DORAL-RYDER OPEN

March 4, 1998

Steve Elkington

STEVE ELKINGTON: Well, I think the course is in great condition. I think the greens are a little faster than I remember them being in the last four or five years. I think the little changes they made are better, especially 18. I think it was a big improvement. I think it was the consensus of all the players that they thought it was a little tight on driving on 18. And now I think it's correct with the water on the left. You have to have somewhere to drive. You don't really notice the other changes as much other than there's maybe a little more room out there visually. I know they've dropped a few other bunkers, how many did they lose, about 8?

STEVE ELKINGTON: I can't think of any others that just stand out, more than 18, really. That's the most noticeable change, and 18th green has been lifted up on the back left, which is better, as well.

STEVE ELKINGTON: I'm actually, I think, better prepared now than I was then. Last year I'd only played once coming into this event. And this year I've played three times, twice here, the Tournament of Champions, Pebble Beach, which was rained out and I played well in Australia. I feel good. I'm playing this next -- five of the six, missing Bay Hill. But I'm ready to get back into the golf.

STEVE ELKINGTON: Well, put it this way, I left here with a lot of momentum. It would have been hard to top the month of March. But I think I didn't play particularly well towards the end of the year, I had a few problems with my shoulder and hip. But to come out of the year with two wins, and win two of the biggest tournaments, I can't think of it as being a negative. I kind of think of it more as the big picture. I've had eight wins on the Tour, and a lot of them with the PGA and two PLAYERS Championships in the 90's. So I feel good about that. I would have confused everybody if I won a couple more, you wouldn't know who to vote for the Player-of-the-Year.

STEVE ELKINGTON: Yeah, I was home a lot more. Sam, who was born last week a year ago, he just turned one, he had colic, and for parents who have children with colic, they just don't sleep. It was hard to tell my wife I was going to go out and play three in a row and leave her with a baby that never slept more than two hours for eight months and a two and a half year old. So I stayed close to the house, and I'm glad I did. One of the nice things was I had such a nice March, and I was sort of -- I wouldn't say satisfied, but I was comfortable with what I accomplished last year, both ways, on the course and at home. So I think it's a difficult time to play good golf on the Tour when you've got the little ones, because your attention is so focused with them. But I feel like I've done a reasonable job of juggling the two so far. It's a big commitment with the two little ones. I think it will get easier, but it's well worth the time spent with them at home now.

STEVE ELKINGTON: I spoke to you the other day, I think I'm going to try to prepare as well as I can for the Majors. Obviously to win any of the other Majors or even the PGA again or THE PLAYERS Championship, they all -- they are the biggest tournaments. I want to try -- at this stage, adding Majors to what I've already got is just -- would satisfy my career, basically, if I could keep continuing to improve and play well, and the hardest thing in this game is to try to improve or try to do well, and not get worse. You see a lot of guys who try to really -- they win a Major or win a couple of tournaments and they say now I'm really going to practice hard and try to change my swing a little bit and get better, and they end up going the other way. I've managed to stay away from that. I haven't tinkered at all with my equipment or swing, and I've managed to kind of stay on track. Since winning the PGA in '95 I had a little bit of a let down in '96, but I did play reasonable golf considering the hoopla that comes with winning the Major. I came back strong last year and had a great year. You look at some of the guys who have won the Majors who haven't sort of continued to perform onward after that, it is a big satisfying thing to win a Major, but when you've got guys like Tiger, who's coming on strong, he keeps your attention focused on -- I should say it's good that he's along now, because all the attention is focused on all the Majors. For a couple of years back there I think the media and everyone was sort of willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt if he had a nice looking record without any Majors, but now it's back in the forefront where that's the most important thing, and I think that's the way it should be.

STEVE ELKINGTON: It seems like we're in a year of high tech and everyone wants to play -- like a few years ago we were all playing stadium courses with old equipment. Now we're playing with high tech clubs and everyone wants to play the All Star courses. The Hawaiian Open is played on an All Star course. There's not any holes where you can make ten on like at TPC. And probably Tucson is a bit the same way. Johnny Miller, I remember shot similar scores in Tucson, that is a scoring part of the country, when you consider it stays like this with no wind. And Duval, they have these hot rounds. It amazes me. The only way to even the playing field, if you wanted to, everyone says the ball goes too far, the only way to stop is if you made a 12-club limit instead of 14. Then you'd really see who the guys are that could play, I suppose, if you wanted to change something.

STEVE ELKINGTON: You could make it optional, whatever you wanted to. Well, I mean -- me? Well, I think I'd leave in the 60, to start with. That's been a big change in our game. Sometimes we play a Tour event where people in that part of the country want real high rough. And the 60s -- you go to The Masters you hardly ever use it because you chip-and-run. Everyone wishes that this course plays firm and hard and the scores are high. Everywhere we go, they want the scores high. Sometimes the weather doesn't cooperate. This year on the West Coast the scores are going to be high because it was range. When Lee Jantzen won the PLAYERS, he was five under. See, the wind blew. Maybe it's the El Nino effect. Warmer weather, lower scores.

STEVE ELKINGTON: It's all relative.

STEVE ELKINGTON: If we had a ball going ten percent less, we'd be in the same category, and the same scores, and the same guys would win. People have to cope with the low numbers more when we're shooting on the courses rather than changing the characteristics of the ball. If we reduce the ball ten percent, Tiger still with a new ball is still going to be 20 percent further than anybody else. Everyone is going to stay in the same category. I think the flight characteristics of the ball are much better than they used to. I won the PGA with a Titleist 384, which is out of commission now, they've taken that out. That ball curved the most of any of the Titleist balls. And I think -- we all thought it was a great ball. But Titleist made a ball called a Professional and we swapped over with it. That ball compared to the 384 goes like a straight line. The 384 you could curve a lot. It wasn't a good ball for the amateurs, but a good ball for the guys that liked to knock it down and curve it. But the Professional is just awesome compared to that ball. Besides that it's so straight. At crosswinds you can almost aim it flat. It's a great ball. Whereas with the 384 you might be aiming outside the bunker to the right, letting the wind bring it or whatever. So that was sort of -- I was sort of a traditionalist. I used to think that 384 was going to be a great ball for me forever. The Professional, by far, is a much better ball. It's a numbers game out here, really. If you can be more consistent you can do better.

STEVE ELKINGTON: I think there's a cash in effect. When you win a Major or a few tournaments there's a big cash in effect where you want to capitalize on what you've accomplished. And let's face it, one of the great things about our Tour, I was mentioning this at the PLAYERS Championship, last Monday on Media Day, is all the major championships are reduced to five years. I won the players when last year it was ten. So ten years to have any job security, everyone here would agree, if you knew you would have your job the next ten years it would be nice. That's probably the hardest thing out here for players. It is kind of a fragile existence out here, because you do have to compete with all the other guys each year and keep your credentials. Anytime you can snag a ten year exemption or five, that's great job security. The guys that won the Majors and continue to play well probably don't tinker as much. And I think sometimes the pros -- I don't begrudge anyone trying to cash in. There's a fair amount of money around, and everyone needs money, and that's the bottom line. We've got plenty of it coming up now, too. I actually think that because the Tour is playing for so much money in years to come, some of these off-course endorsements, the tide is going to turn. A guy like Greg Norman or Tiger, they have a great year on the Tour, they make a million or a million five and earn 20 times that off the course. I think that's the extreme example. I think in years to come you're going to see enormous on course earnings and it's going to over shadow -- I'm talking about across-the-board contracts on the other side. It's going to sort of change. The whole business is sort of changing, it is going to be more prize orientated.

STEVE ELKINGTON: If you're real good friends you might mention that to them, but you don't mention some guys changing. It's hard to -- with all the equipment and all the guys out there, you've been out there on the range, it's hard not to look at some of the new stuff coming out. I played with the same set of irons my whole career, apart from the set that was stolen in '95, I just had them replicated, I'll change -- I've putted with two putters my whole year. I've changed the wedges when they wear out and drivers and 3-woods, but there's just something about looking down on the irons that you know you've done well with them. And that's what gets into the players head when they change clubs, is they played well with their other ones and they won some tournaments, and now they look at new ones, and they hit a funny shot or it kicks over the green, and they say that would never have happened with my other club, and once the seed of doubt is in there it just grows.

STEVE ELKINGTON: Not necessarily. I think they'll play more. I know myself it's hard to sit at home when you know that first play is going to be $600,000 or $550,000. That's hard to leave out there. I think a lot of the players are gearing themselves fitness-wise and getting themselves mentally ready for the years ahead, just because they're going to probably play hard. You listen to some of the guys, even like a John Cook, who I think he's 40 or 41. Is he 40 or 41, John? I don't want to get that wrong.

STEVE ELKINGTON: He said at the Tournament of Champions it was real important for him the next four or five years, because it's sort of his last chance type of thing, it might not be, and he's gearing that way. And guys like Greg Norman who's won enormous amounts, I can't see him laying off for the next five years. It's a chance to -- well, leading money winner may be somebody's projections, three million bucks playing golf. Keep your card and 400 or 300. It's big money, in anyone's terms. You all know that. But it's hard to get. It's hard to get your hands on that big cash, you've got to play well. Qualifying for the world is another example, everyone wants to get into that top 50 or 65. That's all of a sudden the Sony rankings have become meaningful. No one ever cared for them much until now.

STEVE ELKINGTON: The matchplay, especially I think would be good for our Tour to play the matchplay. That's one -- and I like to travel. Coming from Australia, I've enjoyed traveling, playing -- I'm going to enjoy going to Valderrama, playing the New World Stroke-Play. That will be good. I think anytime you can get all the guys together it's better. It's easier for you guys to write, it's -- you feel better if you win or you play well when you know everyone is well there. There's a great feeling of satisfaction about winning THE PLAYERS Championship last year because the playing field. This tournament has a good field, this year I was surprised they didn't have everyone here, I don't know why. This is a good field, this is a big tournament. Outside of the Big Five this is a well-respected tournament, Doral. Jack Nicklaus at the dinner last night, Jack Nicklaus played here 36 straight times. I don't know any tournament other than the Majors that he's done that in.

STEVE ELKINGTON: I've always played before the event. I like to play. I think the best recipe for -- to win any Major has to be that you played well before you went to the Major, that's my theory, you've got to have performed well in another tournament, either won or been close to winning where your confidence level is so high that you're not preoccupied when you get to the tournament about things. In '95 when I won the PGA, I'd won early in the year at the Tournament of Champions, and I think I finished about third at the Masters and I finished -- I had a good chance to win the British. And I was just full of confidence, you know. I'd won and I'd been close in. And I strolled into the PGA knowing the course real well. And I had confidence. The confidence level was high. It's hard to play with a lot of confidence in the Majors, but I was able to do it because I had a good record up to that point. And last year when I went into The Masters here, I was on a complete high. I'd won twice, and you just breeze in there and think you can do anything.

STEVE ELKINGTON: Sometimes it doesn't work out. But one of the things about winning on the Tour, you never lose your confidence or your confidence never dwindles during the year, because you've already won. That's the real key. When you see guys like Duval who's already won, and Tiger who's playing well, and Justin is playing well, those guys will have good years again, because their confidence will stay high, no matter what. They could have a bad week or two, and it's not going to affect them. Whereas maybe if you haven't performed at anything this year, Ernie Els has played already really well. Those are the guys to watch coming up. The next month will tell who the favorites are going to be going into The Masters. We know who will be the favorite in The Masters, but who the other favorites are.

STEVE ELKINGTON: I went to Troon last year and played the week before. I don't know if I like that or not. It's nothing like the event. And that's the big difference, when you get -- if you could go -- I don't want to go to Augusta before, because there's nothing like it when you get there. Once you get there you need all the crowd, I guess, and you need all the tournament conditions to sort of get ready. Otherwise the preparation goes on too long. I prefer the shorter preparation, on the site, longer preparation away for it. And I read Tiger's comments yesterday, I think he hasn't been there since he won, and I don't think he's planning on it, and he's preparing now, and he's going to go in there and have a short preparation there. I think that's perfect. That's the way I feel.

STEVE ELKINGTON: That one in Seattle, we'll go up -- a lot of players will get in Monday, playing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I don't think there's any point in rushing over there before then, because you're not going to see the course, again, you're not going to see the course before that week in that condition. Seattle is probably under water, and it wouldn't be much good playing now, because it will be nothing like it's going to be in August.

STEVE ELKINGTON: No, I'm thinking about here. I was defending, so it's great to come back defending, so I'm going to enjoy this week, and I've got to defend two weeks at the PLAYERS. I think once the PLAYERS is over that's -- I go to New Orleans thinking about The Masters. I've always enjoyed New Orleans down there. They tend to have these raised greens when they've cut them, they've cut the surrounding hillocks, so you can chip-and-run. And they've done that on purpose to attract guys to come down and play and practice. Davis Love said that when he won. And he went on and almost won The Masters the next week. That's nice that they do that. That's when I concentrate on that, then.