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U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 7, 2007

Denis Watson

KOHLER, WISCONSIN

Q. Your most consistent round so far?

DENIS WATSON: Yeah, since Kiawah, actually. I've been playing well and making a lot of mistakes on the golf course, and my head has been all over the place. Yesterday I made some dumb mistakes early. I was feeling pretty good about how I was playing, and the golf course will get you skiddy sometimes.
And I let it get to my a couple of times, didn't judge the wind right and made a bad mistake at 4 and made a triple, and made a 6 on the second hole. And I was thinking to myself, "This is not good; you don't not want to be here on the weekend." I was happy with myself that I pulled it together. It was some pretty hard focussing yesterday to get it done, actually, and very gratifying to finish with a birdie after making a 6 at 16 yesterday, so I made two 6s and a 7, so nice to play solid today.

Q. Do you feel the difference today was more mental than mechanical?

DENIS WATSON: I got away with two shots; I played well. I pushed my tee shot at the second hole, and I managed to get it out. I'm not saying I had a shot, but I got it back out on the fairway, and I made a par, and I hit it over the green, which was a mistake. I didn't think a wedge could go that far. I was pumped up and hitting the ball well and I was thinking, whip this in at the flag and let's get going, and I got a wake-up. You can't just whip it in at the flag. This is a U.S. Open. I set about grinding my way, hit a couple of great shots when I needed to, and I think I got away with a drive at 15.
I pulled it, had a bit of trouble with marshals getting in the line today, keep moving people out of the way; it was distracting. When you have to shoot like that in the U.S. Open, you have to have some slightly good breaks. But I'm happy with the way I'm hitting it, so this thing, although it was a bad break -- I thought I hit a beautiful shot, and to have it end up where it did was frustrating, but I was lucky to make par.
I was lucky it landed where it did. There have been a few goat hills out there. The one on the second hole was tough this morning. You have to be flexible and agile to hit some of these shots if they go flying.

Q. Can you compare today's setup to the prior two days? How is the course playing?

DENIS WATSON: I forgot already. You know, I thought some of the pins were tough today considering the way was wind was blowing when we played, but it's switching now. There was a hard pin at the -- one is a good pin but it's accessible; two is a pretty decent pin, and three is a really good pin but there's room back there.
And four is a great pin with the wind blowing hard, right to left, I guess a hard tee shot, and you have to hang and lie. So you're hitting anything from a 4-iron down to hang and lie, right to left, and the pin is cut left, and that's no bargain.
Tough pin at the short six hole; they have a tee up where you've got to think about what you're hitting, a 4-iron, 5-iron. Great pin at seven. There is a tough pin at eight; you pull it, it rolls off the green. I hit a beautiful pitch and it trickled off, and you have a 25-footer instead of a 10-footer. You have to hit good shots. I was just saying to David, sometimes you get triple-breaking putts.
If you have a 30-footer, it swings three ways before it gets to the hole. That's tough to figure out. And the greens are probably 3-feet faster than they were yesterday afternoon.

Q. Harder?
DENIS WATSON: A little firmer, yeah, they're drying out, a little firmer in some places.

Q. I heard you say that to David Moore the birdie at 18 was a kick-start for you yesterday?

DENIS WATSON: I was grinding to make the cut, working my tail off. I missed a putt at 14 -- either 13 or 14, I missed a short putt. I thought it was going right in the hole and it turned out, made a putt and then I played 16 really well and made a 6. I pulled my third shot a little bit and it -- I couldn't even see the ball. It was just off the green down at the bottom of the thing; I couldn't see it. You can get into some bad spots.
So I was really working hard, and I hit 3-wood at the last hole. It's not my favorite finishing hole I've he ever seen, and I hit it, and it ran into the fairway with a bunch of grass behind the ball, and I had 162, and I hit a 9-iron, and it came out a little left, you know?
And I was kind of pulling for it to blow to the right, and then it hit and it trickled down really close to the hole. So I felt like things turned right there, that things might start going the other way. And to make 3 finishing on that hole, bonus. So I made the cut by two, a lot of relief, you know?
I really wanted to be here for the weekend, just like everybody else that was playing. I still felt like if you get out there and play well, like I did today, that you might still have a shot on the weekend. There have been a lot of tournaments -- Curtis Strange shot 80 at Augusta and almost won the tournament, so I feel good about where I am.
There's a place to score out there. You can if you hit the ball really well you can score. But the greens are fast today and the wind is kind of just tricky. You know, the guys are going to have to play great to score well. So hopefully I'm only four or five back at the end of the day and then it's a tournament for me, where I feel like I might have a shot.
But these guys can play, though, you've seen the ad; these guys are good. I've played with quite a few of them now and, gee, I'm in awe of how well these guys play. They play better than when I was on the PGA TOUR with them. They hit at the flag, they hit it pretty far. They're impressive players.

Q. You probably wouldn't expect a bogey-free round on a U.S. Senior Open weekend, would you?

DENIS WATSON: No, but you would hope for one. You work at it. I didn't think about it, honestly, I was working on trying to shoot 6-under. I thought if I could shoot 6-under, nice conditions this morning, the conditions were perfect, you had makable putts. But I had a 12-footer at the first hole, it was a double swinger, you know?
And I'm sure that I would say 70% of my putts today swung two ways. That's tough, tough to read, especially when the greens are running as fast as they are.

Q. Have you found since Kiawah that your mental focus comes back, or it's easier to regain --

DENIS WATSON: No, I think it's the same. I don't think my concentration has been as good. Today was good, yesterday afternoon after the first few holes was really good. So it takes work, it takes work. A lot of distractions, a lot of pleasure, after what's happened to me.
And it wasn't just like another great win for somebody that's won a lot of tournaments; it's really been a big deal. You know, I've been soaking it in, and a lot of things have been different. Just trying to remember that it's still just golf and you have to do the same things.
My favorite statement is the golf ball doesn't know who you are and it doesn't care. When you step up to the golf ball, every time you have to show it what it's got to do; it doesn't just go in the right place because you're a good player.

Q. Was there a time when you thought you might not come back?

DENIS WATSON: Yeah, a couple of times. My wife over there, she's the one that kind of kept me focused and thinking that I could get back and play. She kept kicking me in the pants and saying, well, you know, you can get through this, and if you want to play -- it's never like forcing, you have to play. She said, "If you want to play, you've still got it, and you can play. You can do this." So great support that way, not like, okay, this is hopeless, this is your fourth surgery it's time to quit.
Which happens to some guys, too, you know? And you need that. You need that -- golf is tough. People don't realize how hard golf is to play day in, day out. The mental grind that you can put yourself through if you're not in the right space. It can get you down and, you know, I've been there and I've been on the other side. I like the other side. I try and work hard to stay on the other side of it.

Q. How long were you sidelined with injuries?

DENIS WATSON: On and off for a long time. I think they had a stat where I think I was 15 years I had 30 starts in tournaments, and most of them were in a few years where I played some tournaments on the Nationwide Tour, trying to get ready to play Senior Tour golf, so it was 46 or 48. So I haven't played much golf.
So it's gratifying to play like I am playing. I hit the ball just as well as I used to. Jim Dent came down to watch me hit some balls and he told me I hit the ball as well as I ever did, and I agree. I think I can hit more shots and -- if I can just coax my brain into coming along with it and trusting.
There's more than just having a great swing and hitting good shots. There is so much mentally -- what is Hogan's statement? "100% mental and 100% physical." You can have it mentally and grind it around, and if you're 100% physical and you don't have the mental, you play like I have for the last few weeks.
You get bad bounces, make mad choices, flounder a little bit and walk off not feeling that good about yourself because you make stupid mistakes. And then there's the other thing, you have to walk off and say, "It's just golf; I'm still the same person." My wife reminds me of that all the time, so I have that.
I had my pastor from my church come to visit from California when we were living out there, at the Cavalry Church out there, Steve Fabian, and he's a great human being. And we would talk about life and how to relate to it through scripture and the instructions that the Bible gives you on how to be, you know, a good working person, and a lot of great things.
So that keeps me centered with people like that around all the time. You can't get bigger than your own life, you know? Try to be humble and have a good attitude, I think, and good things tend to happen.

Q. Do a little advertising on your hat, Logganslaw.com.

DENIS WATSON: It's my wife's thing. It's a charity that makes pins, and she was trying to come up with a way to say thank you to the volunteers, because without them it doesn't work. So a little grassroots movement; we're hoping to get a lot of people wearing the pins and let the volunteers know that we care they give their time and come out and do this.
I know it's about raising charity dollars for their organizations, but it takes these people to give up their time, even though some of them think they're having fun and wouldn't miss it, it takes sacrifice on their part, and I think it's really great.

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