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U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 8, 2006

Ben Crenshaw

HUTCHINSON, KANSAS

BEN CRENSHAW: The second shot is just with those contours in the greens are just you know, you go short or long or to the sides too much, and you've really got either a really tough approach or really tough chip.

But, you know, the wind didn't blow much. It started out stronger and then it quit a little bit. But your hands are full any time you play it. So each hole asks for something different.

Q. Do you like the way it's been set up?

BEN CRENSHAW: It's got lots of rough. I mean the ryegrass rough is unbelievable. And it's just, you can't even look at it. It's very penal.

That is

Q. Talk about your first couple of holes there. I know 1 you didn't get off as well as you would like here, but you came back, you had a great hole, you played great on 4 and it kind of got you rolling from there.

BEN CRENSHAW: Yeah, a little bit better. Yeah, it was a bogey, bogey start, and I hit it close at 3. I had a tap in for birdie there, and so I got two back on 4 as well. A nice short putt there.

But any time you par number 5, you feel like you've achieved something too. So, you know, it just started going a little bit better and I started hitting the ball in play a little bit more, and the round just kind of built.

Q. Talk about that. We have talked to Bruce Lietzke, and he said this a lot, how many times he's had to change clubs. He said this is not a golf course that the because the wind is blowing so many different directions it's just not a golf course where you pull a club out on the tee box and start wailing away.

BEN CRENSHAW: No question. When you drive it in the fairway then your problems just start. You just really have to try to plant the ball, with the knowledge of the contours, of where they are, and try to leave yourself a putt.

Knowing the contours, though, it's almost over analyzing too at some points too. So if you have a stiff breeze out and you're trying to plan a shot, your hands are full.

Q. Was that last shot on 18 your best of the day?

BEN CRENSHAW: Yeah. Yeah. That was I got away with it. I hit a 3 iron off the tee and I toed it. Pretty lucky to have it where it was. Second shot was very good shot and I left it in a good spot and made it.

Q. Good luck from here.

BEN CRENSHAW: Thanks.

Q. (Inaudible.)

BEN CRENSHAW: You never have the configuration of the dunes like these. But I thought a lot. We have dunes, no question, but they're in sort of different they're a different style of dunes. We have plenty of undulation, but if you looked at them, you know, they're a little they look like cousins, but not quite like this.

But his philosophy is Bill Coore and I really believe in Perry Maxwell's philosophy, and that is to make a suitable piece of ground and work with it. I mean, no more you know, he always said that one of the greatest lines in that book that they gave us, he said this is the best canvas with which I had to paint, or something like that. It was a great quote. But that's he really did believe that. He never did all his courses mimic the land. He worked with the land. That's what we try to do.

Q. Jim Thorpe mentioned that you talked a lot at breakfast today about how the greens used to be here until they made the changes, about how this course actually was early on.

BEN CRENSHAW: There haven't been any changes on the greens, really. The first two greens we redid in 1986, but it's so minor. The contours themselves have been here. One nine was built in' 37, the other nine was in '57, so they're original. They're fascinating. Nobody would have the heart to touch these. They're magnificent.

Q. Would anybody build a golf course like this these days? I mean, even

BEN CRENSHAW: If anybody got a piece of property like this, I hope they would. I hope they would try.

Q. (Inaudible.)

BEN CRENSHAW: No, it's not. And they could still, you go out and look at the course and it's it shows you how timeless his work is and how much he did not want to impose himself into this piece of land. It's fascinating how he routed this. How he routed the original nine. You look at that and you go, wow, that's unbelievable.

Q. But don't you think architecture has changed back to this style of golf course?

BEN CRENSHAW: You have a lot of

Q. With dunes and sand hills?

BEN CRENSHAW: Well, you're right. You have a lot of young architects that are seeing the value in it, and that's an understatement. Because if you do it like this, it's economical. It's vastly economical.

Q. Less land, less moving dirt.

BEN CRENSHAW: Yeah. Take a good piece of land and work with it. It's going to be economical and it's going to be more natural.

Q. Are you finding owners coming to you asking you to look for land more and more?

BEN CRENSHAW: Yes. Yes. Not in droves, no. Not in droves. But we have some calls that people want sort of a quiet golf club on a nice piece of terrain and not much else, which is nice. After all, that's why we play golf. And so we just that's what we try to do is try to pick good pieces of property and then have hopefully have the freedom to do a nice routing before anything happens. That's what we enjoy doing.

Q. How much do you limit yourself to the amount of work that you guys are involved in at a certain time?

BEN CRENSHAW: Oh, quite a lot. We do one or two at a time, so. Two is plenty for us. We have a little small crew and we like to go around, but that's what we enjoy spending the time on.

Q. When you're working now, I mean do you almost try to even though you have all the equipment at your disposal, do you almost try to envision what it was like with the mules and that?

BEN CRENSHAW: Yes, very much so. You get the movement. I mean we talked, you know, until we're blue in the face about getting the movement.

End of FastScripts.

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