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TOSHIBA CLASSICMarch 6, 2008Fred FunkNEWPORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA DAVE SENKO: You're headed to the golf course Fred, but you're back on the Champions' Tour. Just maybe talk about what you've been keeping busy with the last -- since Hawaii. FRED FUNK: Yeah, really busy. I haven't taken but one week off, and that was at Pebble Beach. Played pretty good and played pretty solid on the regular tour, other than I've been having a little trouble with some Sundays. The Sunday at Turtle Bay was brutal and I didn't play well that day obviously. Been playing pretty solid, and overall it's just a little lack of scoring in the last few weeks. Not really getting rewarded for some of my good shots, and then my bad shots, I don't turn those into saves. That's been a little discouraging, but I've been working really hard and really looking forward to still playing every week. Coming out here to Newport was one where -- you know, I'm still torn between which tour to play. I was torn between playing Innisbrook and Bay Hill versus Newport and Valencia. I heard a lot of good things about this course. I played it actually my rookie year in '89 when I think they called it the Little Crosby. I think I forgot how good it was. It's a really fun and good golf course, one that obviously you got to shoot some low numbers because there's a lot of opportunities for birdie out there. But at the same time, it's not easy to putt out there when the greens get a little bumpy. I'm excited about being here. DAVE SENKO: Are you going to play at Valencia next week? FRED FUNK: Yeah, I haven't even committed yet. I got to decide before I tee off tomorrow what we're going to do. I like the Valencia when I played it when it was the L.A. Open. I do remember that golf course, and it's very difficult golf course, which I like. I think it's very challenging and would reward a guy that's really playing well. That's my bottom line, what I'm trying to do, and I think anybody that's playing on the Tour, when they're playing well they get reward. They want to play a golf course that rewards that, and not one that you can just kind of fake it and get it up and down and get in the grass and get it up and down all the time. Although Tiger does a good job of doing that, not everybody can do that. Valencia is one of those golf courses where you got to keep the ball on the fairways. Usually has high roughs. It's pretty long. I'm just debating on more the weather conditions more than anything else. Just get a little tired of damp, cold weather out here on the west coast. My body doesn't react too good to the cold stuff anymore, so we're kind of looking in the lodge-range forecast. And then Bay Hill, supposedly the greens aren't that good right now, so I'm not sure whether that's good or bad for me. Got to talk with my wife a little bit. She might be the one to talk about that up here. Q. As someone who plays both tours, how much does it help you to play the Mercedes and Sony and then carry it right over into this tournament? FRED FUNK: What was neat about that is it was a big goal of mine, even the first year, was to win on both tours and get all four of those. I kind of named it the Hawaiian Slam. Then when I did that, when I won Cancun last year and I won at Turtle Bay just before that, I knew I had all four of those tournaments. That's another goal of mine this year, is to -- it would be really neat to do that because no one-- well, Stadler didn't play all three. He was eligible for all of them, or all four. But just start the year that way is pretty neat. It just rewards your accomplishment, I think. Just a good way to start the year. No matter what the whether is at Kapalua, it's still a nice place to start the year at. Really I look back, and really from the Sunday of Sony's round through the two weeks on the Champions' Tour it was windy every single day. That wears on you after a while. You get over a shot and you never really can hit a normal golf shot. You're always trying to do something with the golf ball: keep it down or keep it out of the wind in some way. It got a little frustrating at the end, especially that last day. I'm sure it blew at least 40 day at Turtle Bay. The round Jerry Pate had was well-deserved of a win. That was a great day for him. But as far as how it helped my game, I can't say it helped my game one way or the other. It was just fun to achieve that goal. Q. How is your schedule going to break up this year between the tours? FRED FUNK: Right now it's almost half and half. I'm going to play almost 15 each, so it really depends on how I do in the FedExCup and whether I qualify for the U.S. Open. I have to qualify for that, and the PGA Championship is based on money or world ranking. Right now I got to depend on the money. I don't know where I am on that list right now, but I should be able to make the PGA. I qualified last year for the Open, and I'd like to go even though I don't play Torrey Pines anymore in San Diego. But to play the U.S. Open there would be pretty neat. I like hard golf courses. When I'm playing good, it doesn't really matter the length. When par is a good number, I like those days. I don't usually like birdie-fests. Even though a lot of tournaments I've won have been way under par, I still like the tougher ones. Q. Speaking of tougher ones, Scott Hoch was in here and he said that you kind of told him that Honda would be a good event for you guys to play. He said, I'm going to kill him. Was it that hard? FRED FUNK: Well, the Honda is set up like a major. What I'm really happy about with Honda is that Honda has been a long, long time sponsoring it and they finally got a good venue to play at and set it up similar to a major. I don't know if that's Jack's influence or the tour or what, but that's a tough hombre down there. 6-under won this year and 5-under last year. That's a major-championship-winning score, so that alone tells you how tough the golf course is. Q. How long do you see yourself playing both tours? Are you going to move over here full time? FRED FUNK: Well, for me, as long as I feel competitive, I feel like I can still compete with the young guys on those golf courses, then I'm going to cherry pick a little more. I'll try to pick the venues that are good for me, or tournaments where I played well in the past. I could see that happening for a while. When I'm healthy I feel fine. When everything is working on my body, I feel like I'm hitting the ball better now and I'm a better player now than I was ever in my career. When I play with them I don't feel like I'm losing that much, other than some of the top guys. Obviously the upper crust guys are really, really good and they're good for a reason. But I still feel like I can even beat them on a given day, and I have. I did it at the PLAYERS Championship. You get me on the right course and I'm playing good, I'm not going to back down to anybody. Biggest thing for me is just how I feel. I don't think it's so much my quality of my game, it's more the quality of my body and how that's working. Last year it was a back issue, and so far this year been pretty good. I'm hoping that is not going to be an issue. Q. Are you finding that decision-making process difficult? FRED FUNK: What's hard is that -- and it's frustrating, is, you know, if you do both tours you're diluting yourself from any really high finishes in the end-of-the-year stuff. If it matters to you to win the Schwab Cup or finish high in the FedExCup, it'll be difficult to do those when you're diluting yourself. Although Watson I think one year won the Schwab Cup playing 12 events. I think I could play well enough out here, if I played really, really good out here, playing 14 or 15 senior tour events or Champions' Tour events, I could probably do pretty well on the Schwab Cup. I'd have to dominate, and that's some good playing to do that, especially with the quality of guys that are coming up right now and coming out here now. But I don't want to give up. I really enjoy playing with the young guys. I still have a lot of friends out there, and a lot of them are young guys. I really kind of like being looked at as the old guy out there. Although they always questions me when I go out there as to why I'm out there, so... Q. Scott was in here earlier and is on a little bit of a streak. Is it on this tour like the other tour, he's the guy to beat? Do you look at that as a target? FRED FUNK: When he has two in a row, yeah, I think he probably is a target right now. But, you know, the biggest difference out here is that when you're playing three-round events it's like a sprint compared to those four. You got to get off to a good start and I don't think anybody is really pinpointed on one guy. A guy can really get rolling and take control of the tournament early. I saw Purtzer shot a 60, a course record; that's pretty good. I think there's enough guys that -- and usually the way the golf course is set up, you just got to keep the pedal to the metal the whole time. Just keep trying to make birdies. On the regular tour you can afford a mediocre round and still even win a tournament in the four days, especially on the tough golf courses. But you still got to -- you better have a low one in there on the regular tour. DAVE SENK: Anything else? Q. The whole last press conference Tiger's name didn't come up, and you brought it up once here. One thing I wanted to ask, is Tiger's talked about winning a Grand Slam in one year. Is that something you can even imagine, ten, twenty years ago somebody even bringing up and how people would look at it? FRED FUNK: They probably brought it up when Nicklaus was dominating, and they might have brought it up when Watson was dominating. I don't know if they brought it up when Nick Price was No. 1. But, you know, right now I just actually threw out that I think he's going to go undefeated throughout the year, and I exempted Match Play from that before Match Play. I'm going to throw that one out of it because anything can happen, and he won that one. Who knows? But he's the only guy on the whole planet that I would think has the chance of winning all four majors. No one else you would even say that. As good as Phil or Ernie Els or Vijay at his best, you can't throw them in the bucket that Tiger's in there and say, Maybe one of those four. No. One guy can do it, and Tiger is obviously the guy. He's remarkable. And it's not even his physical game, it's his mental game that's the difference between him and everybody else. Everybody knows it and he knows it. Everybody's trying to figure out how he's so strong in that was, but it was bred in him, I think. He's been winning since day one right out of the crib. He's been trained to compete, and he's won and excelled and dominated at every single level. It's not news to him -- or not news, it's not new to him. It's just what he does. He's a different animal. Q. As far as goals still on the PGA Tour, could one of them possibly be -- you could mention others -- maybe just to go against Tiger again? Maybe take him down in a tournament? FRED FUNK: Well, if I had a dream scenario, yeah, it would be -- I would say a dream scenario would be to go to Torrey Pines where he was probably given the trophy and they already etched his name in it, and go toe to toe with him, mano e mano (sic) down the last few holes and I beat him. But I think everyone would have that dream, though. I wouldn't be the only guy. I think the possibility of more on a golf course like the PLAYERS Championship. I love to contend at that one again. That's a golf course I feel comfortable on and know I can play well. It's not only a bomber's golf course. There's no substitute for length, but I know I can -- and anyone can really win on that kind of golf course the way that one sets up. I like to come down mano e mano (sic) against him on that one. Q. How does it course set up for your game in the state your game's in right now? FRED FUNK: It's good, really. You got to be really good off the tee. You have about four or five holes out there that are really tough driving holes that you got to get it in play. Not necessarily they're drivers, but you got to get it in play. Couple real severe greens you got to be careful of. But a golf course that you should have a lot of shots at birdies. Par 3s are good. I'm hitting the ball really solid right now and I putted well today, which is the thing I've been really working hard on that the last few weeks. Today it final showed signs of coming around, and hopefully I can carry that into tomorrow and the next two days and the rest of my life. Who knows. DAVE SENKO: Okay. Thanks. 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