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THE HONDA CLASSICFebruary 28, 2007Fred FunkPALM BEACH GARDENS, FLORIDA CHRIS REIMER: Welcome, Fred Funk, winner last week, only the second player to follow-up a victory on the Champions Tour with a win on the PGA TOUR. All kinds of things going on now in the Top 20 for the FedExCup point race, it's just got to be exciting for you. Talk a little bit about the win and what it's been like. FRED FUNK: Well, it was great to beat the young guys. Really, that was the whole motivation this year was to see how long I could be competitive out here. And the reason I am not playing the Champions Tour full-time is because I have been competitive and last week I in my mind validated that. It was a special feeling because I've had a lot of questions about why I'm staying out here versus going on the Champions Tour. Most guys the minute they turn 50, they just say, I'm done with this tour and ready to go. Other than Jay Haas, basically was one of the few, but mainly because his son was coming out that he didn't go out full-time I think; had an opportunity to play with his son at the same time. I just feel like I have some motivation to see how long I can last out here on the regular Tour and last week was a real good feeling to have to come out on top. CHRIS REIMER: And that's nothing against the experience you've had on the Champions Tour, I've read some quotes you've had where you really enjoy yourself out there. FRED FUNK: I love the Champions Tour. The guys out there have been great. The atmosphere out there is fantastic. I have no negatives to say about the Champions Tour. I really look forward to the events and the opportunities that I have to go out and play there. It's actually a breath of fresh air when I do go out there, because it is more relaxed and it's still competitive, but it seems different because there are three rounds versus four rounds, and three rounds with no cut versus four rounds and a cut after two. Totally different because you seem like it's a sprint for three rounds out there. It's amazing how much shorter three rounds feels than four. But having that cut in there versus no cut, that's a big difference, too. And you experience in our WGC events that don't have a cut. It's pretty neat to know you're going to be there until Sunday and you can make your plans and don't have to worry about being all upset on Fridays when you miss the cut. Because one thing I hate to do, I'd rather finish last on Sunday than miss the cut on Friday. So it's difficult a different atmosphere, but I really enjoy it when I'm out there. CHRIS REIMER: Talk about your back, I know you had some troubles. FRED FUNK: Yeah, I had a lot of troubles in my back and for the first time in my career, I've had low back problems. I don't know where it came from. I went skiing a couple of weeks ago, and ever since then it's been sore. I don't recall doing anything, though, skiing that would have aggravated it other than just getting tight. So Saturday last week, I was wondering whether I could finish. I was on the 11th hole and I went from the normal pain that I had which was just a little shooting pain down my left butt cheek to not being able to bend over to address the ball. And at that point I knew I was in trouble. I bogeyed 12, basically, because I couldn't swing at it and had it adjusted back of 12 green before I went to 13, and it worked. And I was able to swing really well. I had a real satisfying finish that day and ended up shooting 64, and felt really good about that. And then Sunday it bothered me as well but I got through it again and obviously came out on top. And the fact I ended up winning the tournament with all of the problems I had was very satisfying because I really wasn't running 100%, and my putter was running a little hotter than 100%, and that was the reason I was able to come through on top. But my ball-striking on Sunday, especially on the front nine was not that good. Back nine wasn't too bad. It just wasn't as good as it was all week. But I made a lot of saves, or ended up very satisfying, birdieing the second playoff hole. Q. Has your back bothered you at all since you got here? FRED FUNK: Yeah, I had it treated; I got here Sunday night. It was bothering me a lot right after the tournament and then I got it treated by a local guy here and our guy, and a guy that travels the Tour on Monday night. Actually they were doing some tests to see if it was a disk, and the tests that they had showed it was not a disk; it was more a muscle thing or a ligament thing. But it irritated; I couldn't get in bed much less out of bed. I had a hard time bending over just to crawl under the covers. Yesterday morning I felt pretty good. I got worked on again, twice. And went and played nine holes and it was tight, but not to the point where I was ready to go home. Because if it bothers me like -- at any point if it bothers me like last week, I'm going home. It's just too long a golf course to be waving at it. I found that out yesterday. This golf course is set up like a U.S. Open, and I don't think I could be -- fighting my back, there's just no way I could compete. Q. That being said, you knew how long it was going to be Sunday night and Monday night, did you give thought to saying you couldn't play? FRED FUNK: I had heard rumors -- I don't know the last time I played this. It might have been the '87 PGA. And I had not even played the back nine yet, which 10, 11 has been talked about a lot. Although we're not going to play it from what I understand the back, back tees, thank goodness. But the rough is really high. I didn't really expect it to be quite as narrow. I mean, it's really set up tough out there I think. You know, we'll see how it plays. Hopefully we won't get any rain because it's still playing a little firm, thank goodness, too. The ball is running out. Q. Does it remind you of the PGA in '87? FRED FUNK: No. I distinctly remember the PGA because it was in August and obviously super-duper hot. The bermudarough was really deep. It was like four-inch bermudarough. I just remember being quoted, "it was like lining the fairways with water hazards because it's just chip-out rough." I also remember I was leading after 22 holes, and I was a club pro back then and I panicked and I wasn't leading for much longer after I panicked. But I wouldn't expect that to happen now if I got in the lead. It's set up, it's as narrow as that. It's just the overseed rye versus the bermuda, and it's a little patchier. You can draw some good lies here and there. I just remember going down 1 yesterday. I lost my ball. I hit my first ball in the left rough and never found it. I said, "Boy, this is a good sign here," and I hit it in the left rough on 2 and barely found it. I just was shocked at how narrow it was set up for a regular Tour event. And I'm still under the theory of -- well, it's not even a theory. I believe we need to change our setups a little bit. You can narrow the fairways all you want, but give a graduated rough where the ball when it misses the fairway by a foot or six inches, you're not in the heaviest, thickest, chip-out stuff. You can still advance it to the green with very little control, but at least you can get it up by the green. And actually that usually creates a lot more problems because you'll end up hitting it in spots you don't want to be in around the greens. It's more fun for us. It's more fun I think for the spectators to go with this graduated rough. They did it at Winged Foot last year, and almost pulled it off. It was still that first cut was still really deep. At least it wasn't the hay that's right off that collar cut. Q. You've had a lot of experience with the Florida Swing, could you just talk about how it's level of importance has sort of ebbed and flowed over the years, and then to get to this year where it's a real shakeup, how different is this going to be? FRED FUNK: Oh, I don't think -- the whole dynamics of the TOUR schedule has changed and the dynamics of the TOUR with the FedEx points has changed. So nothing is the same this year. We've condensed the schedule down to try to finish early to get to the Playoffs system and then go to the Fall Series, so that's changed a lot. It's made a lot of tournaments move around. We've lost sponsors or changed sponsors, like Innisbrook moving from the fall to the spring. As players, I don't think it's an impact at all. We just go where the venues are, the way the schedule unfolds. And having Doral as a WGC event is the biggest difference to me on the schedule. Now that you've got a very limited field, a very-hard-to-qualify-for-event; that to me is a little disappointing, but it brings a lot of attention to Doral and that venue. Q. It seems that maybe the other three events on the Florida Swing, they are sandwiched between two World Golf Championships events; Florida Swing used to be a very high-profile month and it seems like maybe they are getting overlooked a little bit. FRED FUNK: I don't feel that way. If the media feels that way and plays it up that way, it will be. If you write that it's that way, then people are going to have that perception. It's amazing the power of your typewriters have on what people believe and don't believe. If that's the way the media wants to present it, a lot of times -- I still believe the way some people believe, that the Florida Swing really is a feeling of the season really starting, almost as if the West Coast is a warm-up. I don't really feel that that's the case, but a lot of guys love when we finally get back to the east, especially the guys that live east. And you get to where I think the golf courses are set up a little tougher. You start to find out who is really playing good and who is not playing good. A venue like this, the way it's set up, and Bay Hill has always been traditionally one that's set up tough and obviously when THE PLAYERS was the last week of March that you knew who was playing good and who wasn't playing good. And I think with this one and Innisbrook and Bay Hill preceding the WGC event, you're going to find out who is playing good, especially this week. I think if the wind blows at all here, I could see 5-under winning this thing. And who knows, I could be surprised, but as a par 70, it's going to be a pretty formidable challenge out here for everybody to get low scores. Q. When you played in the PGA here 20 years ago, was that when you were contemplating trying the PGA TOUR? FRED FUNK: Oh, I was still trying, yeah. I tried in '85 -- '84, '85, '86, didn't make it. '84 or '85 I guess. '86 I hurt my shoulder and that year of '87, I was still hurt. Then I tried the Q-School again in '88 for the '89 season and I made it. Yeah, I was trying to get on the TOUR. It was a long process for me. Q. You mentioned the rough; anything else about this course that jumps out at you as being different from what you remember 20 years ago? FRED FUNK: I haven't played the back nine yet. But I remember No. 6 and I heard about it, you've got a pretty long hole. I think it was a par 5 before because the green is designed -- either that or it was a much shorter par 4, but now it's a 490-, 495-yard par 4 with a green that's just dinky. It's not much of a target to be hitting a long iron into if the wind is into you or across. If the wind is not helping you, it's pretty tough. And it's a real narrow driving shot, tee shot, too, because you have water on the left and you have a finger of a bunker that sticks out on the right that I can't fly. It's like a 285 out there to that bunker. That's a really good hole. So you have that. I think No. 1 is a short hole. You've got to keep it in play, but two is a great par 4, and the two par 3s are playing extremely long, and 6. So I think the four holes on the front nine right there are really, really good holes. Then you get to the back, and I haven't seen it yet how it's playing, but I've been hearing a lot of talk about 10 and 11 right out of the gate. So, we'll see. Q. Do you have any memories, or what do you specifically remember about maybe watching the '83 Ryder Cup here with Seve and Lanny? FRED FUNK: I don't remember anything of the '83 Ryder Cup here. I have no idea. I recall that Lanny won it with a putt on 18 I think but that's vague. Q. How do you go about deciding at this point which tour to play on, is it week-to-week, are you looking at the courses, are you looking at how you're playing at a particular moment? FRED FUNK: No, I'm committed to playing the regular tour. I'm going to play, you know, who knows, 26 or 27 out here. It depends how I'm doing by the time I get to the FedEx Playoffs, and what I do from the Fall Series after that, whether I'm going to bounce further or more off and over to the Champions Tour. But right now I'm only playing one other senior event between now and the FedExCup Playoffs, and that's the Ginn Championship. Q. Have anybody of your buddies been telling you you're crazy and you're looking at this all wrong and that you could be taking it easier? FRED FUNK: No, there are some guys out here -- that's fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I have my own motivations. I have my own goals. If they want to -- I love hearing guys not have, especially guys closer to my age, that believe they can't compete out here anymore. Then I don't have to worry about them every week. Anybody that's negative and anybody that's questioning my ability and they are questioning their own abilities out here the way they can compete, that just gives me more motivation than anything. I love seeing guys that have bad attitudes and negative out here because I've got those guys beat before I tee off. Q. What's it feel like to go to the Champions Tour and then look at you and go, "Oh, no, here comes the big guy?" FRED FUNK: Well, I've never been called a big guy before, that's for sure. I think it's really good when the guys come out here and that have had success on this tour and they go out and they have success out on the Champions Tour. But I also think it's very good in a validation to how good the guys on the Champions Tour are if they continue to play out here and have success out here. I feel like I'm indirectly helping the Champions Tour by staying out here and having success on this tour and it brings more notoriety to when I do go play over there. It's a fluke to win by 11 when I won at Turtle Bay. My putter was smoking. You throw that one out. It's tough to win anywhere. The competition out there is very strong. The guys are very motivated. They still want to win, they have been playing competitive golf their whole lives. The biggest difference is on the Champions Tour with their attitudes is just that -- or with the competition is not so much their attitude. It's just they are not as deep and physically some of the guys are just not there. They can't compete week-in and week-out, and that's why they don't play every single week why they do out here or schedule one every week. I don't think they are scared of me by any means, that's for sure. I don't think I've ever intimidated anybody to that point. There's only one guy that really intimidates anybody and that's Tiger. Q. When you say you're only going to play one more Champions event, the Ginn, does that include the majors? FRED FUNK: I'm not playing the majors. They don't fit in. I'm playing the one at the end of the year, the Senior Players Championship in Baltimore. But right now the plan is that they just don't fit in my schedule. If things change a little bit or if I decide I'm playing good and I have a window of opportunity, I can -- it would be nice to bounce over there and play every now and then. And they have really good major venues, Whistling Straits and Kiawah. I've never played Kiawah, but right now they don't fit in the schedule. No one has really been able to compete on both tours. If you have high goals on either tour, you've got to really stay on that particular tour you have your goals on. And my goals right now are to see how good I can do on this tour, how good I can do in the FedExCup and now I've got a jump start on this year. In the back of my mind, I had the Presidents Cup. Now it's more in the front of my mind is the Presidents Cup. I've love to be a part of Jack's team again. I was on the last two, and that's really, really neat. Q. Going back to your PLAYERS Championship win, your fan support has grown, can you talk a little bit about how that's influenced you and maybe do you kind of consider yourself a working man's golfer out there? FRED FUNK: Oh, there's no question. I think a lot of guys can identify with me. I always hear when I walk through the galleries, "Hey, way to go for the old guys; way to go for the way little guys; way to go for the short hitters; way to go for the way to go for the cross-dressers." (Laughter) I hear it all. You wear a skirt once you're a cross-dresser for Pete's sakes. As far as they know I did it once. It's fun to be the every day guy or every man's man I guess. Because I'm not the prototypical new -- or the new prototype golfer body right now. Most of these guys are like six-foot to six-three and they are lean and look like Olympic swimmers and they have this instant leverage with the golf club and hit the ball miles, and that's all the more reason why I want to see how long I can last. The irony with the whole thing to me is the way the game of golf has really evolved in the last five or six years with the way the golf ball has started getting high performance out of the golf balls now, and I didn't gain that much in relation to what a lot of guys have gained with it and. And the length off the tee is dramatic and it's become more of a power game. But yet I've had my best years on Tour in my career has really been since 2002, or 2001 or 2000 even. The older I've gotten, the better I've gotten. My goals are still the same as far as how good I can get. I still have a lot of room for improvement and I'm still working on that. So I feel like I can still get -- the thing is you've got to keep improving just to maintain so you've got to take it to the next level to keep climbing up. So it's pretty tough. Q. On the subject of size and strength in golf, is it moving to where man of average size is probably going to be phased out, the gritty, bulldog type, you, Pavin, Kite; are we going to see people like that? FRED FUNK: We don't see guys like that. Jim Furyk is a guy that is not overpowering off the tee. He is certainly not short off the tee but he's not in the class of the Ernie and the Sergio s and the Tigers and those guys, yet he makes up with it with bulldog determination, great short game, great head. You can do it. I just think it will be more the exception than the rule. I think what you'll see, and I think if you go back and look at a tournament's final scores, and you can go through the Top-25 or 30 on the list and it's mixed with all types of games, power games, short game, short hitters, finesse players, whatever, and you have a nice mix, I think you have a really good setup on a golf course. And those are what we should be striving for is to figure out how they set up that golf course, what was the length, how did they do the rough, were there a lot of forced carries, whatever. And you can find a model that would really I think would achieve the goal of identifying the guy that truly played the best golf that week; he just wasn't long. He wasn't a one-dimensional player or it wasn't a one-dimensional golf course. I don't think what they have done to Augusta in my opinion is a golf course that a short hitter can really go out there and play well at Augusta. It's so severe, so long, it's pretty tough. Q. But any new courses they are building now, it's 8,000-plus. FRED FUNK: Now they are backing them up and preparing for the opportunity if they need to go back to 8,000 yards, they are going to have the room to do it. Hopefully we won't have the average golf course become 8,000 yards, because now we really -- then you're going to see the one-dimensional golfer winning. And it's going to phase-out anybody that has -- that doesn't have the length. It's sad in my mind to see that. Q. When you're playing a course that you haven't played in a long time or don't have a lot of familiarity with like this one, is your approach to practice rounds considerably different than a course you know significantly better? FRED FUNK: I won't even play a practice round. I use the Pro-Am as my practice round when I know the golf course. Yesterday I probably would have played 18 if everything was okay with my back. I didn't want to mess with that, so I just played nine. My caddie when we walked off the range before to go out, he says, "We probably should go play the back." I said, well there's nobody on 1 tee, and I don't feel like playing 10," so we played the front. We'll see. I tee off on 10 today so, we'll see. Yeah, it's a lot different when you get to a major. It seems like you'll sit there and wear yourself out in the practice rounds. And it's not that big a deal. You already know where not to hit it and where to hit it. To me, paralysis by analysis to me; same with the golf swing. You go out there and try to find every nuance on the golf course and then you find out you didn't even put yourself into that -- in four days, you were never in the situation you were practicing for. So to me it's not that big of a deal. If you're hitting the ball solid you're going to work your way around the golf course and if you're not, you've got to figure out how you are going to work your way around the golf course and play a little more conservative. But it's still fairways and greens. Q. Having been a club pro, a teacher, a coach, is there anything that you from those days that you still utilize today, maybe a tip or something that you still try to employ in your own game that you've always kept? FRED FUNK: No, I wish I knew way know now and then give it to the kids I was coaching. Although I was one of the kids when I was coaching. I had guys my first year were teammates of mine, first two years of coaching, and that was impossible. I mean, there was no discipline on my team at all. "No drinking guys." Yeah, sure. Then the pitchers would be flowing. Really I didn't mess with them much. I just gave them an opportunity to play against the best competition and let them go. I realized early after two years of coaching that I could not recruit with the big schools, so I didn't even try that any more. I just said I'll get the next tier guys, and if they want to work on their game, great; and if they don't, we'll have a good time. There was no pressure for me from the athletic department to have a great golf team. So it was just like, here is your budget and have fun with it. They didn't pay me enough to make me worry about it either. CHRIS REIMER: Good luck this week, Fred. End of FastScripts |
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