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THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY MORGAN STANLEYMay 31, 2007Ernie ElsDUBLIN, OHIO JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Ernie, for joining us here in the media center at the Memorial Tournament. Good start today, a couple of birdies on the back nine and no bogeys on the card, started off with a 66. Talk about what went well for you out there. ERNIE ELS: I made some putts, as you said. On the back nine around the turn, I made some -- you make some putts, you feel a little different about reading the putts even and not trying to hit perfect golf shots. That's kind of what happened. You know, it wasn't the perfect round of golf, but I had a bunker shot that went in on 13 for birdie and I chipped in for a par on 17. So I made a couple of mistakes here and there but felt really good out there today. I felt comfortable. The conditions were perfect. I saw guys getting off to good starts, so I knew it was out there, and I just made a couple on the back nine there. Q. You mentioned not trying to hit the perfect golf shot. It was either Sean or Badds when they were in here said you can hit it to 20 feet here and know that you're going to have a good run at the putt. Does that take the pressure off having to go at flags? ERNIE ELS: Yeah, I think so. I think the way Jack designs his golf courses, you know, it really puts a lot of premium on accuracy with your iron shots. He tucks his flags away. So a lot of time you play away from flags. You say to, as you say, 20, 25 feet. The conditions, the weather this morning, conditions were very soft so the ball would stop, and the putting surfaces are perfect. So if you leave yourself around the hole 20, 25 feet on every hole, you're going to make quite a few if you've got confidence in your putting. I think that's the way the guys have played it this morning, especially in the first round. Things might change over the weekend when you start trying to maybe take chances here and there. But if you play away from flags, you're going to be okay. Q. It seemed like you knew on a day like today to kind of get things going for you, just to jump start things for you with the Open coming up, just in general? ERNIE ELS: Absolutely. I've had a pretty tough time for most part of this year. My game hasn't been really good the last -- especially the last three weeks, especially on the greens. I've been very uncomfortable. I've just been very frustrated. But I've been doing the work and a little different putting technique today that kind of helped. I feel I can improve from here, yeah. Q. Was it just a case of maybe trying too hard on your home place? I know you didn't have the type of week you wanted at your home course. ERNIE ELS: Yeah. I know what Jack is going through now (laughter). You know, you make changes to a golf course and the boys really come out of the woodwork (laughter). They're unbelievable. It's my home course back home, and I represent the club. I'm sure a lot of other players would have loved to have gotten their hands on Wentworth, but they gave me the opportunity. You do things the way you see it. I've got quite a few golf courses under construction right now, so I think I've got a pretty good idea of how a good golf course should look like, and especially my experience from playing other courses. I did what I saw, and they didn't like some of the stuff. I think 80 percent of it I think the guys liked, so that's fine with me. Q. What was the change you made that went over the best? ERNIE ELS: No. 12 is a little par 5 at Wentworth, and I brought in the two creeks. They don't quite cross the fairway, but I brought them in where there's 32 yards you can get through, through the middle of them, and it's 290 to reach them. So you can still hit 3-wood on the green. What I wanted to do is get the guys thinking a little about hitting the fairway. But they didn't like that much (laughter). Q. You're not going to change it? ERNIE ELS: No, I don't know. We'll see. Q. What's your state of mind coming out of a tournament where -- we were joking about it the other day, 18 birdies and 3 eagles and you finish 1-under? Obviously you made some putts, but there was dots all over that card. ERNIE ELS: Exactly. If you take the positive out of it, it shows you that my game, when it's on, I'm making a lot of birdies. But last week when I was off, I was making big numbers, too. You know, somewhere there you've got to work on your mental state of your game or the physical, and I think the physical part of the game has been okay. It's just sometimes, you know, I try and push the issue, and that's when I fall out of the bus, and that's what happened last week. You know, that's why today I felt more calm and felt good out there. Q. What did you think of the bunkers compared to last year? ERNIE ELS: A lot better. You know, I mean, I hope Jack keeps it this way. They were fine. You know, now your bunker skill really comes out. You've got to -- if you want to hit a good shot, you've got to really play a good shot out of the bunker. The way it was last year, it was a plugged lie, you've basically got no shot. Q. You holed out on 13? ERNIE ELS: Yes. Q. Could you have done that last year? ERNIE ELS: No way. To keep it on the green last year would have been great. Q. Having won at Oakmont in '94 and played in a lot of U.S. Opens, does that give you any more appreciation of Johnny Miller shooting 63 on the last day? Can you fathom it? ERNIE ELS: Well, that ain't going to happen in our day and age, I'll tell you that (laughter). The USGA will take care of that. You shoot under 70, it's probably as good as his 63. All I know is that morning it was raining. He played in the morning. Obviously at that time of Johnny's career he was an unbelievable player. But to do it in a U.S. Open is even more outstanding. But then again, you know, he's not going to do it now. I don't care how good you are. Q. Where would you put that in the ranks of other records that seem to be unbreakable, whether it's Nelson's 11 in a row or -- ERNIE ELS: You know, if we get rain at the U.S. Open in two weeks' time, you'll see good scoring. I'm not going to go as far as saying shooting 63 and stuff like that, but you'll see scores under par. If you have a golf course in this kind of condition where the ball is stopping a little bit on the greens, you can bring any golf course, somewhere somebody is going to shoot a good score. Because when they get it out of hand, when it gets too firm, then it's just a putting contest to even shoot 70, even par. There's a balance of how you're going to shoot low or not, basically. Q. You were talking about changing your putting technique. Were you thinking about that for a while before you did it, and how does it feel different now? ERNIE ELS: Yeah, I did it -- the final nine last week in England I went the other way, and I felt my -- the strength of my putts were better, the weight of my putts. I was doing it on Tuesday in the practice round and then yesterday in the Pro-Am. I said to Doug, it was a tough decision to make. You know, when you've putted the conventional way all your life and been a pretty good putter, to go the other way. But it's pretty good. The path of the stroke is pretty good, and that's all that counts, I guess. Q. Does the three years since you won here in the States, does that seem like yesterday or forever ago? ERNIE ELS: It feels like a long time ago, really. I mean, I had a couple of chances here and there, but I'd just like to get back to where I've been playing consistently, and I haven't quite done that. I'm trying to do that. Q. How long did it take you to get comfortable, and I'm assuming the left hand is pulling the club through instead of the right hand pushing it? ERNIE ELS: Yeah, exactly. Q. How long did it take you to get comfortable with that? ERNIE ELS: Well, as I say, I fooled around with it last week, I did it Saturday evening in practice on the putting green last week in practice, and I didn't quite want to do it in the final round until the final nine. I thought, what the hell. Q. Why not? ERNIE ELS: Exactly, I'm out of it. And then kept working on it when I came over here. I mean, these greens are perfect, but you still need a good path. The putter needs to go through on a good path, and I feel like I'm doing that this way. Q. Wasn't the putter a big key to your win at Oakmont? Didn't you make everything inside 10 or 12 feet the whole week? ERNIE ELS: Yeah, especially on that Monday playoff. I could have shot anything that day. But I kept making putts. It seemed like I made a 10-footer or 12-footer on every hole, whether it was for par or birdie. I'm looking forward to getting back there. Q. Given your history at Congressional and your relationship with Tiger, how hard was it not to play in the AT & T National coming up? ERNIE ELS: Well, I haven't totally thrown it out of the window, but it's going to mean I've got to fly back again. I don't think I'm going -- I'm going to have to start slowing down a little bit now. I'm getting a little on now. I haven't totally thrown it out, but there's probably 80 percent chance I'm not going to play. But I love Congressional as you know. Mike Leemhuis is the general manager there. He runs the club there. He's a great friend of mine. He's offered me the room right on the top, said I was going to have a nice room. But yeah, we'll see. Maybe I'll still rock up there, you never know. Q. They've done a lot of work here in the last few years here to try to get this place to play fast when they get the opportunity. They haven't had any rain and you guys are still shooting good scores. ERNIE ELS: It's just the greens. The fairways are running, and the new fairway bunkers are very deep. But it's because of the greens. The greens are holding. You're hitting a 5-iron in and it's holding the green. You can get the ball up-and-down from around the greens because it's soft. It's purely because of the greens. The greens are so perfect to surface. If you have you have an opportunity, the guys can make putts. So that's the reason. Q. There seems to be some tension right now between Europe and the U.S., the Tours. I was curious if you as a prominent member of both have felt that yourself and if you've found yourself having to take one side or the other. ERNIE ELS: Yeah, I think there definitely is because of the FedExCup Trophy. You know, it's big money events over here. I think it's really had an influence on some of the European Tour events. I'd love to see our PGA, the European PGA, being played closer to the Open Championship. I'd like to see the British PGA, Loch Lomond and the Open. They need to play some of their smaller events the same week as these bigger ones. They need to crisscross it a little bit I think to give the players a better chance to play both Tours and to do big Tour events. I think basically it's because of the U.S. Tour. That's why there's a bit of tension. You know, they've got the better players over here and they've got the more money, and we, as independent contractors, go where the cash is most of the time. And that's what's happened. Q. Is it a matter of Europe having to react to whatever the U.S. schedule is, or do you get a sense the U.S. should at least try to work with Europe? ERNIE ELS: I think that's a good idea. I think if they can try and work together a little bit because it'll benefit both Tours -- it's now happened where Thomas Björn who's a really well-known player, he's not playing over here anymore because he didn't play really well enough over here, what are you going to do when you get over in Europe? Then you have a tough time keeping your card over there or keeping your ranking up. Some of the players -- you're not going to see some of the players over here anymore. That's not beneficial to the U.S. Tour, either. So they need to find a way where both Tours -- where the players can play both Tours pretty easily. Not everybody is going to do that, it's going to be myself and probably 12 other Europeans because all the Aussies are playing over here when they have a chance. Q. What's the obstacle right now keeping them from cooperating? ERNIE ELS: Who knows? I'm not running the Tours, I'm just playing. But you know, I'd love for them to just listen sometimes to what some of the players are saying. We can give them a little bit of advice. Q. I have a question about your injury. Did it take longer for you to recover from that in terms of competitive golf than you thought it would take? ERNIE ELS: Yeah, absolutely. I definitely came back very early, but at the time I thought it was the right thing to do. You know, in South Africa, I came back in South Africa, and it was great playing in front of the home crowd and stuff. But I probably could have waited a little bit longer to get back onto the same schedule that I've always played on. But in the same breath, I'm proud that I've done it because the benefits will start coming in now, I think, in the near future. Q. When did you begin to feel like you're back in your old self? ERNIE ELS: Well, myself and Lead, we still argue about it. He wants me to swing a certain way still and he really feels I'm doing some things a lot differently. We've worked together on solving a couple of the problems, but it's definitely come from the left knee. Some of my swing faults, got very deep into my swing, very low on the left side, basically just protecting the left knee. So the better I'm getting physically, the more I can start swinging the way I used to. 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