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SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIPMay 21, 2008Jay HaasROCHESTER, NEW YORK KELLY ELBIN: Jay Haas, the 2006 Senior PGA Championship champion. Joining us here at Oak Hill Country Club at the 69th Senior PGA Championship. This is Jay's fifth Senior PGA Championship with three Top-10 finishes. Jay, welcome back to Oak Hill and you had some good memories with tie for fifth at the PGA Championship here in 2003. JAY HAAS: I do. I love this course from the first time I played it. It's, it has a special place in my heart, I guess, with the Harmon family involved here. And I've known Craig for quite awhile and just every time I come here I have some great memories. We played a Ryder Cup here and a U.S. Open, a PGA, and now a Senior PGA Championship. So it's been awhile since that PGA, I guess, but I do have some good memories. I played good weekend rounds, 69 both days on Saturday and Sunday. And to me the course is harder than it was back then. But I guess because it being 60 degrees and blowing a little bit and I'm 54 years old. So I guess maybe it seems a little bit harder. But the way it's set up right now, I know that Billy and I talked to Craig earlier in the week and he says the rough's not bad, it's only two inches, but he must have gone out there in the middle of last week, because it's, it seems to be a good bit deeper than two inches. But boy, what a great test it is and hard to predict what the scores will be because the weather is so iffy here in the next couple of days. But right now it's probably the hardest Champions Tour course, Senior Open, PGA course I've played here so far. KELLY ELBIN: With Billy Harmon on the bag this week I think that maybe gives you a little advantage perhaps. JAY HAAS: Actually Billy is not. He caddied for me nine holes yesterday in the pro-am. He's back there in the back, but he, he was coming up any way just to be with Craig and just to see this. Billy worked here off and on in his career and it just when we knew that the Senior PGA Championship was going to be here, he put that on his schedule to be up here, but I wanted to have him get an up close and personal of my game and so he caddied nine holes and gave me a couple tips and hopefully I can make them work. But, yeah, it's -- I have some sense of insight, I guess, to this place and I did get a couple of little inside information, I guess, from Billy and Craig, but if you don't play well here, you just, that's the bottom line. You can know all the breaks and all that, but if you don't hit the ball well, put it in the fairway, keep it under the hole, this is just a very difficult golf course. KELLY ELBIN: Open it up for questions, please. Q. How would you compare this place to Oak Tree in terms of difficulty? A lot of the guys there were talking about how it was probably the most difficult place they played all year. JAY HAAS: Right. Yeah. Totally different setup, I guess, and weather. There it was more wind, I guess that was going to make it play difficult and they had a good bit of rough there. A lot of trouble different places there. Bunkers. Two totally different golf courses. But there, I think if the wind doesn't blow at the two golf courses, I think this one's harder, just because I think the greens are more difficult, they're a little quicker, probably firmer than they were at Oak Tree. And a good bit more rough here, it seems like. But it's hard to compare. I see the, we got a weather report here, 54 is a high tomorrow. I don't know what the scores will be like, but we played -- I don't know if the wind's going to be blowing. I played nine holes early this morning and it was pretty raw out there. So maybe they will move some tees up and make the course play somewhat easier, but right now it's all we want for sure. But it's kind of two different, I would say this is a harder golf course though. Q. You talked about all the good experiences you had here. Do you wonder with a course like this whether your luck runs out because it's just such a demanding course. You enjoy this course, of course, what makes you come back feeling confident that you can do it here, whereas we had Jeff Sluman saying he's played 500 times and he still doesn't know how to do it? JAY HAAS: Well, I won't say I've had a great amount of success here. I did play well in 2003, but I was a member of the losing '95 Ryder Cup team, so that's not, I don't have great memories from that week. And I missed the cut in the '89 U.S. Open. So I guess I just, some great golf memories, but just good memories of being around Craig and just the entire club of Oak Hill is to me is one of the great clubs in the world. Q. As far as the mentality on this tour when it comes to a Major, we haven't had a senior Major here for a long time, we know what it's like or see in the golfers coming in for PGA and the U.S. Open and all that, but everybody gears up for that, is it similar on this tour or is it a still a, is it a little different mentality than what it on the regular PGA TOUR? JAY HAAS: I think that the difference is that for us, I see more players on the range this week than I ever see in a regular Champions Tour event. But still probably less players on the range or around the chipping and putting green than you would say at a PGA Championship. To me there's no different mentality when you're in the hunt. The shots are still difficult. You're still nervous. The adrenaline's pumping. To me that has not become any different or any less or easier than it was ten years ago, 20 years ago. It's still once you're in the hunt have you a chance to win a tournament, to me there's no difference there. Now if you're back in the pack and all that on a regular Champions Tour event, it's, there's no cut, so there's a little bit more relaxed atmosphere if you play a bad first round. If you play a bad first round here, then it's, you know, can you make the cut and how do you get back into it, things like that. So it's different than a regular Champions Tour event, but to me not that much different than it was than '89 or 2003, except I'm sitting here on Wednesday, where in 2003 they were, you know, I never got here, I didn't even know where the press room was, so. Q. If we get some wet weather tomorrow, with those temperatures, you played here in '95, the first day, it was probably as bad maybe even worse. Talk about how similar conditions could be now that you're 13 years older too, playing in those kind of conditions. You've already done it once before, how tough will that be? JAY HAAS: I think for any of us 50 and older, or anybody that gets older, we don't like cold weather. It's more difficult to play in. We get a little tighter, say. The course plays a little bit longer. And you just can't feel your hands as much. When it's in the 50s and wet, it's going to be hard to feel the club, hard to keep your touch. But hopefully if they see that they can set the course up accordingly. Maybe not quite as long. And we have been playing in the practice round and pro-am almost a step or two off the back of every tee. So the ball goes farther now than it did for us 10, 15 years ago, but still it's still a long golf course for a bunch of 50 somethings. So it's just you don't -- like to me any golf course is difficult in cool, wet weather. But it gets, again, it gets more so the older we get. Q. One of the guys obviously yourself, Bernhard, and Loren Roberts, playing great golf this year, Loren Roberts in particular, who also played in '95, played at Oak Tree, has experience, and he finished second last week. How good is Loren's game and do you see him as a player this week who the way he putts and the way he hits it straight, could really be maybe a factor on Sunday? JAY HAAS: Oh, without question I think Loren, this course suits him. Keeping it in the fairway, for as wet as it apparently has been up here, even a few weeks ago, the course is actually playing pretty fast. The ball's running out. I've never seen fairways as tight and as good as they are already this week. And the greens you kind of have to search for ball marks. They just don't tear up the greens like when it's too soft. So being in the fairway is the utmost. And Loren's such a beautiful putter, I would be shocked if he wasn't in the hunt coming down the stretch. And Bernhard, he seems to be a little bit impervious to bad weather. I think he probably, admittedly, the European Tour doesn't have the weather that the U. S. TOUR has, so I think he's grown up playing in some more bad weather than we have. And he is still as strong as he ever was, I think. And obviously playing great also. So those two guys, you would have to assume, that they would be, have a chance to win with nine holes to play. And there's quite a few, Tom Watson, I watched him hit some balls today on practice tee. He was next to me and he still puts the club on the back of the ball as good as anybody in the game. And he doesn't play so much that he gets worn out. I think he's mentally fresh and when he comes to these events, so I think he's probably licking his chops at it being cold and windy and in bad weather. The way he pitches the ball and that around the green, I would think that he would have no trouble out here either. So I look for those three guys to be three of the quite a few guys to beat. KELLY ELBIN: What did you do particularly well in 2003 to finish in the top-5? In other words what are some of the keys to doing well over four rounds here? JAY HAAS: Well, I came into that week not playing very well. I remember getting up on the hill, I don't know, Billy, what's that tee up there the practice tee there on 10? That's number 10? At the West Course. And there's practice tee is down below where everybody hits and I got up there kind of alone and just tried to hit shots down that fairway. And I was driving the ball poorly and I just worked and worked and it's just something that somehow it clicked. And I kind of hung on the first couple days and then really hit the ball well. I think from tee to green I probably played as well on that weekend that I've ever played in a Major. I just had a bunch of chances and 1-under the last two days of a Major tournament is, that always is a good thing. But I think that tee to green that was my strong suit that week. If I recall. Q. Based on your experience here and knowing how the golf course plays and knowing what the weather is going to be like, especially early on, how important now is patience and not pressing to know, I don't know if anybody's really going to try to press here, but patience being important and keeping yourself in contention rather than working your way out of contention. JAY HAAS: I think a Major tournament when courses are set up like this one is, patience is always important. No matter what level you're playing at. And you can't really, it's there's a fine line. If you are too patient then you're constantly chipping out for bogeys or whatever, if you're not playing that great. You kind of have to take a chance every now and then. But you certainly can't panic here. And I think that that might be the strong suit of most of the players in this event on the Champions Tour that maybe we have panicked enough, you know. And we have realized over the years that that's not the best thing. That's not the best way to play. So we did all that panicking maybe in our 20s and 30s and don't do it as much as we once did. But you feel a sense of urgency if you play poorly early on and you just say, well, I got to turn this around or else I'm going to be down the road or so far back I won't have a chance. So there is a point where patience kind of goes out the window and you got to, you have to attack. But I think that's probably the strong suit of most of the guys out here, that they have shot good rounds and they have shot poor rounds in all kind of conditions so they know what to expect. KELLY ELBIN: Jay Haas, thank you very much. JAY HAAS: Okay. Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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