GENUITY CHAMPIONSHIP

February 28, 2001

Jack Nicklaus

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, I have always enjoyed playing here. I played here virtually every year except for the year that I think the year my father passed away only year I think I haven't played here and the year I had my hip. But I didn't walk that year anyway. I walked with Gary while he played. But I have always enjoyed the golf course. It is always -- it is a place in South Florida where all our friends can come watch us play and the office we give them a day off in the office, usually had an early/late starting time that the Tour has always sort of accommodated us slightly . This year we are late/early because we didn't have ask to be accommodated. Both of us got the wrong starting time for the office. Now I have got to let them off on Thursday, which is all right. But anyway, I have always -- that is one of the reasons, sort of close to home. I am delighted about Presidents Cup, I am delighted to have been selected as Captain of the Presidents Cup. I think that Tim and whoever else selects besides Tim, I don't know, who makes the selection, I don't really know, do you?

JACK NICKLAUS: I really don't have any idea. I don't know. Doesn't make any difference. Tim called me and asked me if I would do it again. I said sure I'd do it again. I enjoyed it in Australia. We had a good time. The guys played hard. They just got beat. I enjoy South Africa a lot. I go down there usually a couple of times a year, anyway. So it is good for me to go and do it and I think I am sure that -- I guess there have been enough comments about the guys may be skipping some of it and I think that maybe that might influence some of them. I don't know. The way I feel about it is, if guys want to play they will play. If they don't, that is their choice. It is certainly not -- nothing is mandatory. I think what I have said about -- I must have said it 20 years ago, I said when they start doing The Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup, pretty soon the guys will be -- get tired of playing every year. I don't -- I won't really blame them one way or the other. Certainly I hope that they all play but if they don't, we have got a lot of good players on both sides to play. It will be a nice event. Either way I am looking forward to it. I feel good. Kind of funny that I have been, I thought that -- thought I was fairly decent last year after my hip, but I couldn't run and I had -- I still had the ability, didn't have the ability to put weight in certain places and this fall, I don't know why all of a sudden December I was able to start running. I mean, only way -- I talk about running, is playing tennis because I am not going to go out and jog but I was able to start running without hurting. When I started to do that I found myself to be able to get out of my way a little easier when hitting the golf ball. Hopefully that is -- I looked at myself before I finished -- I saw a replay and I said no, no, too heavy. I had enough of that. I decided to get rid of some weight. I let about a pound a year creep on for about 10 years then all of a sudden had the hip done, then I had about 7, 8 pounds put on from that. I said that is too much. So I went back on a diet, lost some weight and I feel good. The thing I like about it is, the kids come up to me and say you look so much more athletic through the ball; you are looking like you are able to move more, so that is -- I don't know how well I am playing. Who knows. I am not going to play great, but hopefully I will play better than I did last year. I was very disappointed the way I played last year. It was a year that I wanted to play all the Majors, maybe I put too much pressure on myself to play well. I didn't. Just didn't play very well. Anyway, that was the way it goes. Besides, I got rid of Shedloski.

JACK NICKLAUS: That should help. That is a lot of weight. Can you imagine getting up in the morning, going to the golf course, and that what you see every morning.

JACK NICKLAUS: Those of you don't know, David followed me around all last year, he wrote a book, so that was fine. I am just kidding him.

JACK NICKLAUS: Yeah. I felt like, if I am going to play Augusta, which is pretty difficult, hard for me not to play, but if I am going to play Augusta I need to play a tournament or one or two tournaments prior to that to feel like I have played some good golf against these guys on a little tougher golf courses, and so forth. Not that I will do well but that is what I feel like I need to do.

JACK NICKLAUS: Yeah, that is more or less.

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, I can't make up my mind whether or not I am going to go out to the West Coast and play at San Jose, or go to Bay Hill. I'll probably go to San Jose because I probably should go play more on the SENIOR TOUR, and -- but that is the other option, two-hour drive up the road or across country, you know, 6 hour plane trip. There is an economic part of that, too. But more than likely I will still go across, I will probably have enough golf courses that I can work across and come back. It is a golf course I did; that would be the reason that I would go.

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, tee-to-green it is probably where it was originally, pretty close. I think they have taken enough of the bunkers out and put bunkers back pretty much where they were originally now. I think Raymond probably got the golf course a little bit more difficult than probably even he'd probably wanted it. I think some of the greens still are, you know, probably not where they used to be. They are far more severe such as 8 and 18 and you know, few others are totally different. But that is what we are playing. That is what it is. But you asked me a question about what it used to be, and I think the golf course is more difficult now than it used to be.

JACK NICKLAUS: Still more difficult.

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, you know, of course you know my thought on that, I think you have been through that with me. That I think, I think a perfect example was Cayman golf course, what is that, 15 years ago that I did. I had a developer come to me, this is obviously an extreme example, but he came to me he said, Jack, I want to do a championship golf course. He said, I want to put a hotel in. I want to have a development, marina. I said that is very nice, that would be a nice project down in the Cayman Islands. I said, how much land do you have. He said, 90 acres. Oh, well, the whole thing was, that we ended up, I said, there is no way you can do that. He said, no? I said you just don't have enough land to do that. I said I have an idea, something I have thought about for a while, taking a golf ball and making it suit the land rather than have the land suit the golf ball. We did the golf ball. It went half the distance and of course when it goes half the distance you got the width and things, you cut your and by 4 if you are doing that. So instead of 160 acres, you need 40. We ended up using 37 and a half. Very nice. The whole golf course, par 35. We did put greens in the middle, put -- made a nice executive golf course, then used -- designed a ball to go half the distance, ended up with a full-length 18 hole golf course by the distance of that golf ball. He got his hotel, his marina, so he didn't have to buy more land. Obviously the moral of that story is that, what did it cost to do the golf ball -- that is not the moral -- but it cost us $5,000 to design the golf ball. Big deal. What does it cost to change what we do on golf courses? Millions every time we change golf courses. So -- and you run out of land. So what do you do? I mean, you got the existing golf courses. The only logical thing to me is that you adjust the golf ball to fit what we have got rather than going out continually building more tees, more bunkers, more this, that, and just spending money, money, money. It is just -- doesn't cost anything to adjust the golf ball. To take a golf ball back 5% is like, you know, nothing. Cost nothing. I mean manufacturers probably won't like that because his ball doesn't go further now, but if everybody does the same thing, keep all the same aerodynamics, all the same of everything except it just goes, you know, same pattern, just goes 5% shorter; then all of a sudden your golf courses that were 7,100 yards now they play like 6,750 and there is a lot of 6,750 golf courses in this country that are really, really nice golf courses. So -- be that as it may, that is I think the proper solution but that is not where we are coming from right now. So what we do as designers, I have always looked at it --- what we do now is we used to use at sea level, 800 feet as our turn point which turns 67 yards (sic). What we have done recently is we have gone to 850 feet. And design exactly the same bunkering as though it was 800 feet. We didn't change the tees for the average golfer. So I have done a little design philosophy change, in that I think --let's just --I will just take the Bear's Club as an example, one I did up in Palm Beach area. I did talk about this last week? The Bear's Club is about 7,200 yards from the back tees. Now most people want to go to the next set of tees up to play. Well, if the next set of tees for most people if you are going 7,200 yards it is probably going to be around 6,900 which, for the average golfer, is too long. I eliminated that. I didn't put those in. So I went 7,200 to 6,500, which I think is a really nice golf course for the members to play. And then I just made a little larger spread, instead of doing 5 tees I did 3 tees. I did a larger members tee, a back tee, and a front tee, and this is largely new to technology; that is why I have done this too and the ego of people too. So what happens is that the back tee up there has been -- golf course is extremely difficult from 7,200 yards. From 6,500 yards the members absolutely love it because I haven't made it too long for them; they could play it. The ladies love it. And so the combination now, if you take the golfer who wants, let's say if that 6,500 golf course is not long enough for him, the average golfer always has the ability to move back so that golfer could take half a dozen of the back tees if they want to on holes that are middle length up and make themselves a 6,700 or 800 yard golf course but they are not penalizing everybody else, they are just going back and doing that. The strategy is the same for, you know, the pro because the golf ball does go a little bit further, giving him an extra 50 feet to fight against. Only person you are probably not accommodating is the gorilla who is 12 handicap hits it 320 yards. The gorilla ought to learn to hit the ball somewhat straight anyway. It seems, the tendency today for people is to go out and hit the ball as far as they can and not learn how to play golf. When I was growing up, and many of you probably are the same, the best players at your club, the guy hit the ball 230 yards down the middle, hit his second shot around the green, chipped and putt and played the golf course. Not the guy that hit it out, you know, 320 yards and found his ball every third shot. That seems to be the tendency because people just enjoy doing that because golf clubs allow you to do that, the ball allows you to do that. Usually we've given them enough room to do it. They still got to find the golf ball. That is sort of where we have come from. So the philosophy has changed a lot. And we used to do the 5 tee routine and as the golf courses got longer to accommodate we felt like it --I felt like it was too much for the average golfer to play that in between length. The obvious solution is the golf ball again. But is that -- until they change that or until they make that accommodation -- I don't think they are ever going to change equipment. I mean, all the kids that are out here playing today grew up with that equipment. How could you possibly go out and tell them that they are going to go back to steel shafts. That would be like telling us we are going to go back to wood shafts. They are not going to do that. Anyway, that is sort of my feeling.

JACK NICKLAUS: I am entered.

JACK NICKLAUS: No, no, I haven't said I am not going to play for sure or not. I can't imagine I am not going to play. But my feeling has always been I am not going to clutter up the field if I can't play. Last year was going to be my last year of playing all the majors, I said that I might come back to Augusta, but -- or some occasion I might go back in 2005 and play St. Andrews if they go back there for the British Open that kind of a thing. But it is not going to be a regular thing for me. If I feel like I can play halfway decent and feel like I can be presentable, then I will go play Augusta, sure.

JACK NICKLAUS: It taught me I better go putt again. I played the Pro-Am shot 66 with 20 putts. I said -- didn't hit the ball very well. Then I started hitting it a little bit better next day, hit 10 greens instead of 9. Had 24 putts and shot 66. And then I hit 12 greens the next day, played a little better, had 30 putts, shot 71. Last day I hit the ball pretty well, hit 14 greens and drove the ball decently and hit 36 putts. I found out that you need to putt. And I just -- really, I have been putting really well, I just didn't putt well the last round at all. One of those rounds you miss a couple of 3-footers then all of a sudden everything else becomes a struggle. I am sure all of you had those kind of rounds.

JACK NICKLAUS: Fiddled around with -- I used Nike for awhile. I am using Precept now this week, and --.

JACK NICKLAUS: Regular. I use the same one Appleby and Price are playing. Larry Nelson plays the ball, Tour premium, and I fiddled around with Titleist a little bit, and right now I am playing that.

JACK NICKLAUS: Precept now.

JACK NICKLAUS: Yeah.

JACK NICKLAUS: I went out and tested with 5 golf balls, tested a Lady Precept, the Titleist, the Nike, the regular Precept, Callaway. I fiddled with Callaway too. And whenever -- on every occasion the Lady Precept was the shortest except for two and it was the longest. Now I didn't understand that. But I hit two holes, all of a sudden it went by everything and every other tee shot I hit was shortest. Which obviously it's not -- it is a Laddy Precept now; isn't it? That is the new name I am getting on it. But it probably what it is. It is an inexpensive ball probably; a ball that will explode occasionally, but sometimes it won't. That is the way I would read it.

JACK NICKLAUS: I think all the Nike, the Precept and the new Titleist the Pro V1 are all basically the same thing, all basically 3-piece golf balls. They have learned how to make a 3-piece golf ball. They make golf balls that are superior I think.

JACK NICKLAUS: In the 3 of them?

JACK NICKLAUS: Titleist is probably a little bit longer than the other two. I think the Precept and Nike are about the same. Obviously Bridgestone makes the Nike ball so they are pretty much the same ball, very close to the same, little difference, but not much, play the same. The Titleist I found so far which I have not used it enough, I found that it explodes a little bit too much, a little bit like Callaway occasionally will explode. You will hit some inconsistent distances with it. That is like anything, you know, any time anybody makes a golf ball and they make a change they are going to get some inconsistencies and they have got to work those inconsistencies to come back. I think Titleist will work through that. They are too good a company and make too good a product not too. Same way with Callaway, they have worked too hard and spent too much money not to have the inconsistencies controlled?

JACK NICKLAUS: Oh, I don't know. I think that if you had the same greens before, I don't think -- I think bent would probably be too severe for them, but we adjusted -- let's see 6. 8 has been changed since then. 9 has been changed. 4 because of the bent, 14 has been changed because of that and 18 has been changed because of it. So I think the greens are better with the bent. I think the golf course is better, but I think they do too or they won't be with it. But it was good golf course the other way. I don't know.

JACK NICKLAUS: No, not really. You had more variety of change with weather with the bent. The bent will -- the greens will get harder with the bent, but get very soft and spin a lot with the bent when it rains. The Bermuda greens always were fairly firm no matter what, but never get quite as firm as the bent have gotten when it gets high and dry.

JACK NICKLAUS: I am sure there was pressure but I felt fairly confident going over there and playing. I hurt my neck the Sunday before the tournament and I really wasn't right 'til mid-week and then I was sort of kicking myself all week for not being able to get it right and then I started playing -- I played pretty well on Saturday and Sunday.

JACK NICKLAUS: Of course, that's part of the deal. I always liked that. I was only one that could win.

JACK NICKLAUS: I suppose, yeah. I never forget the people at Oakland Hills talked to me after I ended up losing, he says, we had a plan to put in 12-foot fences, we were going to put around the whole golf course if you had won that tournament so even back then they still looking at the hype of what that would have meant.

JACK NICKLAUS: I suppose it is a new year, but, you know, to win all 4 of them at the same time would be something pretty special -- I am sure that -- I am betting that part of his problem that he is having right now is he is working to find out what he wants to do for Augusta already. And if you can call it a problem that he is having, he shoots 67 or 8 everyday at every place.

JACK NICKLAUS: Start of the year. Yeah, I started to work on my golf game. I would prepare my schedule for what the competition I wanted and rest and time to work and the courses I picked largely because of Augusta for the start of year. Sometimes I played -- I didn't play as much in Florida as I might have liked to have played in Florida. Sometimes I did, but sometimes I didn't because I wanted -- when you get to Florida you are going to knock the ball down more and play it into the wind. Augusta you want to throw it up. I sort of wanted to work on courses that I had to throw the ball up a little bit more. I still played here but I didn't play as much at some of the other courses. I usually avoided going in the northern Florida because that was usually cold and very windy and usually got my game screwed up. That was one of the reasons I never went to Greensboro, always had bad weather at Greensboro, always cold and windy felt like it was not what I wanted to be at to prepare. The West Coast I think it was a matter of getting my golf game back into shape before I got to Florida then working towards Augusta from there. That is what I always tried to do.

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, I would be pretty much a left-to-right player. When I get to Augusta I wanted to be able to hit the ball right-to-left if I needed to and wanted to. That has always been a problem for me to be able to do that. And I think that -- I think it is important that there is a few shots there that you need to do that on. Although when I set the record in 1965, I bet I didn't hit 10 or five shots maybe the whole tournament purposely right-to-left.

JACK NICKLAUS: I don't think I am the guy to determine that. Don't ask me that question. I mean, it is a Grand Slam. You know, Grand Slam is winning all four of them in one year. What is your year, calendar or fiscal? I suppose. I don't know. It would be pretty special whatever it is. Sure.

JACK NICKLAUS: That is what I thought about every year, that was my whole goal. My whole goal was you know --- I hurt myself several times if I didn't win Augusta my year was shot. I just didn't even want to play the rest of the year. I finally started kicking myself in the rearend I said, that is sort of stupid. I went through the early '70s when I was -- felt like when I went to Augusta I should win the tournament. If I didn't walk out a winner, then I said, you know, actually probably that was probably late 60s because I won in 1965, 1963, 1966; then next couple of years didn't win. I just -- I didn't play very well the rest of the year. I think I was probably -- when I found what -- I was I geared so high for Augusta that when I didn't win it was such a disappointment that I just you know, didn't want to play. And I played like it too. Stopped working and so forth and so on.

JACK NICKLAUS: That never happened in my day. I came off of -- I came just behind -- I just came just behind the-finish-the-round to a scotch and soda, you know, that was the generation ahead of me. I think they all finished with that. That is the first place they headed, all congregated;

they never dreamed going to the practice tee after they played. Then we started practicing after we played. They didn't give us time for the scotch and soda. I haven't had a scotch and soda in 30 years either. But then I think that you start -- I started working out probably around 40 when I felt like I needed, maybe late 30s started working more with my legs and so forth, and then I have done more working out in the last five years that I have ever done in my life, last ten years, I suppose. But it is just all of a sudden your life changes. I see these kids down here they are all in good shape. I just look at my son Gary, he got sick of himself in the last year and he dropped 20 pounds and, you know, he is trying to work his body fat to where he wants to get it. I haven't even heard of body fat. All I have heard of was fat. (Laughter).

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, I still got some. I will always have that, I suppose. But I never heard of any of that stuff. But these kids today are pretty conscious of what they are doing. But the information is there to do it. No different than -- when we did a golf ball 30 years ago or 35 years ago, I mean every dimple pattern was the same. Every manufacturer made it the same way. Some guys were good and some weren't. Some years they ended up with balls that didn't work. I mean, you know, now all of a sudden -- they have got technology for everything. They got technology. The information is there. The information is there for them to learn how to work and get them in shape. Look at baseball players for crying outloud. You look at them today, I mean they are all mooses, they are big guys. I don't know what they are taking, but they are doing something different than they used to.

JACK NICKLAUS: Yeah, baseball was one sport where a guy was 5 foot 7, 150 pounds could make it because he was quick and agile and could play; wasn't a home run hitter but that is how he played. Today they are huge. And golfers on the Tour, used to be, oh, heck, if you are over 5, 10 you can't play this game. 90% of the guys out on that Tour, right now are 6'2", 6'3", pretty big guys. Tiger is a little guy. He has got a lot up above, gotten himself pretty big but he is not a big guy in comparison so some of the guys out here. I suppose that's happened in all sports.

JACK NICKLAUS: They didn't point it out 30 years ago; didn't want to. They pointed it out to me recently that 30 years ago I played that ball that I shouldn't have won very much with. (Laughs).

JACK NICKLAUS: USGA told me, Frank Thomas told me he said, Jack, you know, we are doing random testing of golf balls. Back then your golf ball, he said, we'd go out and we think it on the Iron Byron, one would go out 20 yards left and next one 20 yards right on its own. And he says if you had you a decent golf ball no telling how many majors you would have won. I didn't necessarily agree with him because I felt like my golf ball -- I thought my golf ball for me was just fine because I tested other golf balls at that time. What we did at MacGregor, when Titleist went off of their K2A, whatever it was, the ball that they had the old standard golf ball, we bought all those mold at MacGregor because they started using a different mold. We bought those and so we were making essentially the same golf ball that Titleist made for a long time. Maybe our quality wasn't as good as theirs but certainly -- I am sure that what I got and what the public got was a different golf ball. We didn't sell much to the public, didn'tmake much difference anyway - we sold 3 dozen a year to them and I used the rest of them. You never bought any, did you?

JACK NICKLAUS: Whatever ones you bought you still have. You knew they wouldn't go anyplace.

JACK NICKLAUS: Yeah, we sold those in Firestone stores. I think they were 3 for 39 cents or something.

JACK NICKLAUS: I can't even remember back then.

JACK NICKLAUS: I started winning -- last time I won on the regular Tour was Masters when I was 46. Prior to that I won Muirfield, The Memorial tournament in 1984; won Colonial in 1982. Then of course I won several times in '80, but once I turned 40 I won, outside (inaudible) I only won three more times on the Tour. I think that part of it was -- that is when I started cutting down my schedule. There wasn't a SENIOR TOUR in that time. Or if it has, it was just getting started. I was really looking to wind down my career. I think that a lot of times in your 40s that is sort of what you are looking at. If you start winding down your career obviously you don't work as hard and do the things that are necessary to win. I am not saying that -- I am not putting any names on anybody because I know some guys in their 40s that are still playing very well. The mental approach to it is you have done it so long, you going to get tired of it. But now with the SENIOR TOUR coming on and there is a lot of guys that are in their 40s that really are working to get themselves to age 50. I have no idea -- as you mentioned Curtis and Greg, I have no idea what their thought pattern is.

JACK NICKLAUS: I never did it. I couldn't go back to playing 30 years on the SENIOR TOUR.

JACK NICKLAUS: I never minded working hard. As a matter of face, I enjoy it. I don't work as much with a purpose as I used to work or I think I have stopped working with a purpose. Or sometimes I get out and forget what I am working on. (Laughs).

JACK NICKLAUS: Yeah, I don't think that -- I think -- you look at Greg Norman. He is in as good a shape as any kid out there. He works harder than anybody and he is in great shape. But I don't know whether -- what Greg's -- I still believe Greg has all the ability in the world to win whatever he wants to win at his age. I don't think there is any -- I don't think he has any limitation on what his ability is to play.

JACK NICKLAUS: Yeah, and I don't really know what Greg is thinking about. That is none of my business. But physically I know how hard he works. And I know that he practices a lot and but you know, whether his desire is there that -- he'd have to answer that question. I couldn't answer that.

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, I don't have an advantage anymore, but mentally from what I used to do.

JACK NICKLAUS: Not really. The way I look at Augusta and I think Augusta always been a long hitter's golf course. There has been guys that haven't hit the ball extremely long but have won there, Jackie Burke or Sarazen; I am sure-half dozen other guys but they stand out. Player has done very well at Augusta without being a long hitter.

JACK NICKLAUS: Faldo is long enough. But I have always felt that Augusta is one golf course where it's always given a great advantage to a big hitter, so I mean a player like Tiger has a much greater advantage at Augusta than he does at any of the other majors. And that the changes they have made on the golf course I don't think really make -- I mean if he hits it in the rough, all of a sudden I am back there hitting an iron out of that rough and he is hitting wedge out of that rough. The ball is sitting up anyway, he is going to stop a wedge no matter what he does. So he has got even greater advantage, I think probably.

JACK NICKLAUS: Yes.

JACK NICKLAUS: You answered your own question. Because I had 5, that is why it is easier. Sure. Any time you win the first time of anything it is more difficult. Particularly as many times as he finished second it is more difficult. Sure it is. But I mean, but that is part of life. Winning breeds winning, and you know, if you are out there you are used to winning that golf course, you think you should win on and use today win on, you are -- it makes it easier for you.

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