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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIPMay 10, 2008Kenny PerryPONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA NELSON SILVERIO: Why don't you just talk about conditions out there. KENNY PERRY: The golf course was totally different today. I played late yesterday afternoon. I thought I faced similar conditions, the wind was similar today, but the golf course was a lot firmer and faster today. Kind of caught me off guard a little bit, and I didn't hit it as well today. I didn't hit it as well. I didn't drive it as well. I kept missing the fairways just three or four feet off, and I would be in the rough and I could never seem to attack the flags. And whenever I did hit it in the fairway and attack the flags, the ball took a huge hop and would go over a swale and next thing I know I'm putting up a hill, down a hill. I was waiting for the wind; where is the windmill out there? All in all, it was a good day. I played good. It was steady. I made a lot of nice clutch four- to eight-footers for pars to keep the momentum going and the round going. I made an incredible -- they told me I was the only guy to make birdie on 14, so that was pretty neat. I got the only skin, I guess. That kind of kept me going, kept me into the round. I thought to myself, if I can just make pars, be patient out there and make lots of pars, I said, I can hang around till Sunday. And that was my goal, kind of try to get myself in position for the round tomorrow, so it's kind of neat that I've got a good chance of winning this golf tournament. NELSON SILVERIO: You talked about your birdie on 14; how about the one on 2. KENNY PERRY: I hit a 3-iron and hooked it just a little bit and got hung up in the rough and chipped up to six feet past and got it coming back. I just made two birdies, that was it? Anyway, very happy with 72. Q. Have you played with Paul much? KENNY PERRY: I haven't played with him much. I've known Paul a long time. I know he's not quite as old as I am, but he's been out here quite a while. I predicted this. I did a little deal with Rich Lerner yesterday, and I said, "It's going to be funny if you see Kenny Perry and Paul Goydos in the final round." Q. Why? KENNY PERRY: Well, who would have predicted us to be in the last group; I mean seriously, you've got all the kids playing so well and all the superstars playing well, and Tiger is not here, so I thought it was pretty funny. Q. It's been tough all week, but is this tournament starting to have a U.S. Open feel with the firm greens? KENNY PERRY: I thought I was in the U.S. Open out there. Q. You make three pars in a row, you're charging. KENNY PERRY: There's disaster out there waiting to happen. I was fortunate to keep it in the areas to where I could survive from, and if I did hit a poor iron shot, I kept it on the fat side of the green where I had plenty of green to work with the pitch to. You know, 20 years, this is my 20th time in this event, and that showed up today. That really helped me. I knew the greens and I knew the breaks on the greens and felt very comfortable over my putter. So tomorrow if I can just figure out some way to get it in the fairway a few more times, where I can attack the pins a little bit -- you know, I hit a great shot on 4. And that's a tough hole this week for me because the wind is howling from right to left and I have an overhanging tree over there, so I almost drifted in the left rough. The rough is not bad; you can play out of it. I hit a beautiful sand wedge and landed in the middle of the green, and it goes right in the middle of the green to the back bunker. I was standing in the bunker and in a terrible situation and I made bogey. Seemed like I had three or four of those shots. Like on 10, I hit a beautiful 3-iron off the tee and I had 40 to the hole and hit a pitching wedge that landed on the front of the green and shot way back there and went back in that back swale and then I had to putt up the swale and down and stop it and I end up 3-putting. So you're not safe in the middle of the fairway out there. So you've got to really pay attention to where you're hitting that golf ball. Q. You're a tinkerer and you like to change stuff up all the time; I think you just changed irons a couple weeks ago. Do you feel like that's something that you do when your game isn't going well, or do you just see things differently and you want to make some changes or you want to see the ball flight a little different? KENNY PERRY: Definitely. I change for ball flight. The other set of irons, they kept up shooting it a lot into the wind. This set is more of a penetrating ball flight, and it's been a good switch. So, I do, I like to tinker a lot. I get bored with playing the same stuff all the time. But did I there, I should go back to my old strategy. I played one set of irons for five years from 2003 to 2006 and I had some pretty good years, so I might go back to sticking to something to make it work. Q. Tom Lehman said after he shot 69 today that knowing this golf course -- even though it's changed, knowing this golf course, playing that much around here, you were talking about the greens but just in general where to miss it, where not to miss it and so forth and so on, is crucial to this week. Do you feel the same way? KENNY PERRY: I agree. I mean, like on 18, I drove it in the right rough, and instead of trying to force an issue up there and short-side myself into those pot bunkers short or watching it roll down to the left over there for a tough pitch, I laid it to 100 yards and I was able to put enough spin on the golf ball and control it around the hole and then make about an eight- or ten-footer there for par to kind of keep me in the golf tournament again. You know, you just have to bite your tongue out there a few times. You've just got to play safe and go on and make your par and get out of town. It's just difficult. I can't get over how the golf course changed overnight; it really did. It is a lot firmer and a lot faster. The greens, to me, picked up a lot of speed today from yesterday. You know, I teed off at 1 o'clock yesterday and 3 o'clock today, so within 24 hours -- and I assume they will do the same thing tomorrow. They will even be firmer tomorrow. So the premium is definitely going to be on hitting those fairways. Q. Some of your wins have been quite a few under par. How well suited are you to playing this style of golf? KENNY PERRY: Obviously not very good, because I've never played well in the Open or the Masters. But I have played here a lot, and I'm very comfortable. My sight lines, I feel good off the tees on this golf course. I don't feel like I shouldn't be here or whatever. I feel very comfortable. You know, my game's coming back. It's taken me a long time. I've been hitting a lot of pull-draws. That's what I've lived with the past two years after my surgery in 2006. My lower body forgot how to move with the golf ball. And I'm finally remembering how to get the ball starting out in the right rough and getting back to the middle of the fairway, and that's how I always played golf and I'm actually seeing that golf shot again. To me it's been a progression. I've made, I think this is my 10th cut in a row. I haven't done anything special this year, but I'm getting better, and to me, that means something. Q. It seems like in tournaments where the scoring is not low, the conventional wisdom is that it's tough to come from behind on Sunday, but it would seem that with tough conditions, it's easier for the leaders to go the other direction and it seems like no lead is safe. KENNY PERRY: In these conditions, if the leaders play well, you can't catch them, and to me that's what's neat. I'm in a situation where if I shoot a good round tomorrow, they can't catch me. I'm talking about guys that are even, 1-under, 2-under. They are going to have to shoot a phenomenal round. So I can limit the guys that have a chance to beat me. That's what I like. I like knowing if I can go out and shoot 68 or 69 tomorrow and get it to 10-under par, I have a great shot of winning this championship Q. Some of the bigger numbers -- KENNY PERRY: We've all got to get through that 17th hole. That's a torture hole. It was a simple shot today, 123 yards. I wanted to hit my gap wedge and chickened out and hit my pitching wedge and was fortunate enough to 2-putt. Still, that hole is unbelievable. Q. Are there any island greens at Country Creek? KENNY PERRY: No island greens at Country Creek. I would never treat my amateurs like that. (Laughter). Q. You're in a stretch where you usually play well here, at Colonial for a couple of weeks, Memorial, and you talked about your caddie and you say you're excited about that fact and that you've been playing pretty good, but now you're in a stretch where you actually like the golf course; is that how you felt coming into this week? KENNY PERRY: Well, I've been hit-or-miss here. I've had a couple top fives. It just seems like when I show up at Colonial and Memorial, I play well no matter how I'm playing. For whatever reason, I feel very good at those two tournaments. And I don't know why it is, but it's nice knowing that I'm starting to play well again, so if I can get hot and start playing -- when I get hot, I'll play good for a month in a row, you know. I'll have chances to win two or three or four tournaments when I start playing like I know I can play and I haven't been there, I haven't been in that situation before. Now this is a step, many steps I've taken and definitely going in the right direction. So I think my golf game will start showing up again, because I'm not afraid to play -- I'm not afraid to win. I want to win. And it's exciting to me. I've got -- you know, tomorrow, I'm one round away from my dream. I'm trying to get on that Ryder Cup Team. So for me, it's going to be a very important round. And if it doesn't go well, that's okay. I'm going in the right direction. I think if I don't do it tomorrow, I think I'm going to do it within the next month. I like those tournaments coming. Q. A couple years back when you went on your run, my perception then of you was you're a guy that hits fairways and greens, just consistent. Very few guys on the TOUR are perceived like that. Fred Funk is perceived as a guy like that. When you say you've missed greens now and you need to hit greens tomorrow, what did you draw strength from today to keep you going? What did you draw from? KENNY PERRY: I putted great. I putted great. Four- to eight-footers today I made, and I haven't been making them. I made them all week, starting on Thursday. You know, when I was winning all those tournaments and having a lot of success, I was putting great. I was as good a putter as anybody out there. I've got real comfortable; I've gone to a wider stance, gone to the shorter putter. It just seems like everything is lining up. My touch, my hands feel good. The flow of the putter feels good. I'm not pulling any putts. The ball is taking off where I'm looking. That's when it gets fun. You know, you can draw a lot of confidence from that. You know, I'm hitting it okay. It's not like I'm way off. You know, I'm still getting it down there and hitting plenty of greens. It's just my putter is starting to show up and that's when, you know, my scores just come to me. Q. As you've gotten a little older, are you able to much more appreciate your position tonight heading into tomorrow than maybe 10 or 15 years ago? KENNY PERRY: Probably. Definitely. You think, you know, there for a while when I was winning tournaments quite regularly, I thought, you know, that it's never going to stop; I'm just going to always win. And then when you go on a dry spell, it's been over three years now, you think, well, I'm never going to win again. I'm 47 years old; has my time caught up to me? I still hit it plenty far enough. I can hit it as far as anybody just about. My irons are coming back and my putter is good again, so it's starting to get exciting. It definitely makes me appreciate it more, because it's hard to win, period. It's hard to win out here. And look back to know I've got nine wins, and it's not a lot of wins, but you know, Tiger has got 60-something, but I'm proud of it. I've done okay. Q. How about physically? What concessions have you had to make physically over the years? KENNY PERRY: None. I was born with a big body, big wrists, arms. I've always had plenty of strength and power. I can just thank God for that. Q. A couple years ago, a 47-year-old won, Fred Funk. Any chance you'll give him a ring tonight? KENNY PERRY: I went over to his house Wednesday during the Bible study and I went in his trophy room and I grabbed that trophy. I checked out THE PLAYERS Championship trophy. It was pretty neat. I'd like to get my hands on that tomorrow. NELSON SILVERIO: On that note, good luck tomorrow. End of FastScripts |
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