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THE SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY ABERDEEN ASSET MNGT

July 26, 2007

Dave Stockton

GULLANE, SCOTLAND

DAVE SENKO: We welcome Dave Stockton.

Q. Obviously an impressive round, did you have expectations of having a good week?
DAVE STOCKTON: I had expectations of having a fun week. I had more fun on the golf course than what I intended. This all started back in January when my son, Ronny, caddied for me, asked me that at some point in time he wanted to caddie and come over here because he had never come to Scotland and my wife, Kathy, had cancer last year and she couldn't, so this year, she set me up and goes, "Let's go, let's go." And I'm going, "oh, boy."
Yeah, it was planned. We came in last Wednesday, Christy O'Connor Jr. got us set up over there in Ireland and played some courses. And we prepared, just like Tiger making a swing before he played the regular British Open. And Kathy and I have memories here, we stayed at Graywalls (Hotel) and played in '72, I don't know how many Americans are here that played '72, but we had a fabulous time.
The combination of knowing it was Muirfield and coming back, I just -- my game, I'm 65 now, so my game is rusty. I had a 10th praise finish in Iowa probably a month ago and did not make the cut at the U.S. Open. But actually my ball-striking was pretty darned good there. I did come over with expectations of sticking around but I wasn't expecting to see my name at the top of the board.

Q. To an extent are you kind of feeding off memories?
DAVE STOCKTON: No, because I don't remember that much about it. I remember it was terribly tough. You know, the rough was high before, but it was wispy. You could get out and see the fairways better. The thing I don't remember is how difficult it is to see the fairways because of the greens, the growth we have on the bottom and then the grass on top we can't see the bunkers. It was harder to drive this year than '72, that's for sure, at least that's my perspective of it.
I remember Muirfield as just being so darned difficult, you didn't relax at any point in time and that's true -- they have changed somewhat. I think that the new tee on 6 is moved back a little bit. The guys I played with blew right over those bunkers, but I can't even come close to doing that. I laughed; they hit 7- or 8-iron and I'm hitting 5 at it because I don't dare try to cut the corner. I was still upset that I bogeyed the last hole but I hit a lot of quality shots.

Q. How is your good lady, is she well?
DAVE STOCKTON: Yeah, she's got a big smile on her face back there. She's doing good. She walked all four rounds that we played in Ireland at Lahinch and Doonbeg and she walked the entire way. She walked the entire afternoon, no way you're going to keep her from being out here.

Q. Did you have the possibility of shooting your age today?
DAVE STOCKTON: Oh, God, I never thought about that. (Laughter) I never even thought of it. No, I did, because I thought it was a par 72. I was pleasantly surprised to see the guy in the scoring tent record a 68, and so I thought, good, it's a par 71. I did not think of that.
I did shoot my age this year in Newport. Bogeyed two out of the first three holes I played and came back and shot 65.
If I had birdied 17, but then I would have had a real heart attack on 18. That would have been a story. I'll have to think about that more.

Q. You won the U.S. Seniors in '96?
DAVE STOCKTON: The U.S. Senior Open in '96.

Q. What would it mean to add the British Open alongside that?
DAVE STOCKTON: Holy cow, well, to win one across the pond here would just mean the world, obviously. If I won three majors now on the Champions Tour, two Players and one U.S. Open, this would be phenomenal.
I'm not going there. I know I've made the golf course a hell of a lot easier for a lot of players, when they see my name up there going, 'How the hell is he up there.' I've peaked a little early which is not good, I don't think because there's a lot of guys that are going to say, 'Well, if he did that, I certainly can do that.'

Q. Do you play a full schedule each year or do you pick and choose?
DAVE STOCKTON: I kind of did -- I was playing Boston last year when she discovered the cancer, so we basically immediately stopped and I played three more tournaments the rest of the year. I tried to play a few more. I'm in the Twilight Zone; I'm exempt because of what I have won and everything, but I would like to bump it back up to 16 or 17 tournaments next year.
And I'm still competitive. I mean, came to Ireland with us, they just laughed at me. We're playing fun, Irish golf and I'm as competitive as you can get. I mean, you've got to do something. It's not hunting season all year long. I love to hunt. I could be going gardening or something else so I might as well be out here. To answer your question, I would like to play more because I do tend to play better because when I go home, I don't like to practise and I get really rusty when I sit there and garden all day long. This helped me last week to be in Ireland all that time and playing hard.

Q. Would you like to see a senior Ryder Cup?
DAVE STOCKTON: I have been pushing for that and I don't know where that is. I hear talk of it. I know Christy O'Connor Jr., at one point he and I were working really hard, and he obviously has ties in Ireland to get it over here, and it should be done.
First of all, it's really neat to see The Open -- when I played if the 60s and 70s my best golf, a lot of it -- I played the British Open three times, but it was summertime and I did not want to leave my family at home to travel over here and now everybody comes.
Well, what you're seeing is everybody is coming to the Senior Open now, the rotation you play, the golf courses. I played Royal County Down. I missed last year with Kathy being sick, but I just think it's phenomenal to see how it's grown and helped both tours, helped the European Senior Tour and our tour to help this much interest from our side of the pond come over here and support it, because you always have the interest over here. I think it's a marvelous venue, and of course you can't have a great golf tournament if you don't have a great golf course; you can pretend you do. There was a lot of excitement on our side of the pond when it was announced we were coming over this week.

Q. The downslope, that you're fighting the clock all the time with age, what's making the difference, is equipment helping you play longer?
DAVE STOCKTON: Definitely the equipment, clubs are a huge thing. A combination, agronomy is better than it used to be. Muirfield was not in this condition in '72, the rough is a lot higher and thicker but these greens are like carpets to me. I know you've had a lot of rain but the conditions -- the players are in better shape, the equipment is better, the agronomy is better. It all adds up.
And I think a lot of us -- I will say, when I was 40, when you start on the Tour, when you get about 40, you're figuring that was going to be it. You can give lessons, I was going to do corporate outings, whatever, all of a sudden, the Senior Tour comes up and now you start gearing up for it.
And there's quite a few of us that are in better shape when we hit 50 than certainly when we were 40. Now we can see we've got this open window again that you can get them. And it's kind of comparable. It's no piece of cake. I mean, we'll see how Nick, obviously is clear-cut the favourite and everything; we'll see what he does.
But there's a whole handful of guys, and if guys that didn't do that good on the Tour like Loren Roberts particularly, and now all of a sudden he comes out here, or look at Jay Haas, they are competing every week and they are right there.
Our tour, and I don't speak for The European Tour, but it's extremely competitive on our tour.

Q. You said you played The Open three times; do you remember what your best finish was?
DAVE STOCKTON: No, I can't. I remember that I finished here, I remember funny stories at Muirfield. Princess Margaret was in the room and I remember Weiskopf throwing his pillow on her and he made everybody gasp when he made Princess Margaret move her leg. And I whispered him, "Do you know who that is?" And he had no clue and he turned around and got into a great conversation with her asking her if she liked golf and played golf and all that stuff.
Our opening memories in '72 were so cool. There was a rose garden here in '72, they have grass there now, but we opened our windows in our room and looked out, and who is on the 10th tee but Bobby Locke with a long-sleeved shirt and tie tucked in and I'm going, wow. I saw Gary Player practising this week, and I walked over and talked to him and I said, "This completes my picture. I've seen the South Africans off the 10th tee at Muirfield here." So it was cool.

Q. Can you go through your card?
DAVE STOCKTON: Birdied No. 2 maybe a 10-foot putt. I made a long par putt on 1. I got in the trouble on right on 1. And then I birdied 5, the par 5, and made a pretty good putt there. That was 20 feet or so.
Then 9, I made about a 5- or 6-footer, and about an 8- or 9-footer at 10.
18 was a disaster. 18 was a good drive down the left. I had 213 or something, and tried to hit a 5-wood that I might as well have been using a whiffle ball. Then tried to do an American chip in the middle of the British Senior Open; didn't work. Wrong club, wrong idea and I'm sitting there knowing it when I did it. One of those things, you've got to learn.

Q. And what happened at 9?
DAVE STOCKTON: I was in the right rough and laid up short of the bunker with a 5-wood and then hit a 9-iron to, like I said, four or five feet. Hit a good shot. Only had a few adventures. But the guys -- I felt like I was one putting every green starting out and I mean, 3, I hit it in the left rough and left it on the front edge of the green, and I must have had 100 feet and left that one 20 feet short, promptly drained it.
Like I mentioned, 6, the par 4, these guys hit 7- or 8-iron and I'm hitting a 5-wood at it and I got that up-and-down in two.
And missed 7 to the right. Almost holed a chip shot, put it about an inch.
Then I got on a string and played pretty good until we almost had a fold-up on 15. Knocked it too far through the green and left it about 18 feet and holed that for par.
Then didn't birdie 17, that was playing straight downwind and that was too bad. If I had been thinking about breaking my age -- probably should have.
DAVE SENKO: Thank you very much.

End of FastScripts

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