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DEUTSCHE BANK CHAMPIONSHIPSeptember 1, 2006Bob MayNORTON, MASSACHUSETTS JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Bob May, thank you for joining us. Right now you're tied for the lead after a first round 4 under par 67. Some opening comments? BOB MAY: The golf course is playing pretty tough. It's a longer golf course and we have don't have a lot of short irons into and more mid irons and long irons into the greens. With the wind starting to pick up, the golf course has some defense. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: If you could real quick go through your birdies, five birdies and just one bogey. You started on the back side. BOB MAY: No. 11, just hit it just a little right of the green. Hit a decent chip. Hit a good putt, hit it on the line I wanted on but I read it wrong. That was a bogey. The next hole I hit a good drive, hit a 5 iron in there probably two or three feet, probably three feet or so and made that. Then I birdied 16, and birdied 17, I had a wedge in there probably 20 feet. 1, I hit a utility club, it's a new Ping Rapture utility club off the tee. Hit a sand wedge in there, I would say about three feet and made that. Then I laid up short on the par 5. I hit sand wedge in there about, I'd say probably 15 feet and made that for birdie. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Maybe just a couple comments about your health, you've battled some health problems over the last few years. BOB MAY: Yeah, in 2003 I got injured and I didn't play until 2006 this year. I just started playing golf this year. I went almost 2 1/2 years without touching a golf club. I had back surgery and it's done well for me right now. The back feels pretty good. In the morning it takes me a little bit more to get loosened up, but I'm able to swing the club and do what I love doing. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Do you feel like this is almost a second career for you? BOB MAY: It really is a second career for me because it's opened my eyes and showed me how fortunate I am to be playing this game. And there's so many people out there that love this game and can't play at the level that we do, and it made me appreciate it more. A bad shot, I'm not going to say it doesn't bug me, but it doesn't bug me as much anymore as it used to. When you're playing bad and you walk away from the game, it's easy to do. When you get hurt and it's taken away from you, is when it's hard. And, you know, that's what happened to me and it really opened my eyes and made me really realize how much I appreciate the game and how much I love the game. I strictly play the game because I loved it, and now that golfers can make a very good living. Back when I started playing, you made a decent living. But I played game because I love it and I realized that when I was injured. Hopefully this time I'm going to play it just because I love the game, and you know, hopefully I'll reap the benefits if I keep on playing good. Q. Could you describe what happened with the back, how you discovered it, how it affected you? BOB MAY: On the 18th hole at Byron Nelson, the final day, hit the tee ball on the 18th hole and that was it. I felt pain down my legs and I thought, okay, I just kind of rotated my pelvis or something and got up to the next shot, I could still walk fine. I got up to the next shot and I went to swing again, and thank God it was just like a little 9 iron or 8 iron or something into that last hole. I pulled it just off the edge of the green and made the putt. I was planning on taking the next week off, anyways. So I took the next week off and I was getting ready for the following week, which I forget what tournament it was, started hitting balls, I was like, feels kind of hurt. Took another week off. Tried to get ready for the following week and it still hurt. I said, well, this might be a little more serious, and before I know it, I took a month off and it still didn't feel any better. But my daily life didn't really change. I could do everything but I do anything with that rotation. I could jump up and down it was fine. If there was any rotational movement, I was done. I couldn't deal with any rotational movement. That's where it bothered me in my spine. Q. My second question, if PGA duel with Tiger had been your last hoorah, would you have been satisfied with your career, or were you desperate to get back out there? BOB MAY: Well, I'm desperate to get back out there because I love the game. And this is what I love to do. That's what makes me want to come back. Obviously I would like to be one of the best players in the world and all that, but I've got to work hard at and coming back off an injury I'm going to try to wash as hard as I can. I can't hit as many balls as I used to be able to hit but you know when I do hit balls I've got to pay attention and not just go through the motions. Q. Would you be satisfied with that? BOB MAY: Yes, that was a very good tournament for my career. It's tough to spot the best player in the world a shot starting the day. Am I satisfied with the way I played there and all that? Yeah, I was. But I hope there's still some more good golf to come in my career. Q. If this was asked before, I apologize, what is the status of your medical exemption? BOB MAY: Yeah, I am now a full member of the Tour again, and I pretty much play, pick and choose what I want to play the rest of the year. That extends through the end of this year, that's it. So I've got to play myself into the Top 125 and earn my card like everybody else. BOB MAY: I haven't even looked, probably somewhere around there. Q. For those 2 1/2 years what did you do? BOB MAY: Those 2 1/2 years, I drove my wife crazy. (Laughter) You know, the doctors said I needed bed rest, I could go from the bed to the shower back to the bed. I really drove her crazy. I couldn't roll over in bed. I had to wake her up to roll me over. It was pretty tough. The first six weeks were really tough. But the Dr. Gil Warner (ph) who did the surgery in Santa Monica did a great job and I'm just happy that I'm able to play golf again. BOB MAY: Yeah, I did a lot of TV. I woke up a lot of mornings watching informercials. We had a lot of weird stuff show at our doorstep, like little litty bitty cameras I bought. I thought, that's pretty neat, I have some friends that need these, I bought like six or seven of them, gave them to my friends. There's nothing to watch at two, three in the morning, you wake up in pain, you take pain medicine and just lay there in bed, and, oh, I'll turn TV on. Two, three, four, five in the morning, there's a lot of informercials. Q. When exactly was the surgery? BOB MAY: The surgery was, let's see, I got injured in '03 of Byron Nelson, so what was that, around May. And the surgery was in '04 right before a year of me being out. So we tried to rehab it, just it lasted four days and went out and hit balls and it went out again. So it was after a year of doing rehab, I thought I'd better go have surgery. Q. So the Nelson was when you first felt it? BOB MAY: Nelson of '03 is when I got injured, yes. What happened is I was born genetically with a small spinal nerve canal, so any inflammation of a disk or of the spine area, it protrudes into that area, and being that mine is so small by birth, it's twice as small as a normal man's, a thing like that will affect and give me pain. So what they did is they went out and they routed out my spine all nerve canal. Before I went into surgery it was only going to be bed rest, two to four weeks and then it ended up being bed rest for ten weeks. Q. What was the most disappointing or depressing part and what's been the most positive part? BOB MAY: The most disappointing and depressing part was knowing if I would ever play golf again. That was the hardest thing for me to deal with. Because I didn't know if I would ever play again. I never knew, you know, after not touching a club for 2 1/2 years, am I going to get back to the level that I was. And, you know, the most satisfying thing is at B.C. to actually get back in contention and to stay in contention throughout the whole day, I think that gave me a lot of confidence and hopefully, you know, will carry me on. Q. Your thoughts on Turning Stone? BOB MAY: Yeah, I liked Turning Stone. I thought it was a fun golf course. For the amount of time they had to get ready for the tournament, the golf course was great. If it didn't rain, gosh, I tell you what, it would have been like playing the British Open because it was so firm the first day and a half. I mean, if you're hitting your drives 330, 340, and I don't think, you know, a lot of people think if we hit our drives that far and that close to the green, it's going to play easier, but sometimes it's harder because balls will run through the fairways, it's hard to stop them on the greens. It would be fun to play some tournaments that are set up like that. Q. And obviously, three more days of this, back is holding up okay, any concerns? BOB MAY: The back is actually feeling pretty good. You know, I flew in here on, let's see, Monday night I guess, Tuesday, and usually it doesn't my back doesn't like flying at all. But I was able to get up, walk around on the airplane, and it hasn't bothered me too much. You know, it's kind of hard for me to. Usually I travel in a bus. I have my own bus that I usually travel in, so it's nice that I have the same bed every night. Now that we're kind of hopping back and forth, I'm traveling to hotels, so I've just got to hope I get a good bed when I get there. |
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