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CHILDREN'S MIRACLE NETWORK CLASSIC PRESENTED BY WAL-MARTNovember 2, 2007Scott VerplankLAKE BUENA VISTA, FLORIDA STEWART MOORE: We'd like to welcome our 36 hole leader, Scott Verplank, to the interview room here at the Children's Miracle Network Classic. Two rounds of 66. You came out today absolutely on fire. You birdied six of your first nine holes, turned at 30, and then you hit a steady par streak. Was that a little disappointing on the back nine given how hot you were on the front? SCOTT VERPLANK: Oh, you know what, not disappointing. But, yeah, I kind of lost my rhythm a little bit. It kind of got windier as the day went on and it's a different direction than you normally see around here. Like I said, I got out of rhythm just a little bit, and kind of struggled to find it. But, you know, I got on such a nice roll in the first nine holes that I didn't just kill myself by making a bunch of pars. STEWART MOORE: Most guys on the PGA TOUR playing well are generally putting well, which you are - 51 putts through two days. Do you feel like you're really feeling it well? SCOTT VERPLANK: These two days are the best I've putted all year, I would think. I've really been struggling with my putting, at least to me. So I've been home for a couple of weeks, and I probably spent two or three hours in the last week. That's how much practice I needed. I went over to the putting green for an hour and figured it out, and I had it all figured out. And as soon as I got here, it was crap. So actually, my caddie, who watches me a lot and helps me a lot, Scott Tway, he said, you need to get your grip back to like you used to have it. And I hadn't felt comfortable, but I did that and it's been great. I've hit a lot of really nice putts that I have not been hitting. Q. When you went back to the way it was, that didn't feel comfortable? SCOTT VERPLANK: Yeah, well, I just had my left hand on the putter. You change little things like that where you might not even notice. But yeah, he said, well, you need to get your left hand turned back out more like you used to, and I did. And I said wow, the other stuff's so crappy, I'll try this for a while again. And I've hit a lot of nice, solid putts. The second nine holes I played today weren't quite as good, but the wind was gusting quite a bit more, so it was a little more up-and-down. And you almost are putting into the wind a couple times. You kind of get hit by a gust and it makes it a little more difficult to hit them all solid and hit them hard enough to go on the right line. But it's pretty good. I hope I keep hitting them as solid as I've been hitting them for a couple of days. STEWART MOORE: You had said, somewhat self-effacingly, when you were in here the other day, because it was wet, slow, and balls were plugging and backing up, that this was not the dream scenario for you. And lo and behold, here we are. I know they've moved some tees up on give you guys a break on some of the longer holes out there, and probably had to, but are you at all surprised to be here atop the board at this point? SCOTT VERPLANK: No. No, I'm not surprised. It definitely helps a little bit that the tees are up on a couple of holes, because they make them quite a bit more scorable. But you know what, I'm sure they're going to move them back tomorrow or the next day. And that's all right. It probably, that's one thing that I didn't like about when they put these new tees in here was the first two days of the Pro-am. And the guys you're playing with, they'd like to see you shoot 65, 64 or 62 or something. And when you make par 4's 510 yards uphill against the wind, and guys are struggling to make a par, that's not any fun. You know what I'm saying? If you paid your money and you're a guest, you'd love to see your pro shoot 62. What's wrong with that? And so I wasn't a fan of trying to make, particularly the Mag course, a whole heck of a lot harder because the scores were too low by somebody's standard. I think that's what amateur guys like to see. They love to see you make ten birdies. It makes them look like they're doing good. Q. You've been here enough to know, but what's it like when you talk about rhythm to stop the Pro-Am and go straight into the regular side of it? SCOTT VERPLANK: Well, it's not too bad. You know what, I think it looked like the cut's going to be so big it's going to play just as slow the next couple of days as it did. I don't know if that's right, but it's really slow. But you know it's going to be slow. The golf course is playing slow. So when you're plugging it, and you're cleaning it off, and lift, clean and place and all that, it slows the whole thing down, too. So you kind of know that coming in. Q. Have you heard anything from the chain of command, be it the PAC or the policy board about perhaps doing something about these enormous cuts? Playing a Saturday cut or something? Talked about it at Wachovia quite a bit. SCOTT VERPLANK: Yeah, I think it was voted down. Q. By who? SCOTT VERPLANK: The PAC, maybe. Q. The guys that aren't playing? SCOTT VERPLANK: I don't know. The PAC, maybe. But I think it was voted on and -- I think it was voted on. It's very top secret. I don't know all that stuff. I think they should cut to the number closest to 70, pretty simple. That way you can finish on the weekends. You know? I mean, you can still pay 70 in ties, but you should cut to the number closest to 70. You don't have to go to 60. If there's 69 guys, 3 under or 4 under and then there's another 20 at 3 under, they should probably cut to 4 and go to those 69 guys. They can still pay the other guys, but just make it -- but that's another idea. Q. (Indiscernible)? SCOTT VERPLANK: More than likely. That's a big cut. STEWART MOORE: It's pretty close to that right now. SCOTT VERPLANK: Yeah, both courses. You'd have to check. You can probably ask somebody. You can ask Bob, he's on the PAC, Bob Tway. I think they voted on it, and it got voted down. Q. Not related to anything you did today - I'm wondering looking back at one of the story lines this year was the Golf Channel moving up to the varsity level and showing this product. I'm wondering in your mind how you thought they did this year? Better than you thought? About what you expected? Needs improvement? SCOTT VERPLANK: Okay, yeah. Q. Check one of those three boxes? SCOTT VERPLANK: You know what -- Q. Do you watch it at all? SCOTT VERPLANK: No, I don't watch very much. I actually really like the primetime deal when they replay it. So if you were doing any good you can go back and watch yourself and make yourself feel good about how great you are, you know? But other than that, I don't watch that much. I have four kids, I don't get to sit around to watch golf, to be quite honest with you. I have enough of my own game to worry about much less watching everybody else. But I'm sure it's good. I think any typical sports fan would prefer -- I would rather it be on ESPN, because ESPN's a bigger name, a bigger network. And you go into a sports bar or whatever and ESPN's always on. And you have to search harder to find the Golf. But if the Tour is going to really back it and push it and try to make it go, it will probably workout fine. I don't think you can grade it on one year. It wouldn't do me any good to grade it on one year. It wouldn't do any good. Q. We'll get back to you in 15 years then? SCOTT VERPLANK: Yeah, ask me in 15 years. That's exactly it. Q. When you made the turn at 30, what were you thinking? SCOTT VERPLANK: What was I thinking? Q. Were you thinking about finishing it? SCOTT VERPLANK: No. You know what, one of the big challenges is when the place is slow, you have Pro-Ams, you try not to think about anything. Really, honestly. Because you're standing around and waiting and it takes forever. Boy, I really was not paying that much attention. I was hitting some decent shots and hitting nice putts, and then we made the turn. You showed up and I got out of rhythm, and you know, my black cat guy comes over there and I start hitting in the rough. I wasn't thinking anything. I just kept thinking make birdies because you know you're going to have to. STEWART MOORE: Speaking of that, do you mind going through your six birdies on the front nine, and your up-and-down on the 18. SCOTT VERPLANK: Sure. Number 10, I made about a 10-footer just short of the green. Chipped off. 11, I made about a 15-footer, really, nice, solid putt. STEWART MOORE: Hit a wedge on that? SCOTT VERPLANK: Yeah, I hit a wedge on 11. Missed on 12. 13 I hit a pitching wedge about a foot so that was good. Hit a beautiful putt on the next hole and it missed. Next hole, the par 3, I hit a 4-iron about, oh, I think 7, 8 feet behind the hole. Another nice putt. And 17, I hit an 8-iron about 20 feet. Center cut. And then 18, I hit a 4-iron about 4 feet and just straight uphill, straight in. Then it just wasn't as good on the other side. STEWART MOORE: Up-and-down on the 9th hole? SCOTT VERPLANK: Well, I was on the fringe. I was only 15 feet from the hole. STEWART MOORE: No bogies through 36? SCOTT VERPLANK: No, I didn't hit a bogey. I hit a really awful iron shot on the 6th hole, the long par 3. Q. It got over the water? SCOTT VERPLANK: It got over the water just barely though. I mean, really fat, really bad shot. I think I left the premises for a few moments there. Anyway, really hit a bad shot. Then I hit a great chip from, you know, pretty far away, really. Bad lie, and chipped it up there about 6 feet below the hole and made the putt. Q. How far was that? SCOTT VERPLANK: Oh, hell it could have been. Q. How far from the hole is it? SCOTT VERPLANK: Does it say? STEWART MOORE: 83 feet. SCOTT VERPLANK: That's very generous of you, Stewart. That was very generous. STEWART MOORE: The one off. SCOTT VERPLANK: You know what, I want to buy real estate from you. If that was 83 feet, then you and I need to make a deal on some real estate. Q. I don't know if you can answer this or not. I'm curious, if you look at the guys that are up there going into the weekend, if it makes a difference this year if you're trying too hard or you've got too many outside activities going on. I mean, you've got yourself who has had a good year and you've won and you're comfortable. Tag Ridings, if he doesn't win, he's out, that kind of situation. Justin, who is not terribly far from your status. Does it matter what you've got when it's the last tournament of the year, how you approach it? SCOTT VERPLANK: I think that's a great question. It is a great question. I know. Five years of dumb questions, and then you got a good one. That's a great question, because that's a struggle that most guys deal with all the time. You know, every week. Every week, every year, whatever is, you -- if you let all that stuff distract you, it makes it that much harder. So that is one of the keys to getting comfortable out here and playing good out here over an extended period of time is to learn how to block all that out, you know, and just play. If you're good enough, if you have enough confidence in yourself, if you're good enough, all that stuff will take care of itself. But you can't force any of that to happen. So the guys that are struggling now to make the cut or to keep their card or do whatever, that is the biggest challenge they have, I think. You know, it's just like the challenge for me is to not get ahead or think too much about winning or anything like that. The challenge for me is just to play my game, do what I can do. Try to do it to the best of my ability. And when it's all over, we'll see where it stacks up. Q. Have you ever picked out a spot on the wall and stared at it? Or lit a candle and just stared at the flame to work on your concentration or anything like that? SCOTT VERPLANK: Oh, golly. I don't think so. Maybe in college I might have done that (laughing). Why, does that help? Q. It came up earlier this week, I'll leave it at that? SCOTT VERPLANK: Really? It might be. I haven't. Q. One of the guys trying to keep his card was working on it, a concentration drill. SCOTT VERPLANK: I have not reached that parallel universe yet. But there are a lot of different things that work for a lot of different people. STEWART MOORE: Good luck this weekend. End of FastScripts |
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