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VERIZON HERITAGE

April 12, 2007

Jerry Kelly

HILTON HEAD, SOUTH CAROLINA

STEWART MOORE: Jerry Kelly, first and foremost, great round today, opening round of 63, one off the first round course record. Obviously a couple bogeys out there. Starting on 10, maybe go through your round and give us a little bit of a hole-by-hole.
JERRY KELLY: If I had a sheet I could do that (laughter). I started out with two good shots, about ten feet on the first hole, then got my feet wet ball-striking wise.
Second hole, I knocked it about five feet with an 8-iron, which is the 11th hole.
12th hole, I knocked it about three feet with an 8-iron.
13, spun my wedge away about, oh, 16, 18 feet.
Then actually hit a good shot on the par 3, 14, got above the trees, pushed it a little right and went in the water but was able to drop it on the green and two-putt for bogey. Easy bogey.
And then 15, I spun it back to -- with a wedge to about 20 feet again.
16, spun back a 9-iron to about 20 feet. I had three 20-footers. That's pretty good for me.
Then 1st hole I knocked it about a foot with a wedge.
Second hole I had a driver utility just left of the green, up-and-down, made about a four and a half, five-footer for birdie.
The par 3, I hit a 5-iron about 15 feet.
Par 5, just short of the green, got up-and-down, was about a four-footer.
6, I knocked a 7-iron to about four feet.
Then 8 should be a perfect drive for me. I tend to aim a little right for my draw on that, and it makes me look at that out of bounds especially when it's left-to-right wind out of that pine straw, so I tended to overplay that one a little bit. Then a great second shot, can't believe I overhooked it into the bunker, and then just a tough up-and-down. It was a solid ball-striking day and a solid putting day.
I had a lot of kick-ins, but I made some 20-footers, which was a good combination.
STEWART MOORE: So you were sitting at 9-under with three holes to go. Any thoughts about the infamous 59?
JERRY KELLY: I didn't, really. I was actually -- I thought about it walking up to my poor drive on 8 and thinking -- no, I still couldn't have done it. No, I wasn't too worried about it. It was just play as well as I can.
There was a point out there that I didn't know how many I had. It was kind of fun.

Q. Was it different scoring conditions from last week?
JERRY KELLY: I played exactly the same. I played no different. I putted similar, struck it similar, up-and-downs. I mean, those were extremely tough conditions at Augusta. I faced this course about as easy as it's going to get for the whole week, so it's not an 8-under course to a 2-under course like I shot on Sunday. I wouldn't put this golf course that far away from Augusta, but it just shows how difficult Augusta was that I felt just as good shooting 70 as I did shooting here.

Q. A round like this, ten birdies, 63, do you feel it coming or do you just get into it and all of a sudden you shoot a good number?
JERRY KELLY: Well, like I said, I struck the ball great last week. It was tough to score. I think that really came from the work I've done with my coach, Jim Schumann, and my new Olympic gold medal mental coach Lanny Bassham I said last week he's put me in a different league mentally, and I truly believe it.
It's so much more comfortable out there. I remember in the past I'd get to 4- or 5-under and go, well, I've got a really good round going. It was around that 4, 5, 6-under time when I didn't know how many under I was. I was just so happy to just be doing my routine well that I didn't really care about the actual golf. It's a great by-product of what I'm doing mentally to have the golf swing just come out.
I knew I was playing well, but until this mental process was kind of implemented, it just wasn't coming out of me as solidly as it is now. I wish I would have seen him a long time ago.

Q. Before, if you got to say 5-under at some point in your round, what was your mindset? Were you one of those guys afraid to go low, or were you starting to add up your score card?
JERRY KELLY: I'd think I'm playing too well and get too aggressive. I'd go after more birdies. Instead of maybe the way I was getting there was making a few 20-footers shaving towards the middle and giving myself a few opportunities, like 5-under, let's go to 10, and I was trying to shoot 59 and things like that. I did in a U.S. golf Tour event, three-putt the last hole for a 61 with my shot at 59, so I always wanted to come back to that number and try it. But it kind of showed me today that it didn't even enter my mind until I didn't hit a good shot. I'm like, boy, that could have cost me -- I was kind of like, you've got two holes left and have to eagle one of them. So it didn't bother me even when it came into my head.
I was an overly aggressive when I was playing well kind of guy.

Q. Has that done anything to your demeanor on the course, the coach? At Augusta you were very animated.
JERRY KELLY: Always been kind of animated (laughter). You know, it's never always in a good way.
Now, it's taken some pressure off of my actual striking of the ball. I don't know how really to describe it, and I'm not going to get into much detail with you about it. It's taken pressure off of me, no question about it. My focus is in a different place, and I'd go about my business, and really, I never got excited today. I never got ahead of myself thinking about how many under. I mean, it didn't make my blood pressure rise too much, and really, that's kind of the way I felt last week even after Saturday's round, shooting a 78, I had a 42 on the back side after a solid even par on the front. I wasn't that worn out. I was comfortable, which shows me how much in the past I've been wearing myself out physically because of the mental side. Bottom line, I'm in better shape than I thought I was. I had to be in better shape because my mental was just beating the snot out of my body, all the adrenaline from getting mad and getting tense. I was feeling solid out there. That helps, too, when you're playing well and hitting good shots to have good demeanor. I didn't really want to test my new system and routine hitting it bad, but someday it'll happen, and it'll be interesting to see if it really does take the pressure off and the feelings away from it. It feels like it has.

Q. With it being so early in the tournament, how comfortable are you at 8-under?
JERRY KELLY: It's a great start. That's all it is, is a start, though. I mean, I'd give you all the credit for not bringing up winning or anything like that. There's no sense in talking about it. It's Thursday. Who knows? Who cares? I'm just very happy I got a great start, and really, that's all it was.

Q. How important have the starts been to your game? I was looking back over your results from this year. You've missed I think about half your cuts, but when you make it into the weekend you've played pretty well.
JERRY KELLY: My first rounds, my first three rounds of all these tournaments were always a problem start for me. Like I said, I'm more consistent and more comfortable from the very first shot to the last shot, instead of getting real excited at the start with all my adrenaline pumping and then having something happen to bring me into focus, okay, yeah, it's a bogey, okay, let's go, let's do this now. I can kind of corral my focus a little bit at the start, which is really nice to have.

Q. It's interesting that even at 9-under and even with a better mental approach, you notice the out of bounds on the right. What does that say about just how much tiny little challenges there are in this game?
JERRY KELLY: Yeah, you've got a solid left-to-right wind, and if you hit it 250 with any heat, it hits pine straw and a cart path and it's gone. You have to give it merit, so you have to wonder do I hit 3-wood. So even if I did hit it right -- I decided to take the drive, I was striking it well, I knew I could turn it over. I didn't really get my body through. My arms got quick making sure my miss was going to be left, and I missed it left. Job well done (laughter).

Q. Those of us that will never be in that situation would almost imagine all those things go away when you get to 9-under.
JERRY KELLY: No, they have to be thought about. The question is, do they go away when you swing. It went away when I swung. I knew where I wanted to go, and I made it go there a little bit more than I should have rather than free-swinging, but if I would have free-swung and missed it just a hair to the right and the wind took it over there, I would have been begging, for me, trying to make it go a little farther left next time.

Q. This new mental state that you're in, is this a career saver, career maker for you? You said you wish you had done it --
JERRY KELLY: I really hope it's a career maker, because as far as I'm concerned, I haven't had that much of a career yet for the kind of things that I'd like to do in golf, for kind of where I thought I'd be when I was coming out. I had a lot of confidence, and it took me an awful long time to get those first two wins -- to get the first win. It didn't take me long to get the second, and I thought quite a few more were right behind it. A lot of different things went on.
Really, as I started getting some things back, then my son went to school and I started traveling alone. I'm a family man and that was hard on me. I did not like that at all. It's still really hard to be away from them. The funny thing is, this is nice to get this done without them here because I haven't had a good tournament without them here yet this year. It was nice to at least get a good start.
I told her I was going to try and do it without them this week. You know, those are the little things, even more than seeing that out of bounds on the right, just looking at a player and seeing he's in kind of a two-year slump and not knowing that he's travelling without his family and locking himself in a hotel room and eating room service and not having communication and watching too much TV. Those are the types of things that get a tournament player.
You know, I think the new mental approach will help my golf game, but I think it's also going to help outside my golf game, too.

Q. You said earlier about as far as the wind and everything, but here you went through a morning round in really good conditions, and in your mind is it really important to do that here, because tomorrow afternoon when you play you can probably anticipate a little bit more wind?
JERRY KELLY: Absolutely. I mean, there is no question about that, that when I got here and I saw the forecast yesterday at 10 to 20, I was kind of complaining about that 0 dark 30 start or 0 dark 20, but realizing I was going to get to the course in as easy shape as possible, turn my attention to the positive rather than the negative, getting up so early, it was great to get off to a good start on a calm day and let me think I can hit the shots. Even when it got a little windy on some of the shots later, I still had the confidence to make the ball curve when I needed to.

Q. What was your morning? What time did you get up and what was your plan?
JERRY KELLY: Well, my plan was to get up at 5:00, get out of here. I like to eat two hours before, but I pressed the snooze button a couple times, got out here by about 5:40 and the chef still hadn't shown up yet (laughter). I had some Cheerios and some Lucky Charms and then hit the workout trailer for about 10, 15 minutes instead of my normal 30. There were no lights on the putting green, so I had to go straight to hitting balls instead of putting. It was not my normal routine to say the least. Maybe my routine will change (laughing).
STEWART MOORE: All right, Jerry, thanks very much. Great round.

End of FastScripts

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