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SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIPMay 21, 2008Jeff SlumanROCHESTER, NEW YORK KELLY ELBIN: Rochester native and 1988 PGA Champion, Jeff Sluman, joining us at the 69th Senior PGA Championship. Jeff is making his first Senior PGA Championship appearance. Jeff, welcome home and it's got to feel good after your play last week at the Regions. JEFF SLUMAN: Yeah great, always great to be home here. A little different with the weather than the Regions, and the golf course, but it is nice to come into any event, especially a Major and be playing well. KELLY ELBIN: Talk a little bit about the golf course from what you saw yesterday in the pro-am, please. JEFF SLUMAN: I've probably got about 500 rounds under my belt here at Oak Hill, but between the '89 U.S. Open and the 2003 PGA and now this, on a regular basis you don't see the golf course in this type of condition with the speed of the greens and the rough and that. But essentially I know where to go and what to stay away from. Now it's a matter of can you do it. But no, the golf course, there's some nuances that I haven't played very much lately on the golf course, that I'm going to go out later and just kind of work around the greens more than anything. With the heavy rough around the greens they seem to have gotten faster in spots. And like on 3 now I don't ever remember being able to putt it off the green. And having the ball in the front left pin placement, you can putt it off the green and have a 30 yard pitch back up there. So there's certain areas that with the speed and everything, you got to be a little more cognizant of. KELLY ELBIN: Open it up for questions, please. Q. You talked a little bit yesterday about wanting maybe to see more events near Rochester because we seem to only host the Majors. Would you like to see a Champions Tour event at some point be in Rochester? JEFF SLUMAN: Absolutely. I think it's a terrific golfing city. All you have to do is look outside in this weather and see how many people that are still out there. And yesterday we had great crowds because to see the pro-am. And I know the LPGA it's probably their best attended event from what I understand on a yearly basis. So the people do love it here. But, you know, I don't know who would host it. I don't think Oak Hill would. Nor should they. But it would be great to be somewhere in the area on a yearly basis and I know that the town would support us, but that's kind of wishing something. But I think the reality is that this is such a great venue here that if something like that ever came about, you would probably have to take a couple of years off when Oak Hill would have a Major, a Ryder Cup or something like that. Q. With all your experience here obviously you should be the favorite because know this golf course the most, right? JEFF SLUMAN: Well, that's what some people think. But I'm certainly not the player I was when I was 25 or 30 going around here for all those rounds. And the golf course is still a little, it's a little different than the golf course that I played four or 500 rounds on. But I certainly feel like I can play the golf course well and if things go okay, you never know. You just got to wait until Sunday. But my conditions, I really would rather have it warm. I can tell you that. The cold weather is one of those conditions that I'm not real crazy about playing in. There's nothing you can do about it, of course, but I'll try and get out there and play as well as I can. But cold weather would be my probably about my least favorite at this age to play in. But we'll do what we can do. Q. As a follow-up, what traditionally makes this course so tough? It just holds up no matter who seems to be playing it, no matter what year, what decade, what era. JEFF SLUMAN: It's a great question. I think that it's obviously throughout time it's been a ball-striker's golf course. Look at the he champions from Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, two of the best of all time. And Curtis Strange. It's just kind of one of those courses that you think you can get, but you never do. I was almost amused, well not I shouldn't say almost, I was kind of amused that -- I can't get the quote perfect, but when Phil was here in 2003 he thought the golf course was pretty easy. And he started out like a ball on fire I think he was 3 or 4-under after seven or eight holes. Something like that. That sounds about right from my memory. And Oak Hill always has a way of getting back at you. And I think that it doesn't lull you to sleep, but it just constantly puts pressure on every aspect of your game. And then -- but it just, if you look at an individual hole you say, well that's not that hard a hole. But it's just the cumulative affect of continuing to have to drive it very well and place the ball in the greens, the greens aren't huge undulations or like Augusta or a speed like Oakmont, but they're just very, very tricky. And I think it just kind of wears on you. At the end of the day you say, wow, this is a cumulative 18 holes and this is an unbelievably difficult golf course. KELLY ELBIN: For the record Phil Mickelson did open up with 66 in the opening round and obviously did not finish in the Top-20. Questions? Q. I know this is your first Senior PGA Championship you haven't been on this tour that long, yesterday you mentioned that it's a more relaxed atmosphere and than the PGA TOUR. With 26 people withdrawing so far, do you think the same importance is put on these events in the Champions Tour? JEFF SLUMAN: I have no idea why the 26 people withdrew. And I haven't talked to a single one of them of why. I'm sure they all have their own individual reasons. I know it's important to the players that are here. The PGA of America, without the PGA of America, you know, I don't know where we would all be in the golf industry. Look at Craig Harmon over there, I mean he's been here for 37 years at Oak Hill and not only taught myself how to play and be a professional, I mean all the impact he's had on all the youth that he's taught and everything. So it's events like this that are very, very important. But I can't really comment on the other 26 withdrawals. But it is certainly important to me and the guy that is are here. Q. How has it been being in Rochester and I know you have said before you tried to treat this as another golf tournament where you want to focus on playing golf. Have you been able to do that up until today and with all the family and friends that obviously have been here to see you? JEFF SLUMAN: Yeah, absolutely. We had a little get together last night. I didn't realize that the PGA had a past Champions Dinner that I would be invited to, I thought it was just for the seniors. And I had played plans with the Paychex people months and months and months ago. So it was unfortunate that I missed that. But just kind of one of those things that my record here has not been very stellar to say the least. I don't think I've made it to a weekend of tournaments in Rochester. KELLY ELBIN: No. JEFF SLUMAN: So that will be my first goal this week, to play well enough to play on Saturday and Sunday and then we'll take it from there. Q. Do you have a favorite hole on the course or a special spot all the rounds that you've played when you get there memories comeback and you just -- JEFF SLUMAN: I don't know about memories and things like that, but when you're up on 13 looking down that golf hole, I think that's as pure a par-5 as there is. I still really don't envision anybody hitting it in two. You got to place the drive well, it's a great second shot layup. And it's a very severe green that doesn't look as severe as I mentioned before, there's a lot of greens out here like that. They have a natural amphitheater up there, the club house, I just think that that is one spectacular view from the tee. Q. This week is somewhat of an upstate reunion for you and Joey, Mike Hulbert, Wayne Levi, does it give you pause, passage of time that you're not all on the PGA TOUR any longer? JEFF SLUMAN: That's a great question. When we all went out to dinner last week two nights in a row and we all kind of looked at each other and said you know it is actually pretty amazing that the three of us grew up together playing against each other in sub junior golf, the junior golf, the college golf playing all the years we played on the TOUR together. And then Wayne was just a little older than us, but obviously coming from upstate New York that we have all managed to have really wonderful careers, continue to play, and now we're all on the Champions Tour. I don't think there's anybody in the room that would have imagined that could happen to all of us coming from upstate New York. So we actually had that conversation last week and it was, we all kind of looked and realized how fortunate and lucky we are. Q. I'm assuming that you're going to have lots of people locally following you from hole to hole wondering if you could talk to me just a little bit about what feels like to have or what it will feel like to have all those people watching you play golf locally? JEFF SLUMAN: Well, it's happened a few other times here in '89 and 2003. The tremendous amount of people out there. And I think it's just human nature, you want to try and perform as well as you can for them. But if I can learn from my mistakes I'm just going to kind of obviously just try and go out and play the game as well as I can and just not try and press the issue. This is a type of golf course if you do try and start pressing and making birdies, usually you don't do that. You usually, usually bad things end up happening. So you got to stay in the moment, stay patient, and I know the friends and family and the people that are out pulling for me are, they're going to pull for me regardless of what I shoot. And it will be a great experience for me. Q. With the amount of times that you've played the course and you kind of being the local guy, are there any other of the players kind of buddying up to you looking for kind of tips on playing the course and if so how much are you willing to divulge to them? JEFF SLUMAN: I told them to go to Wegmans and look at that. But, no, not really, I mean most of the guys in here have also played the golf course at least once or twice in other events. So we have a general understanding of how to play the golf course. So there hasn't been really anybody coming up to me to try and get some strategy or anything. And in a way they almost have never seen the golf course the way I saw it on a regular basis during member play. They have only seen it like it is now, set up very difficult and that. So they kind of understand how to play it from that perspective and in a tournament setting versus kind of member play just out having fun with your friends and family. Q. The 64 on Sunday certainly turned a lot of heads around here. But golf being the fickle game that it is, how much momentum is there? JEFF SLUMAN: Golf has no memory. (Laughter.) I mean it really doesn't. But it's just nice to know that I'm hitting the ball pretty solid. I hit it very, very close on Sunday when I shot the 64. But like I said, there's, the golf ball has no memory. That's one of the great things about golf. Craig's dad always said the same thing, the golf ball doesn't know how good you are, it just kind of reacts to how it's hit. Which is great for our sport. But the only thing it does is tells you that you're capable of shooting a low score at any time, and that you're swinging well. And the rest of it is, it's a new week, new grass we're playing on, different type of grass, different type of golf course and stuff like that. So it's always a game of adjustments. KELLY ELBIN: For the record, Jeff has two top 3 finishes in his last three Champions Tour events. Q. When you feel or see the wind pushing on the side of this media tent, knowing that it's there, I mean does that I don't know if it scares you even more, but it just, how much more, how intimidating is sensing that wind already right here? JEFF SLUMAN: I didn't really look at the forecast I don't know what the weather is? It's supposed to get warmer for the weekend. I know tomorrow apparently it's not, this is probably about the same type of weather we're going to see tomorrow as we see today right now. So the golf course can play very hard. I think Kerry Haigh from the PGA needs to be cognizant and I'm sure he's very in tune to the setup tomorrow. You don't need to try and kill everybody tomorrow. Because the golf course is going, if it's going to be cold and on and off showers and windy, that's enough to protect any golf course, let alone this one. But wherever he sets it up we're going to tee it up, we're going to play, and somebody is going to be leading after the first round tomorrow, certainly, and they're going to think it was great; and there's going to be a few guys that probably aren't going to think it's so great. But there's really nothing you can do about the weather but just go out and try and handle it the best you can. KELLY ELBIN: You mentioned long-time PGA head professional Craig Harmon is in the room with us earlier, can you talk just a bit about what he's meant to you personally over the years as well as what he's meant to your game. JEFF SLUMAN: Well, I think the least important aspect of Craig to my career really has been my game. He's shaped my game and everything, don't take it wrong in that regard, but it's more as a friend, as a mentor, and that he's been truly one of the key roles in my life. And golf is golf, but developing a friendship with somebody like Craig Harmon and his family has been more important to me than anything that I've ever done in golf. So I still like all the golf tips, the help he's provided throughout the last 30 years my life, but that's the least important thing. But just being able to call him up and talk about anything and everything related to golf and life is the most important thing to me. KELLY ELBIN: Rochester native Jeff Sluman. Thank you very much. JEFF SLUMAN: Thanks. End of FastScripts |
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