|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE PRO-AMApril 16, 2008Mark WiebeLUTZ, FLORIDA PHIL STAMBAUGH: Maybe talk a little about your thoughts now after winning the Cap Cana Championship, and just a few thoughts on the course? MARK WIEBE: Well, not unlike a lot of places, in that the gallery size blew me away. It was unbelievable, that gallery. As far as the wind goes, it was great. You know, I saved my best golf for Sunday and I just played so good on Sunday, it was -- I really felt playing with Eduardo and Scott that no matter what kind of lead you had, these guys were great players, and I just felt like I had to play well. I just had to play well. So I was kind of geared for that and I just talked to Scott a little bit accurate, and Scott, he played nicely, didn't have his best day. Anyway my goal was to play as good as I could on Sunday and I really played nice. Really played nice. Felt like I deserved to win. Didn't luck into it. And it was my second win out here and it really was, to, me, not anybody else, heck check but to me was a real statement for me to know that the first one wasn't a fluke. PHIL STAMBAUGH: Take us back a little bit, this is your first strip out here to Tampa, you had a sponsor he exemption to the event in Raleigh and you came out here without any status and you've really taken the Champions Tour by force. Maybe some thoughts about where you were coming into your Champions Tour career. MARK WIEBE: Well, I've been injured for so long, it's hard for me even to remember. I went through some surgery on my elbow and a series of injections on my feet; I had plantar fasciitis and just seemed to be hurt a lot. When I got healthy, I was playing on the Nationwide Tour and I just wanted to get my game in shape and my whole goal was to get my game in shape when I turned 50 to have a shot and be ready to qualify; that was my first and foremost thought. I want to get in and see how I can do. I don't know that I've taken anything by storm, that's not for me to say. I just think once I got healthy and played on the Nationwide, that helped me so much playing. I played the last six tournaments on the Nationwide. I made five cuts out of six tournaments, I was 30-under par, and my stroke average was I think 69.4 something and I made $25,000 in that time, and I came home thinking, 'I don't think I can afford this'; I just played really good. This is really good golf for six weeks. The cut I missed, I was even. I just played great and I was kind of up in arms thinking, I didn't know what was going on, and I was actually planning on qualifying. I didn't get an exemption until -- I'm guessing maybe Thursday-ish before the tournament they called and said, "We have a spot and we would like to have you." I was so geared to what I was going. I kept my flight, which coming in on Saturday, getting ready for the Monday qualifying and went out with the practice round of the qualifying just to play. The course we played on the Nationwide in Raleigh there, TPC Wakefield Plantation, I went out and played. The whole day I was kind of, you know, trying to figure the course out and I kept thinking to my caddie, I wanted to get my game in shape, I was ready to rock and ready to go for the tournament and not knowing what was in store for me. I just played really nice golf. My key for that week was to play as hard as I could through the last hole of the tournament and see how I stacked up. That's all I wanted to do. I thought if I just played really hard, I just want to see how I rank this week, and I just had a great week. You know, everybody saw all the putts I made, and I did putt well, but I would say it's the best I have ever driven the ball. Every hole, I watch it on tape, and, that's a pretty good drive, and I kept saying that. Coincidentally, I drove the ball great at Cap Cana, too. You don't always see those drives -- there are some hard driving holes out there and drove the ball great and set myself up to maybe have a good week if I made the best of it. I was in the fairway a lot. You know, so here I am, maybe I can continue playing -- at least physically, but mentally, I want to play hard. I just want to play. PHIL STAMBAUGH: Did you get a chance to go around the course? MARK WIEBE: I did. Actually I played in the Pro-Am on Monday. Walter asked me if I would play on the Monday Pro-Am, and knowing that at the time I didn't think I was going to be in either Pro-Am, and actually I'm not in either Pro-Am. So I got a good look at it on Monday, pretty windy. And I played a practice round Tuesday and I'm going to play nine today and nine tomorrow in the afternoon just to make sure I have everything located and try to figure out the course. PHIL STAMBAUGH: You played in the AT&T on the PGA TOUR, sort of the same format as this week; are you okay playing this kind of golf? MARK WIEBE: Oh, sure, this kind of format doesn't bother me a bit. I think it's fun. You know, Pebble Beach is a different golf course. It's on the other side of the country, and I've had some nice finishes there throughout the years. I'm excited to play in this tournament. You know, being it's my first Pro-Am -- it will be my first one on the Champions Tour playing with an amateur. I'm excited to play. The golf course is hard. It's a hard golf course. Pebble is, too, if we're comparing, but this is a hard golf course. Q. At the Cap Cana, was that your first look at that golf course, and can you look at a course -- this will be your first look at this course. Can you kind of have any idea if you can score on a course in your first round or two? MARK WIEBE: You know, you hope you can. The thing I had going for me at Cap Cana is we were all basically looking at the course for the first time, so we were all on even ground. This week will be a little different because there's a lot of guys who have played here already a lot, and I haven't. But you know, when you're playing, the other guys -- it doesn't really matter, you're still trying to map it out. I don't hit it the same distance, and I hit different shots and I might hit it lower or higher depending on the wind. So I'm doing my best to map out how I want my strategy for the week, and it's -- I'm not there yet, for sure, with only two rounds in, just trying to figure out, actually, where to miss the ball. You know, do you want to be short -- I know there's three holes in particular, I think 13 and 3 and maybe another one where you just do not want to be over the green. Things like that is what I'm trying to get all in a row here. But I think I can be prepared by Friday; I'm hoping so, is my plan. It's hard when you haven't seen a course and trying to figure out how it's going to play now. I've only played it in the wind, too, so if the wind dies, it kind of squelches a lot of our ideas; like this might not be driver off the tee, or in some cases it is driver; but if the wind dies, it's not a driver off the tee. That's what my caddie and I are trying to do, and we're going to do today and again tomorrow is just try to figure out where not to be long, where not to be short and then just go play. Q. In the course of senior golf history, there always seems to be a period or an era where just a handful of players become the flag bearers of that stretch. I guess most recent was Hale and Dr. Gil maybe. Obviously it seems to a point where this is like the changing of the guard for the Champions Tour. Do you see that, and I guess what do you think goes into becoming that flag bearer? MARK WIEBE: Well, thanks for the compliment. I still look at Hale and Gil and I don't think they are ready to give up anything yet. They are awful good players; and I played with Vicente Fernandez last week, and I think he shot 65 during the final round of the tournament. Those guys are good players, and I do understand what you're saying. You know, I don't know the answer to that. I just think that the TOUR produces great players, which you can see with the guys you mentioned with Hale and Scott and Tom Kite and Watson; you could name everybody. But it's hard to even think about a changing of the guard and these are guys I've played with. When I first got on the TOUR, these are the guys I played with, and these were them. That's what is one of the cool things about this Tour is I'm playing with the same guys that I first started the TOUR with, and it's such a great bunch of guys; the best golfers that walked on the planet for a long time. It's an honor to play with them for sure. You know, we'll see what happens, what's in store. I know there's a whole bunch of guys coming from the TOUR, Dan Forsman and Larry Mize is coming out, and I don't want to start naming guys, because I'll forget somebody but we'll have a lot of guys coming from the TOUR. These are all names that people recognize. If I take myself out of being a golfer and a guy that watched the TOUR, these were the guys I remember watching. I couldn't name 20 guys on the TOUR now. I don't have that interest like watching; like I had the interest of watching Fuzzy and Hubert and Johnny Miller and Hale and Lanny Watkins and Raymond Floyd and on and on and on. So I don't -- my age, all my buddies that are my age have a hard time following the TOUR, too. I'm not knocking the TOUR. We just didn't grow up watching those guys on TV, and they are younger now. Frankly, you can't -- if you go to the range and you watch guys hit balls on TOUR, I couldn't tell you who was swinging. If I go to the range here, I can tell you a hundred yards away; there's Curtis, there's Lietzke, there's Raymond, because they all have their swing, their personality shows in their golf swing. And I think that's maybe another thing that attracts guys of my age to watch this Tour is you recognize that. You can see somebody swinging, and it's cool to see a guy that isn't a robot. I'm probably getting off the subject a little bit, but we were talking about it the other day, and it's really cool to see some of the golfers. Thanks again for the compliment, but I don't know about the passing of the torch or anything. Hopefully I'm one of the guys that keeps on winning, for sure. Q. Since the Senior Tour was out there, the incentive for a lot of guys to keep playing, and thus the quality probably on this Tour has risen in direct regard to that, but are we to a point now that you're really seeing the dividends; that people have now been grinding all the way to getting here, or are we already past that point? MARK WIEBE: If I understand that, no. I think what the whole wave that's going to be coming through, I think we are going to keep seeing it. Again, from my age of guy, my age of person, you're going to see that, because we know Dan Forsman, we've seen him on TV and Larry Mize, obviously, winning the Masters. You're going to keep seeing guys, at least the next five or six years coming, and they are coming. You know, they might look at somebody like me and think, if he can win, I can win. So I think it's -- I told Joey last week, because Joey had some questions and I said, "I'm not the guy to talk to." I've played 11 tournaments going into last week. I said there are some neat things about this Tour, there are some really neat things, and one of them is what I've already mentioned. Seeing the guys you grew up playing with on the TOUR, and like I said, it's going to keep coming. This is a pretty big wave coming in over the next five years, where you'll see a lot of great golf and great champions. I hope that answers your question. Q. Any memories from the '89 U.S. Open at Oak Hill? MARK WIEBE: You mean like maybe a hole-in-one or something? Q. That has probably followed you around your whole career, because it was such a unique event with the four of them happening in two hours. In the last 20 years since it happened, has it followed you around forever? MARK WIEBE: Yeah, it's a great trivia question, I have to tell you, and a lot of people don't know it Doug Weaver, because Doug is not playing anymore as far as I know. It's a great trivia question. That was unbelievable. That was like a dream, because I her every roar. And when I got to the sixth hole, I had just doubling bogeyed five and I was pissed. My attitude -- I'm a lot different now, but I was just mad. When I made my shot, my first one thought was: "Good, I got that double back," because I made a stupid double-bogey on 5. Instead of thinking, "wow, again," as I would look at it now, and think, "my God, another ace." I was just happy I got my two shots back from the previous hole. I was young and obnoxious and getting mad at stupid things. But what a feat. And again, I heard every roar, and you knew where it was coming from because of the way the course was laid out. You heard the first one and you go, "Hole-in-one," and we play a couple more holes and another one, and you go, "No way." I think I was the third. When mine happened, my attitude wasn't that good. So I was just happy, I didn't think about being the third guy. I think when we were walking up 9, and in an hour and 50 minutes it all happened. And I think I was walking up 9 and heard another one and I thought, "Are you kidding me?" And so we were listening the rest of the day and we heard all of the: "Wow, the pin is in an easy spot" and "of course there's going to be aces." And I'm thinking, "Come on, the hole is that big and the ball is that big." I don't care if you put it in the easiest spot in the world, for four of them to go in in an hour and 50 minutes was unbelievable. Q. Now going back for the Senior PGA, I would think that you're probably excited about that, just because of what happened, and going to play a great golf course, too, if you can share some memories outside of the aces? MARK WIEBE: It's an unbelievably excellent golf course, just fabulous golf course. And the thing I remember about Oak Hill and a lot of courses like that are at the end of the day, we will probably have hit every club in our bag maybe twice and we'll probably hit some hooks and some fades and some highs and some lows. And you know, it really tests your whole bag, and it's a thinking golf course. You've got to be on top of your game mentally. You cannot slip. It's just one of those courses. I don't know what the setup is going to be like, but I would imagine it's going to be pretty tough. Courses like that demand your full attention for 18 holes and there's not one shot out there you could pick and go, "Thank God I've got an easy shot." There's not one. Coincidentally, I played on the Nationwide Tour last year at Irondequoit, and not even thinking about the Senior PGA is going to be here or anything, it was just neat to be there. I think I finished in the Top 15 there on the Nationwide, and that's a pretty good finish for a 49-and-a-half-year-old to go around there against those kids and to play. Again, Irondequoit was similar, a lot of bouncing the ball up and not flying the ball to the hole and spinning it. You really have to know the golf course. And I tell my caddie all the time, I want to fall in love with the greens. That's what I want to do. I want to do that this week, too. But in a major, you just want to fall in love with the greens and that's just not putting, it's chipping, pitching, trap shot. You just want to know and have the feeling that you might know what to expect with the reaction of the ball. You know, is it a course that's going to chase a little bit; do you have to play it off some mounds. You know, like I said, it demands your full attention, and I'm very excited. This year for me is incredible for the majors. At least three of them, I've played Troon, love Troon, and we're playing the Senior British there. Playing at the Broadmoor in Colorado for the U.S. Senior Open down the road from my house. Playing in Rochester where I've already played, great golf course, can't say enough about it. Those three tournaments, I'm excited for all of them but those three are pretty exciting for me to play a course that I've played in the past and maybe had a little success on, too. Q. This is the first trip here to this golf course, and you asked some people what their thoughts are coming to the course and maybe a little scouting report on it; just out of local curiosity, what do they tell you about this, and how did it differ from how they would maybe describe any number of other golf courses that you would have asked about? MARK WIEBE: That's a good question. I've actually heard no bad things about the course. If anything, everyone has told me that I've talked to on my scouting report -- because I do go to Jay Haas a lot, and said, "Would you mind being my big brother and telling me where to stay and what to do and all that stuff." Everybody has said this is one of the top courses that we play on the Champions Tour, everybody. I'm not really a Florida guy, nothing personal. I grew up on the west coat so I don't know that I've ever really played well in Florida to tell you the truth. The golf course is tough. I mean, it's tough and everybody said it's a tough golf course. The thing that's different, I guess, is that it was played in February in the past and it not this year. So being a little later, everyone said the weather should be good. On Monday and Tuesday, I sure didn't see what they were talking about, windy as hell, and I thought, oh, my God, this is a hard golf course. Some of the courses we play on this TOUR, they are not bad. They are just not as difficult, I guess you could say, maybe a little bit more wider fairways, softer. So far out of my 12 tournaments, we played some courses that the green slides to the hole and just stops. I would say this; you've kind of got to know the bumps and which way the ball is going to roll once you hit the green. Unless they water the course a lot over the next couple of days, this is definitely going to be, you know -- for instance, on 10, if the pin was back left, I'm not going to be able to fly it there. I'm going to have to work my ball and chase it back there. Those are the things that make golf courses hard, too. You may have to go over here to get your ball to go over there, and that's neat. That's creativity and that's a different brand of golf, and you know, like I said before, you just have to be ready to go and you have to be on top of your game. I think the winning score was 4-under here last year, and I know we're in a different month, but it's a hard golf course. Since the wind blows, it's all you want. Again that's what the guys told me. They said this is a good golf course, everybody. Not one guy said, nah. This is a tough golf course. Q. There are obviously exemptions, but in many cases, you do not have to have been a great player on the regular tour to come out here and end up being a great Champions Tour player. Why do you think that is? Is it simply some guys are just more motivated, is it as simple as that, and work a little harder than a past megastar, or is there a theory? MARK WIEBE: You know, that's a great question and I have a feeling it's probably some guys want to be playing because they just want to be playing golf, and they are on the all-time Money List and they have lots of money and they are just playing because they like to play. I'm still playing for a living. When people say, what do you do for a living, I say, "I golf." And "Okay, so what else?" "No, that's what I do." You know, in my case, and I think they are all individual, when I left the TOUR, it wasn't just I wanted to. It was because I couldn't go anymore. My elbow was in bad shape, and it was in Las Vegas that I just had to stop. I couldn't lift my arm and it hurt while I was awake. So I didn't leave on my terms at all, and I felt like it was cut short. So for me, now that I'm healthy again, this is kind of just me playing golf, and I'm kind of getting back those years that I had to go through surgeries and injuries, and now that I'm healthy, I get to do what I did when I left off last. So I'm going to be different than a lot of guys. I'm just trying to get back to where I was when I had to stop the TOUR, and there might be guys that come out and play for a living; guys that come out and play; guys that come out and play because they are bored, they have nothing else to do. I just think that's very individual with each guy. PHIL STAMBAUGH: Mark, thank you. Good luck this week. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|