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CIALIS WESTERN OPEN

July 6, 2006

David McKenzie

LEMONT, ILLINOIS

JOHN BUSH: We'd like to welcome David McKenzie into the interview room, 5 under par 66 and one of our leaders. Thanks for coming by.

DAVID McKENZIE: No problem.

JOHN BUSH: Obviously a good day for you. Just get you to comment on the round if you can.

DAVID McKENZIE: It's probably the lowest score I've had this year. I think I've only had one score lower around a golf course that wasn't as hard as this, so this is probably the best round of the year I've had.

JOHN BUSH: You finished Top 10 last week which got you into the field this week, so obviously you're playing pretty well right now.

DAVID McKENZIE: Yeah. Well, not as well as I'd like, but I'm at least giving myself some chances now. To quote a friend, for most of the year I've been playing out of the gin (phon.) weeds because the rough is really long out there, and I've been pretty fortunate that the last couple weeks I've hit it in the fairway.

Q. Having a late start didn't seem to be a problem.

DAVID McKENZIE: Mate, I've had a late start all year (laughter). I'm 38 and I've had a late start on the PGA TOUR.

Q. How then did it happen last week and then going into this? Did you see it coming?

DAVID McKENZIE: Yeah. I had my coach over, I played the Nationwide event the same week as Westchester, and we were just about to go out on the golf course and I was tossing up whether to use a belly putter or a short putter because I was complaining about hooking all my putts, and my coach saw something in my putting stroke and we changed it, and the first hole out there I holed about a 30 footer, and I've made a few of them since. It would have been the LaSalle Bank Open here maybe a month ago, I guess.

Q. At the LaSalle Bank Open?

DAVID McKENZIE: Yeah.

Q. What's his name?

DAVID McKENZIE: My coach's name is Dale Lynch. He teaches a guy you might have heard of, as well, Geoff Ogilvy.

Q. He's had some success lately.

DAVID McKENZIE: Yeah, he's had a little success.

Q. Which putter did you go to?

DAVID McKENZIE: I stayed with the belly putter. I didn't change.

JOHN BUSH: We'll get you to take us through real quick and we'll see if there's any more questions, starting with the bogey on No. 10.

DAVID McKENZIE: I hit it in the rough on the left there and hit a super shot onto the green. It was probably about 60 feet away, and three putted it, left it short.

The greens are actually pretty slow out there today.

Birdie on 13, I holed a putt from just outside 30 feet.

Eagle on 15, probably my best two shots of the day. The eagle putt there was maybe seven or eight feet, I guess. I hit a 4 iron.

Birdie on 17, something just outside 30 feet.

Bogey on 18, I hit an 8 iron and mis hit it a bit just short of the green and almost ran into the hazard and just chipped it up.

6, I holed one from down on the bottom of the tier, outside 30 feet.

7, I holed one from just off the front edge there maybe seven paces, just over 20 feet, 21 feet.

No. 8, I think about an 18 footer I holed there. I made some decent putts. I'm not complaining.

Q. How did do at the LaSalle Bank?

DAVID McKENZIE: I think I finished about 27th.

Q. But you got your putting stroke back?

DAVID McKENZIE: I got my putting stroke back, but still, I struggled. I couldn't get it on the golf course, and the rough there was as heavy as it is here. The last nine holes there, I think I shot 5 under the last nine and felt like I hit some nice shots again. Then went to the Booz Allen and had my coach there, Dale was there again. We were working on all sorts of golf swing stuff. I hit it all over the shop off the tee, but that was the only reason I missed the cut there maybe by one or two shots.

Q. Dale works with some other guys, too?

DAVID McKENZIE: Greg Chalmers, Matthew Goggin, Steve Allan was the guy that was there that week, James McLean, there's quite a few.

Q. What is your exempt status?

DAVID McKENZIE: My status comes from the Nationwide Tour.

Q. And did you have a problem were you pretty safely into the field last week or did you get in at the last minute?

DAVID McKENZIE: Last week I was very safely into the field, but this week I was two out coming in on Friday or even Saturday and Sunday. I was hoping that I'd finish in the Top 10, but I hadn't thought about it too much.

Q. How difficult is that week to week?

DAVID McKENZIE: That's been the hardest thing. The last couple years I've played the Nationwide and been exempt or had good status and you pretty much can plan a schedule and know where you're going to be. I've been thinking now what weeks do I take off, do I take BC off or take a week off, but I'm not sure if I'll get into the PGA or I'm not sure if I'll get into The International. You basically play as many weeks as you can and get your money up and then you can take all the weeks off you want.

Q. You said you were a late starter. Can you talk about your background in golf, what age you started playing, when did you become a competitive kind of player?

DAVID McKENZIE: I didn't start playing well, my grandfather played golf, but I didn't really pick up a golf club and play seriously until I was almost 17. Then I decided that that was much better than going to school, and so I got a job at the bank. I worked 12 months at the bank and they weren't I wasn't a bank manager inside of 12 months, so I left there and decided I'd turn pro.

So I did three years as an assistant pro in Australia, so I'm a member of the Australian PGA, full member, and since I finished my apprenticeship, which was the end of '89, I've been basically playing full time and graduating Tours around the world and slowly climbing up and climbing up.

Q. What was your job at the bank?

DAVID McKENZIE: At the start I was a batch clerk it was called, then I ended up being a teller.

Q. What does a batch clerk do?

DAVID McKENZIE: All the checks that used to come in this is going back a long way now. All the checks that used to come in, I had to encode all the magnetic code down the bottom of the checks. That was what my job was, typing in all those numbers and all the checks and credits.

Q. You thought golf was more fun than that?

DAVID McKENZIE: (Laughing) that's what made it so surprising.

Q. How did you get from age 17 starting golf to being when did you start working with Dale, I guess?

DAVID McKENZIE: I got through my apprenticeship and was doing okay and then the gentleman that I worked for in Australia, Wayne Rogers, had said you need to go and get some lessons to improve your game, so that was with Dale in 1990, I started seeing Dale. It's come a long way. I'm very good friends with him and am godparents to two of his children. We've worked very hard.

Q. What club was that in Australia?

DAVID McKENZIE: Werribee Public Golf Course.

Q. Was that a plum job?

DAVID McKENZIE: That wasn't plum. There were no plums there at all. Well, and at that age I was maybe 18 or 19 and you're always going out drinking and that sort of thing, and I'd quite often arrive on a Saturday morning and only got home at 2:00 or 3:00 and would start work at 6:00, so all sorts of fun at that point.

Q. What did your duties there entail as an assistant?

DAVID McKENZIE: Basically just collecting greens fees and taking money off guys and trying to sell golf clubs and repairing golf clubs. At that time you still had to repair wooden golf clubs. I think they had only just really come about at that time.

Q. So you weren't giving lessons at that point?

DAVID McKENZIE: I gave lessons the whole of 1990. I pretty much had finished my apprenticeship, and I played Pro Ams all around the state and the country, and I'd teach as much as I could. I taught in schools, so for pretty much the first 12 months of 1990, and then the end of that, the start of '91, was when I stopped pretty much for any amount of time, and I played after that.

Q. What tours have you played on?

DAVID McKENZIE: I've played the Australian Tour, played the Pro Am Tour in Australia. That takes you all around the place. I was a member of the Challenge Tour, played the Canadian Tour, played the Australian Tour up in Asia, so I've played up in Asia. Then the buy.com, the Nationwide, and then finally here.

Q. You said you took some money off some guys. Did you hustle a little bit or play money games?

DAVID McKENZIE: No, that was just collecting greens fees. It was just collecting greens fees. If I was good enough at that point, I might have been able to scam them, but that's in Australia. It's hard to scam some of those boys.

Q. Did you have any problem raising the money to support yourself to play on the tours around the world?

DAVID McKENZIE: I've constantly, apart from the last two years, constantly been down to having money on the credit card and not having a way to pay it. I've had a lot of people that have helped me along the way but not necessarily financially. I've had friends that have lent me a car to drive around over in Canada and the States, but realistically I haven't had any sponsors of any real kind, apart from my endorsements with Cleveland and that sort of thing the last few years.

But other than that, it's all been I remember a couple times I've had credit card bills of $5,000 and $10,000 and then had to get to the next tournament hoping I'd win the money to pay the credit card bill. But that's a few years behind me now I hope.

Q. Would you call this rags to hopeful riches?

DAVID McKENZIE: Well, yeah, but it's been a 15 year trip from rags to riches, I guess. It's just been a slow process of just improving, learning to compete at one level, then learning to compete at the next level, so now I'm learning to compete on the PGA TOUR.

Q. Was there ever a time or maybe there were several times where you thought being a bank teller might not be so bad?

DAVID McKENZIE: Yeah, only recently. Only two years ago I was sort of considering to be able to teach in different places in Australia and Canada, and I thought, you know what, a regular income isn't too bad when you're spending your own money. I haven't had a house to live. I only bought a place that I could live in with my wife last year, so I had to go home and stay with my friends in Australia or with my parents or whoever was there and stay with friends and people over here when I wasn't in hotels and that sort of thing. I haven't had a home I bought my house last November. We moved into it in March, and I was there four days. I'm looking forward to getting home, too.

Q. Was it a pretty good house? Do you remember it at all?

DAVID McKENZIE: The one that I just bought (laughter)? I've got pictures of it.

Q. How good was your wife about this all the way?

DAVID McKENZIE: She's been fantastic. She's traveled with me since about '98. I met her in Canada, so we've traveled together pretty much since about then. She doesn't necessarily like the lifestyle of traveling and that sort of thing, but she'll put up with it to be with me, which surprises me every day.

Q. Is this year your best year?

DAVID McKENZIE: Not yet.

Q. On the way, though, sort of?

DAVID McKENZIE: Probably the last couple of years on the Nationwide Tour, each year I had five or six Top 5s, and I just missed my card in 2004. I was in the top 20 and then dropped out of it the last event of the year.

Then missed Q school by a shot, then went back, flew back to Australia on the Monday night and played the Australian Masters and lost that in a playoff. I've had plenty of success, but I just haven't had the success at this level.

You know, the game changes but it's still the same thing. If you can shoot 5 under and 5 under and 5 under, you're a chance to win no matter what Tour you play or where you play. You're just playing against better players.

Q. What's been your single most satisfying moment in golf at any level?

DAVID McKENZIE: Probably winning the Gila River Golf Tournament last year, which sealed my card. It was probably the first time I had sort of always thought I was good enough to play the PGA TOUR for a long time but had missed opportunities along the way, and at that point I still wasn't wrapped up to having my card. It was probably the first time that I realized that all of a sudden I am going to get my dream will come true, to be able to play the PGA TOUR. That was my most satisfying moment. For a long time I thought I was good enough to do it, but at 37 or 38 at the time, I thought that I was running out of time.

JOHN BUSH: David, thank you. Keep it going this week.

End of FastScripts.

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