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PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

August 12, 2005

Jerry Kelly

SPRINGFIELD, NEW JERSEY

JULIUS MASON: Jerry Kelly, folks, after the second round at 5 under.

Jerry, if you wouldn't mind, let's go through your birdies and we'll go to Q&A.

JERRY KELLY: I started on 10. So 15th hole, that was just a good drive right down the middle and tried to skip a wedge back there to the pin from about 135 and put it about ten feet or so and knocked in a good putt there.

18 was a driver, 4 iron. I missed the first cut in the rough on the left hand side of the green by about a foot. I had a tough up and down out of the rough and knocked my chip to about five feet and made a good left to right putt there.

No. 1 was a drive in the left first cut, and hit a cut 6 iron in the wind and rolled right behind the hole about eight feet and made that one coming down the hill.

Then 6 that was a good hole today. I hit driver, 6 iron and I was off the sidehill/downhill so that kind of helped my ball turn left to right and got behind the hole and made about a 20 foot downhill trickle there.

No. 9, I knocked 4 iron about an inch and tapped in no, I knocked my 4 iron in the right bunker. It was a perfect lie, perfect shot, just had to execute.

JULIUS MASON: Thank you. Questions.

Q. Playing tomorrow with Phil after the kind of round that he had and the following that he has, how much do you relish a chance like that?

JERRY KELLY: Yeah, that's exactly what I love, just to be in that theatre is going to be fun. There's going to be so many people out there, they are going to be screaming. I went to University of Hartford, they know I've got a lot of northeast in me. I'll probably hear a lot of them cheering for me, too.

Q. 28 holes without a bogey, did you think when you saw the course setup, everyone is talking about you're going to make some bogeys and birdies out here but you've been really consistent, how do you explain that?

JERRY KELLY: Yeah, I've just been hitting the ball in the fairway, No. 1. You know, I've made two great layup pars on 3 today, on 6 yesterday. I had to wedge it out today and knocked in a lob wedge to about 15 feet and made a great par today.

Yesterday, I tried to hit 8 iron out of the rough. Hit it about 60 yards, still in the rough and had another 8 iron into the green and knocked it about six feet and made par yesterday.

So those are just some of the things that, you know, I haven't been getting done that I'm doing this week. I've been playing pretty consistent around the greens, it's such a long course for me, I've got such long irons in my hand, I can't fire at a ton of pins. So it takes pressure off my game, hitting to the middle of the greens, leaving myself 20, 30 footers and I'm putting well enough to make some of those.

Q. Do you feel more at ease this week than you may have in some previous major championships, in other words, you come in with maybe a little different attitude?

JERRY KELLY: You mean like

Q. Not beating yourself up?

JERRY KELLY: Not feeling like I have a chance to win this week? (Laughing).

You know, I just love the way I came out of the British Open feeling good about golf. Forget about my golf game and what I've done this year. I felt great to be playing the game of golf for a living. You know, just try to not beat myself up, try to stick to my game plan. And I missed plenty of shots the last couple of days, but I've accepted them. That's something I haven't done as much, and I've done it the last two tournaments I've played since the British. I really hope the mindset continues. I don't know why not. But, you know, it was a lot of pressure off me. I'm at the PGA, not supposed to do that well here, or at least that's what the paper says. (Laughter).

I'm just going out and playing, and I'm setting the game plan a little bit more in the past probably and I'm sticking to it so where I've always been too aggressive to stick to a game plan. But you get a course like this where it's really long for a guy like me. Phil, he can shoot at a lot of pins, but there's not that many times out there where I have less than 7 iron in.

Q. How far would you say that shot was on the last hole? Was that one of those cases you were talking about not letting maybe a so so shot bother you and just get down to business?

JERRY KELLY: Well, I did everything I wanted to do on that hole. The club stuck behind me just a hair, which is what it does when I miss my shot. The thing I did I swung where I wanted to. I had the line that I wanted to. I hit the shot, I miss it by a fraction and hit just on the edge and kicked to the right into the bunker.

You know, somebody was saying this week, it was Dr. Bob Rotella, when asked Jack if he's ever missed a 3 footer to lose a tournament." I've never missed a 3 footer to lose a tournament."

Well, yeah, you have, I'll show you the tape.

"No, I've never missed a 3 footer to lose a tournament."

As long as you've done everything you possibly can in your own head to execute the shot, sometimes it doesn't work out, but, in my mind, I made a good shot, good swing, so I could accept. I'm just trying not to make the mental errors, get in my own way. Those are the ones that tend to bother me a little bit more. But right now I'm accepting those things.

Q. How long would you say the shot was?

JERRY KELLY: Just 20 feet.

Q. Whenever guys are paired with Tiger on the lead, there's always a question of, for lack of a better term, the intimidation factor. Does the same sort of thing happen when it's Phil you're paired with?

JERRY KELLY: No. I haven't been paired with Tiger a whole lot either. I'm not too worried about that. It's just me playing my game.

What I don't want to do is try to chase long drives and things like that, but I'm a mature enough player that I stopped doing that a long time ago. That's the only thing that could happen to me. I've got no problem with that.

Q. If I may follow up, Tiger just made the cut

JERRY KELLY: He just made birdie on the last hole?

Q. Can you envision him still winning?

JERRY KELLY: Sure. Why not? I mean, he's probably the only one in the field who could shoot two rounds of 7 under, you know, and be in double digits.

You know, hey, things would have to align, but they have aligned for him in the past. (Laughter).

Q. Can you elaborate on what you experienced over at the British Open?

JERRY KELLY: If anybody is familiar with me knows that I'm brutally hard on myself. Brutally honest and brutally hard on myself. You know, there just comes a time when you've got to cut yourself a little slack and kind of enjoy what you're doing. I played two poor rounds at the British Open on a course that's just tailor made for me. I could have been extremely disappointed for missing another cut in a major, but as I finished and I was headed to the locker, Jack was coming over the bridge. And I stopped in my tracks and I sat behind the 18th and I just watched all of it unfold. You know, to see a true gentleman like that and what he's done for the game, it did move me quite a bit. Those are the types of feelings that I want to take with me. I don't want to take I don't want to be a miserable, old, crusty man. I want to know that I had a good career out here.

Yes, maybe I wasn't No. 1 in the world like I want to be. Maybe I still can be. But those are the types of things that are driving me, extreme professionalism. I've got to cut myself some slack. I'm 38, I'm a pretty good player, but I'm not going to be a great player if I beat myself up all the time.

Q. Could you talk a little bit about being in contention at the halfway point? I recall last year PLAYERS Championship I think you were tied for the lead with Adam Scott going into the weekend, just other experience that you have being in the position of a final group going into Saturday?

JERRY KELLY: That might have been the last time I was in the lead of something. You know, all of the cliches are there. I really could care less what's going on with that. I'm not in the lead, I'm close to the lead. Execution of the game plan, execution of what you're trying to do with your swing, keeping your mind calm. Those are all things that get tougher to do, but those are still the things that you have to do. So it's not rocket science, but it's very some of the simplest things in this game are the toughest things to do. I'm going to try to make it extremely simple and see how well I can stick to it.

JULIUS MASON: Terrific round today, Jerry. Thanks for coming down.

End of FastScripts.

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