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SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 22, 2008

Bernhard Langer

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK

Q. You were one of the first guys here Monday. Did you, in your mind say, to have a shot here, to play well, you had to get the work in early the first few days this week, having not been here in five years, right?
BERNHARD LANGER: That's true. But I played two practice rounds. I didn't spend an enormous amount of hours out here. But that should be enough anyway. Having played the course before. And the set up was very similar in the PGA Championship five years ago, so I wasn't, there wasn't anything brand new to the golf course.
They haven't made many changes. So it was a matter of hitting the ball where you were looking and making a few putts.

Q. It's only one round, but it has to set you up well to play well to get that round out of the way and know that you have a good chance to get to the weekend and be in the mix?
BERNHARD LANGER: As you say, you don't win a tournament the first day, you can lose it, but you can't win it. So I'm just trying to be near the leaders going into the weekend and hopefully have a good weekend.

Q. Is it almost like a British Open, the way the weather and the conditions are?
BERNHARD LANGER: Not so much a British Open, but maybe a U.S. Open the way the setup is. You hit a little bit of a loose shot or something you could be punished. The greens are very severe. You don't want to go over the greens. So you're always playing for the front edge.
And the greens are very well bunkered, so you only have a very narrow entrance into the greens.

Q. Do you think it's a fair enough setup though?
BERNHARD LANGER: I think it's pretty fair, yeah. You just got to play it extremely well and that's what Major Championships are all about.

Q. When you come back here, what does go through your mind? You obviously have some fond memories of Oak Hill.
BERNHARD LANGER: Yeah, I went through that in the press conference earlier in the week.

Q. Do you think about it during the round?
BERNHARD LANGER: No. No. I was just focused on today. Just driving in here Monday some of the Ryder Cup memories, some of the PGA memories and the other tournaments I played here, the hole in ones that were made on No. 6, I believe. And the celebrations that we had after the Ryder Cup. And those memories came back.

Q. How do you like the Champions Tour?
BERNHARD LANGER: I love it.

Q. Is it any slower?
BERNHARD LANGER: Slower in what sense? Slower in terms of playing wise?

Q. Playing wise, yeah.
BERNHARD LANGER: No, not really. It might be faster. Because some of the guys use carts so they so they get their quicker to the ball. So it's more or less the same. Depends on the setup. If it's a difficult setup like this one, with wind and rough and all that, it's going to take longer.
But I love the Champions Tour. It's a fantastic tour, I know all the guys. I don't run into 20 something's where I don't know their name. And the courses are slightly shorter than on the PGA TOUR, which is only fair and right, because we don't hit it as far as a 20 or 30 year old does.
It's a little bit easier to schedule because there's usually no cuts. So I can schedule my whole travel. And the whole thing is a bit easier than out on the PGA TOUR in terms of organizing your life.

Q. When you're talking about younger players, is it something maybe the attitude is a little bit better?
BERNHARD LANGER: Yeah, there's much more talking going on between us. Before or after, even during the rounds on the Champions Tour. On the PGA TOUR it's many times just business.
And the guys hang out together. We go to dinner together. We hang out afterwards before and just have a lot of fun, a lot of laughter. It's not all about building a career, you know, most of us or many of us have made a living already, we're out here to play golf for fun. And that's the great part.

Q. What about competition, I mean there must be the --
BERNHARD LANGER: The competition is great. Very much so. We wouldn't be here if we were not competitive or wouldn't have a competitive attitude. You look at guys like Hale Irwin and Tom Watson and Raymond Floyd and many, many others, they're here because they love to win and they're great competitors.

Q. Do you feel like you have a little bit of an edge here being 50?
BERNHARD LANGER: I think the younger you are the more edge you have in a sense. There's a saying once you turn 50 there's not many tournaments that are won by 60 year olds and over. So, no, every maybe five or ten years makes a difference.
The body starts aching more. You lose some muscle strength and some flexibility. So I would think that the guys between 50 and 55 definitely have more chance than 60 or 65 on an average.

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