (laughter). Did I ever think I'd be playing this long? Never really thought of that. When I was 30, you know, I was having fun, I was playing okay, kind of looked forward to playing till about 42 or 43. A couple years later, I was 42 or 43. It just went by like that. From 45 to 50, that went by in a heartbeat, too.
I had fun playing when I was 30. I'm having a hell of a lot of fun playing now. It's very enjoyable stuff. Same thing, it's been said over and over: such a difference, such a comfort zone you're back in, going back, seeing all the faces that I started playing with 25, 30 years ago, played with throughout, I'm back playing with them. Kind of like a family reunion, so to speak.
Q. What was it you didn't want to do 20 years ago when you looked ahead to now, when you said you hoped you wouldn't be playing golf?
CRAIG STADLER: When I was back around late 20s, early 30s, I was hoping to have about $20 million in the bank by the time I was 43. That didn't quite happen (laughter). Had about a half.
You know, just kept playing. I had a stretch from probably when I was 32 to almost 40 where I didn't play very well, I didn't win, really contemplated cutting way back and playing some events, maybe looking for something else to mix and match with as far as something to do.
The only factor -- the thing that factored into the whole deal was I was exempt through '82 to '92. In '92 I won again, 10 years, I was exempt till I was 49. I didn't worry about having an exemption, being in tournaments. I won THE TOUR Championship at Pinehurst in a playoff with Russ Cochran. That was my first win in seven years on TOUR. It kind of changed the mindset a little bit after questioning yourself, debating within yourself if you really have it, if you have the heart, if you have the game to win again.
You know, once you win, it makes that second one, third one a lot easier. I've always been pretty convinced of that. I ended up winning four or five tournaments in the next four years or five years. Then I just wanted to keep playing a little bit till I got to be 50, try to be competitive, which pretty much through the end of last year I was. The first part of this year, I was not at all. Kind of went on year to year. Went by so fast once I got to 40s, won a few times, went overseas, had some fun playing some tournaments I wanted to play in. By the time I turned around, I was 45. I looked behind again, I was 48.
Never really entered into the thought process of bagging it or packing it, finding something else to do. Just kind of moved up the rungs of the ladder, so to speak.
That was a long answer for a pretty short question.
GORDON SIMPSON: Scott and Craig, well played again. Thank you very much for coming in.
End of FastScripts.
