	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE PRO-AM

April 17, 2008

Jeff Sluman

LUTZ, FLORIDA

JEFF SLUMAN: Now been out on the road for a long, long time and now we're out on this Champions Tour. It's great. Glad to be here, and it was time to go.

Q. What's it been like, the guys have said they miss the big tour and the fun out there, but these really are the guys you grew up playing golf with, and has it been fun to come back and play golf with these guys?
JEFF SLUMAN: To answer your question, yeah, it's been very fun to come back here. These are most of the guys that I started with on TOUR in '83, '84, '85 years, and you walk in the locker room and basically you know everybody. That's a little different than the last four or five years on TOUR with all the influx of great, young, talented kids, but you don't really get a chance to cross paths with them too much; a couple generations' difference.
So it is, it's fun, it's more relaxed out here and you know, actually surprisingly, I would say I really don't miss the other tour that much. But do I still wish I had the game I had when I was 30? Yeah, you'd line to being out there, but this is life and the way that it is, and I'm 50 and very happy that I'm out here exempt and still playing golf.

Q. You were in the unique position lately with Jack in that you were in closer contact with the younger guys because of The Presidents Cup. A lot of these guys have lost touch with a lot of the kids out there. You were in a different situation. If you could just discuss that a little bit.
JEFF SLUMAN: Well, I had still played a full schedule, so I knew everybody out there for the most part, especially the guys that were going to be making the teams, and you had a lot of guys that were on the teams -- four guys, David Toms, Jim Furyk, Phil and Tiger, that played on all three teams.
So you had a great base of guys that you knew very, very well, and of course, all the guys that made it two or three times, the DiMarcos, Scott Verplank, Charles Howell and those guys. We don't hang out together on the regular TOUR, but we have certainly played enough together and talked and all of that that I was very, very comfortable with all the guys out there.

Q. What do you miss most about the regular TOUR, the golf courses or the competition?
JEFF SLUMAN: Well, it's not the competition, because if you look at the competition out here, it's just as fierce. I think you miss a lot of the familiar faces that you've seen for 20 years from volunteers to people in the crowd, played 20-something years in Milwaukee and 20-something years at the Buick. You get to see a lot of people all the time. That was probably -- that's probably the biggest thing that I do miss.

Q. Tell me about your golf career, is it six wins, there have been guys out here who have said you have got so much out of your golf career because of your stature in size; would you agree with that assessment that you've really gone above and beyond, because you weren't Davis Love long?
JEFF SLUMAN: It was different back then, though. I was long enough. Certainly in the wooden-club days and the balata ball days, I was certainly more than average off the tee. So length was never really an issue.
Have I accomplished a lot? Probably more than people would have thought would I have when I first turned pro. But if I look back at it, I lost six playoffs, numerous other opportunities that frankly if my short game was better, I probably -- I know would I have had a lot more wins. But you know, that's just the way it goes. I still have had a very, very nice career and I do have a major, which is pretty darn important, and when it's all said and done, I can look back on it very, very proudly.

Q. Out here now, when you came out in September, you played a few last year, did you have the expectation that like all 50-year-olds coming out that you were going to win and you were going to win multiple times?
JEFF SLUMAN: Not really. I think I was on the GOLF CHANNEL a few times early on and they asked me basically the same question. I couldn't have been more candid in that. I just said, you know, I really kind of learned how to compete again, because the last couple years on TOUR, I really had not had that much opportunities to get myself in positions to win and get your belly jumping and stuff like that.
So I knew I had to kind of learn that, and another candid assessment is irrespective of whatever tour you're on, if you don't drive it pretty straight and you're not making too much putts, you know what, you're not going to play very good. And those have been the two things that kind of, I didn't do well the last two or three years on TOUR, and I haven't done well out here with that.
You know, I feel like I'm working hard to remedy those things, and some weeks are better than others. But that's ultimately what I have to do better, and if I don't, I'm not going to play well out here, either.

Q. We talked briefly yesterday about going back to Oak Hill, and you basically told me already, that you're trying to deemphasize the return to Oak Hill?
JEFF SLUMAN: If you look at how I've played -- getting too amped up and everybody probably expects you to play better -- maybe not expects, but probably they hope you have a chance to win and compete and they want to see you play well, because you only get a few chances in your life to play -- coming from Rochester, in front of your home crowd.
Like I said, candidly, I haven't played very well in front of them. I've missed every cut. I've got to do a little bit of a mental change over and just say, you know, so I'm just going to view it as another tournament and just going to go out and try and enjoy it. And if I play well, fine, and if I don't, it's not the end of the world; where before in '89, especially, it was really -- that was a lot of stress on me and then I had that appendectomy just before, and I really wasn't ready to play, but I had to play. Then 2003, I was playing bad.

Q. The '89 situation --
JEFF SLUMAN: I was 125 pounds then. (Laughing).

Q. And then they stick with you Nicklaus and Trevino, you couldn't have been in a more high-profile --
JEFF SLUMAN: But that was a great experience for me to see and play with two of the greatest players of all time, putting Trevino in that obviously, but Jack obviously the greatest player of all time. Maybe Tiger will have something to say about that in the future, and probably maybe even right now.
But to go around the golf course and to play with them in a major, regardless of whether I shot a hundred both days, it was a very, very gratifying experience.

Q. Oak Hill for this event, saw it in 2003 at its absolute toughest, eight-inch rough and all that. It won't be quite the same but it is May, which means it could be wet and the rough could be four really thick, wet inches and could play 7,000 yards. For a senior event, is it going to be a beast for these guys?
JEFF SLUMAN: I think it will be weather dependent more than anything. Being a rookie out here, I don't know how the PGA of America sets up a Senior PGA. I don't know. I don't know whether fairways might be a little wider or the rough will probably be a little shorter. I don't know where they are going to putt the tees and they are probably not going to have us playing off the back, back, back, especially if it's cold. Ultimately they want to see guys make some birdies and they don't want to have 20-under win but they don't want to have 6-over win, either.
So you know, it will be very interesting, and I think the little experience I have on Champions Tour events, the setup really does change with the weather. They do a great job out here with that. I think that's probably going to be the biggest deal out there.

Q. Going back home, that has to mean something to you?
JEFF SLUMAN: Yeah, Paychex have been the greatest sponsor in the world for me, and this is our 22nd year, I believe, which is unheard of. Jon Judge came in and took over for Mr. Golisano and Jon just said, you know, sign you to a lifetime deal as long as you're playing the TOUR, we want you to wear our hat. That to me meant as much as anything that they have let me represent them for that long, and I think it's been great for both of us.
You know, that's pretty cool. It doesn't ever happen out here. If you go up-and-down the range, or the range on the regular TOUR and grab a 25-year-old kid and think he's going to be wearing the same hat and representing the same company when he gets out to be -- if he gets out to be on the Champions Tour, that's really cool. That means a lot to me.

Q. What do you miss most? You've settled in Chicago and that's your home now; is there anything you miss about Rochester?
JEFF SLUMAN: Oh, I think you miss your friends. Obviously my family, except for my brother, Brad, has all moved on. My dad is down in Naples. My brother is out in California. So from that regard, I mean, I always see him and we get together and stuff like that. But he's in high school. You miss that. You miss seeing probably Craig on a regular weekly basis and having fun going out with them.
But it's just kind of one of those things that most everybody seems to move on in their life, and not many people end up staying where they grew up, it seems like, especially golfers. It would have been very difficult for me to play the TOUR, I thought. Joey's done it, but if you asked him about some of the travel and trying to get home, it's very difficult, so it would have been very difficult for me to continue to play the TOUR and live in Rochester. It's not the weather; it's getting home. I like to get home on Sunday nights, and then leave Tuesday, and Chicago with the hub and all that, I think it's added years onto my career. Whereas Rochester would have been very difficult.

Q. What's the family life like for you? She's ten years old?
JEFF SLUMAN: She'll be ten on Tuesday.

Q. You were 40 when you had your first child, so you waited a long time in life to do that. How has playing golf, a lot of these guys start at 25 years old and they have a kid in tow and you didn't have that. How has it been the ten years since you've had a child?
JEFF SLUMAN: Greatest thing in the world. She's a fantastic kid and just a lot of fun to be around. You know, I think every parent would say that. It's been the greatest experience of my life, and I know my wife's life.
We couldn't be happier. She's healthy, she's smart, she's athletic, she plays golf and soccer and tennis and football and basketball and everything, so she's very active. You know, we just got back from a two-week spring break trip to Egypt and Dubai. We took her there. So we're trying to go a lot of places in the world and really see them ourselves and bring her along and educationally, it's fantastic for her.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297