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LIBERTY MUTUAL LEGENDS OF GOLFApril 26, 2008Gary KochRoger MaltbieSAVANNAH, GEORGIA DAVE SENKO: Gary and Roger, congratulations, you finished with a 60 today which is the record-lowest score in the division. You broke the record of Andy and Tom in 2006 and 2007. If you can just get us started, talk about your day. GARY KOCH: Well, we got off to a good start today which we didn't do yesterday and that really helped. We saw some putts go in early and felt like we got a little momentum going on that front nine. I was lucky enough to birdie on the first one but had I tried to lay up on 4, the par 5, hit it out-of-bounds. Made birdie, knocked it on in two, and that was a pretty big help. But we had some momentum early which we didn't have yesterday. And the other thing that helped a lot was being able to look at the leaderboards and see that Charles and Jim were not running away with it. They were not off to a great start which gave us a little impetus that if we keep making birdies we might have some sort of chance. We needed a burst and the we had not had one. Really, we've had that happen to us by Andy North and Tom Watson the last few years. You know, they started birdieing every hole it seemed like. ROGER MALTBIE: A big help again when I shanked it on 8, the par 3. I shanked an 8-iron off a tee -- 9-iron. And he made two. That's big. And so five minutes later I end up with a 9-iron second shot 9 and all I can see is that marsh on the right of the green, I'm going to hit me a little pitch out right of that marsh and putts it up there ten feet right of the hole. I somehow just kind of felt at that point for me that things were turning, okay, fine, sort that out and move on. Then we had a nice little stretch through 16. That was our burst where we played a stretch of holes in as many under par, and that's really what happened. DAVE SENKO: On 11, who made the eagle? GARY KOCH: Roger did. Beautiful second shot in there. DAVE SENKO: What did you hit? ROGER MALTBIE: My second shot was a hybrid club -- (laughing) -- from 218 and I got it up there, about, what eight feet. Let's put it this way, the ball is about three feet short of the hole and my partner says, "That's in." So that's it. That's it. It was. That was a good stroke. That was going anywhere but in. But then we parred the next and both had very good eagle opportunities at 13. But that was right when we had the rain delay, came in, and we putted, didn't make either one of those. But some good, solid shots and good birdie putts the next few holes. DAVE SENKO: Gary, you made the birdie at 16? GARY KOCH: About a 25-foot putt, poured it right in the middle. Had not made that one that long -- we had not made a putt that long in two days. ROGER MALTBIE: I birdied 14 and 15, made a nice little right-to-left breaker at 14, six or seven feet, and hit a good shot in at the next hole and probably made that to about five feet. The last hole, we both had lengthy birdie putts. It was funny as we went along, and as team things work, believe me, my golf game is nowhere near ready to play in competition, nowhere near. But when you have some buffer, when you have some protection and you have a partner, that makes it considerably easier, and I had a left-to-right -- it was a hard little putt at 14 for birdie. And before I hit it, he says, "I've seen you make a million of this." Made we go, you know what, I've been playing golf a long time, I don't know if I've made a million but somehow that made it easier. Now the next hole when I got over about a 5-footer for birdie, I said, "How many of these have I made?" He said, "A million and one." And I made that one, fortunately. And then before Gary hit his birdie putt at 16 from about 30 feet, when he won in 2003, he made -- probably longer than that, probably about 35, 40 feet, and I told him, I said, "This is like the last green in 2003." That's the kind of stuff that you can do that really does help. You're not naked. It's a little different when all there is is 14 clubs and a ball and you. Q. This division has halls it's niche; does it have a niche now with the Legends going into a team? ROGER MALTBIE: I don't know that I would necessarily refer to it as a niche. Before there was a way of taking care of players that was older, not active, but still, I think there's a place for guys that don't play much like John Mahaffey, and the guys that you just spend so many years of your life with; we played with Lee and Mike hill yesterday, and that stuff, you know, it's nice. It's wonderful to have that kind of opportunity, it is, and you have to look at it that way. So we made a point of it yesterday, we had our worst day ever, with 4-under 68, and we just made a point of it to have fun. Just have fun and enjoy it for what it is. If it's not our time this year it's not our time. This morning, like any team that played out there today, would say, okay, shoot in the 50s or shooting 60. That's what you do. As I was telling Gary, I thought we would have to shoot in the 50s to have a chance. I was surprised that -- it sounds crazy to a score as high as 60 would do it for us. Obviously the best we've ever done and it was a great day for us obviously. Q. A little bit earlier in the week, any ideas that you guys have that might break this thing out a little bit? GARY KOCH: I don't think so. I think we are very comfortable with the opportunity to come and play in the division we're in. I mean, two days is about right. In fact, can I tell him the story about early in the year what I had a chance to win in Naples? I don't play much either, anymore, but I played in Naples and actually had the lead in the back nine on the last day or tied for the lead. And so we get out to Tucson the very next week to do the telecast for the Match Play, and of course I've heard from a lot of people: "Nice playing, way to go, was pulling for you." I see Rog, and first thing he says to me is: "I know everybody is pulling for you but I wasn't." I said, "What the heck are you talking about? I thought we were buddies." He said, "Man, you would have won this thing, you've have an exemption, you'd have got me an exemption, we'd have to play for three days and play from the back tees, are kidding me? That wasn't going to work." So it's great fun for us to come and like Roger said, see a lot of guys don't see. A lot of these guys we only see them once a year. Calvin Peete, I saw him this week and I haven't seen Calvin Peete since this time last year. So it's kind of fun from that standpoint and as little golf as we play now, two days from the forward tees is about right. Q. How different was the rain delay -- ROGER MALTBIE: No different than any rain delay we've been through. Actually rain delays are a hell of a lot easier what you're not on television. GARY KOCH: Those are harder. Those are nightmares when you're trying to do TV and there's no golf. . ROGER MALTBIE: But when you're rusty-dusty and have some more iced tea or another desert, it's not that hard, you just wait it out and go. GARY KOCH: I think I had a sandwich. Like Rog said, we've been through umpteen hundreds of them in the 30-plus years we've played. Everybody kills the time in a different way. Some guys like to sit. But it worked out we were able to get the momentum back and that was fortunate. Q. Who ended up making the birdie -- (indiscernible) -- drag you away from those eagle putts? GARY KOCH: When that horn blows and it's only that one -- it's kind of funny. Because we had seen a couple of bolts of lightning and he said what do you guys want to do, and it was pretty obvious he didn't want to hit a putt. And you do have that right, and then 15 seconds later the horn blew, we were as close to anybody to the lightning out on the 13th green. It was out in that area and we had seen the bolts. Q. Where did you stand in relation to the leaders at that point? ROGER MALTBIE: It maybe you had a fresher look because I wasn't paying any attention and it's not that I don't look at them or was trying not to look at them but it really had not entered my mind that we might have a chance to win. And then during the rain delay, a dear friend of Gary's who was caddying for him was studying things and said, "Hey, the lead is only 14 at this point in time," and they were through 14 holes. We've got two putts for eagle and we've got 13, 14; kind of got our attention a little bit that this might be doable. Q. Gary played quite capably last week in the Champions event in Tampa. How did you prepare? ROGER MALTBIE: From the telecast, man. But Gary will tell you how many times we just did a stretch of seven in a row, eight out of nine weeks broadcasting, how many times did I play? GARY KOCH: Twice maybe. ROGER MALTBIE: Twice maybe, where I touched a club, and so I was kind of fighting tendenitis elbow, which every time I would try to pick up a club, I would get pretty sore. So trying to wait that out, and then I did start to try to practice last week and went back, I could barely do anything from lack of use and from being. GARY KOCH: The story about the alligator there on 12 is the last couple days, every time we get up to that lake, there's an alligator that starts coming straight at the tee, and he comes right to the tee when he sees me. And the reason is because Billy Casper has been feeding it, so I know damn well when I get up on that tee, he thinks it's Billy Casper and he's looking for lunch. (Laughter). So I hit and get on out of the way. ROGER MALTBIE: He hits and runs back to the cart real fast. Q. Guys who have done TV said it can help your game in a way because you see guys doing SMART things; do you guys agree with that? ROGER MALTBIE: I think probably one of the biggest things that I've tried to learn from it in the television that I've done is that guys don't play perfect golf and still win tournaments. You know, I've always had a little tendency to be hard on myself and expect or think that I have to play close to perfect to have a chance to do well, and I really believe that when we are doing the telecast, you see the guys hitting tournaments hit plenty of ordinary shots and tend to recover from them pretty well. But it's not like they are hitting every shot exactly the way they are trying to. So that's probably the biggest thing. GARY KOCH: I agree. You don't have to play perfect. You see lots of guys that play less than perfect and win. I think it gives you patience and I think playing in this, when you've hit a certain age and accumulated whatever wealth and you've had a reasonably successful career, there's nothing that can happen on the golf course that's going to change your life. Nothing out there is going to change my life. So I think you look at it a little different way, and from my perspective, maybe it's off your question but it's fun to get out there and all of a sudden feel the things that you used to feel, and I know for myself today when I started feeling them, that's when it really started -- well you played better. And that's the advantage that Tiger has, because when guys tell you that it's fun to get near the lead and this and that, by and large most of them aren't telling the truth in my opinion. You know, it's nerve-wracking. And it may be why you practiced all these years to get to positions like that, but there's only one guy having fun, and that's Tiger. It's all he cares about, and that is his life. When everything gets hectic for other players, it's real clear for him and he's having a good time. I think being a couple old geysers playing in something like that we get to play from that perspective, which makes the game easier. Q. So based on what you said was playing 18 fun because you knew what you needed to do to win the tournament? How long was the putt that led up to the tap-in? GARY KOCH: Probably 40 feet. ROGER MALTBIE: I would say 40. And it was such a good, I thought it was going in. Still good from four inches, if it was eight inches, could have been anybody's guess, but if it was four inches, I was going to get it. DAVE SENKO: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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