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SENIOR BRITISH OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 26, 2006

Jay Haas

TURNBERRY, SCOTLAND

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Thanks for joining us this afternoon.

JAY HAAS: My pleasure.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Your first appearance in the Senior British Open Championship. First half of the year you won three times and you're the leading player thus far on the United States Champions Tour. Just a couple thoughts about coming back to Turnberry and your experiences here in the past.

JAY HAAS: Well, unfortunately I only played one casual round of golf here about three years ago. I did not play in any of the Opens here. But I came over to watch Bill play in the Walker Cup three years ago. And my other son, Jay and my younger brother, Jerry and a friend came over and we played half a dozen courses over here and this was our first one. And ever since we did that, I've been looking forward to coming back and was real excited about the tournament being here this year.

It didn't disappoint. I've loved so far here, I've been here since Monday and really looking forward to the tournament starting. I feel pretty blessed that we're able to play a course like this for this championship.

Q. What was the weather like when you were here before?

JAY HAAS: It was pretty good. Not as warm as it is here now. But I guess it was closer to September maybe, so it was starting to get a little bit cooler. But it still did not blow very much, maybe ten or 12 miles an hour. It was a pretty pleasant day, so I had not seen it yet in terrible weather. It doesn't need to blow a whole lot here, especially as firm as it is here, the ball tends to get away from you a little bit.

And the course is in very, very good shape, not a lot of just because I think it's been so dry. But you've got to hit good shots. It rewards good shots. So I think that's what I like about it so much. It accepts balls into the greens. They seem to kind of have some little humps on the sides, you know, that kind of funnel in. If you hit a good shot, it's going to turn out a good shot. You're not going to be surprised here I don't think.

Q. With any other experience you've had, are you able to assess the course?

JAY HAAS: Well, it's one of my favourites, ever. I think this one and I really enjoyed Birkdale when I played there, of the Open rotation. And obviously St. Andrews and just the history and everything. But as golf courses go, I think it one and Birkdale are my favourites.

Q. Where would you rank it?

JAY HAAS: Well, I would put it in my Top 10. I haven't all that many and I haven't played all around the world like a lot of people have, but I have Winged Foot and Pebble Beach, Harbour Town, Oakland Hills, places like that in my Top 10 so I would put this in there. There's just holes out here to me that just look like they have been golf holes for a thousand years; they were supposed to be a golf area. Where that fifth hole is, that looks like that was supposed to be a golf hole there.

Q. Are you going to play more on the PGA TOUR the rest of this year?

JAY HAAS: I've only played six events this year and I haven't played I played in the U.S. Open. I qualified for that. I am going to play the US PGA in August, and that will be my last PGA event this year and maybe forever, I don't know.

But I'm going to play a good many of the Champions Tour events toward the end of the year. But I think my PGA TOUR career is just about over.

Q. Didn't you have some good finishes early in the year on the PGA TOUR?

JAY HAAS: You know, I played okay there. Early in the year I didn't do very well on either tour. But starting in April, I guess, I played some pretty good tournaments and played okay at Muirfield Village and then at the U.S. Open I finished 37th or something like that. So not great, but there were a lot of guys that week so it wasn't a bad week. I played pretty well since then.

Last year I had some decent tournaments on the PGA TOUR. This year, no Top 10s or anything like that.

Q. Is it because the courses are longer now?

JAY HAAS: I think part of it, yes. I think I'm about 30th on the driving distance ranking on the Champions Tour, and I'm about 189th on the PGA TOUR. So the longest hitter on the Senior Tour is about 15 yards longer than me and the longest hitter on the PGA TOUR is about 50. Eventually that's going to wear me down, and I still think I can compete to a certain level, but why? (Laughing).

Q. Aren't you in next year's PGA Championship?

JAY HAAS: No. This year. It's the next PGA. I was in this year already by the Ryder Cup, the Ryder Cup Team last time. Then winning the PGA Seniors got me in, also. And that's fun. If I can be in a major tournament, I'm going to play in it. I don't know if I'll try to qualify for, say, the U.S. Open again next year. I did this year. I don't know. I've done that and it's maybe time to turn the page.

Q. Are you going to try and qualify for the British Open?

JAY HAAS: You know, the way our schedule has been on the Champions Tour, it's been tough to qualify or attempt to qualify to come here. I know we have a qualifier in the States now. This year it got rained out. I didn't try I was not entered in it but I think that's a big part of it, how it conflicts with our schedule on the Senior Tour.

But these courses, I think that if there are courses we can play in the condition that this was in last week at Liverpool, which by the way played in '75 in the British Amateur right after the Walker Cup. I don't remember a great deal about it other than the cops, I remember that, and how I could somehow there was no way to keep it off of those hills, I don't think. The wind was blowing right towards you when I played it. But that was the type of course that a lot of people could compete on because it was so fast and the distance was not huge there.

Q. Tiger didn't use his driver

JAY HAAS: One driver, they said, but he hit a lot of great mid to long iron shots into greens which won the tournament for him. Obviously putting it in play was helpful but his long iron game was outstanding.

Q. This week, seven out of the top 10 on the Champions Tour made the trip over and 21 of the top 30 came over. Do you think that's a trend that will continue in the future at this championship?

JAY HAAS: I think that's a trend. I think that's going to continue. I think that you saw it in The Open Championship. You used to see that in, say, the 70s where not everybody would come and I think now out of the Top 50 you get probably almost everyone if not out of the top 100. But I think you'll see that trend continuing, and you might see ten out of ten and nine out of ten next year and continuing on. I think with Muirfield next year, and I don't know if they have gone beyond that, but to come over and play Turnberry, great championship, is pretty special. I think that's going to bring the guys in the future.

Q. How many times have you played Turnberry?

JAY HAAS: Four. I played Monday, I just walked out there, hit some drives can chipped around a little bit. And I played the last two days and I played the one a few years ago. So I won't say I know the golf course that well, but I do know where you're not supposed to go. And I've been there already.

Q. Do you have a game plan for this week?

JAY HAAS: You know, I'm driving the ball quite often I suppose I'm driving all the time, I think there's not a lot of trouble there other than avoiding those bunkers. 2 is not a driver shot, it's so tight up there. 4, 5, yes and no, you really need to avoid there. But generally speaking it gives you some room to drive. And so, yeah, that's not special. So I can get up there a little bit closer to the green, I'm going to take a crack at it.

I played with Tom Watson today and he hit No. 14 back down the hill. He hit 3 wood off the tee and he was in pretty good shape. I hit driver and it was fine. I think that more often than not, you're going to see guys hitting drivers, not many laying up.

Q. How is this course playing distance wise?

JAY HAAS: Distance wise, well, 16 is playing it was kind of right to left today and we hit driver there and pitching wedges.

Q. On the commentary last week they said the fairways are pretty tight.

JAY HAAS: It is very tight. There are a few areas where you can take a different but most of the time, it was very brown last week. There's a little green tint to them here but they are firm. The ball is bouncing. But the greens, they don't make a pitchmark very big. But they take one big bounce and they will stop, you know, with a well struck shot. It's not like they are just running on through the greens and they are not they are probably in the as quick right now as the Open was. But they are still in great shape, very consistent.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Thank you very much and good luck.

JAY HAAS: Thanks for having me.

End of FastScripts.

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