	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 25, 2008

Bernhard Langer

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK

KELLY ELBIN: Two time Masters champion, Bernhard Langer, ladies and gentlemen, runner-up at the 69th Senior PGA Championship here at Oak Hill Country Club. Finished with 76, total of 288, 8-over par. Bernhard, obviously struggles on the front nine with a 41, but you stayed with it until the very end.
BERNHARD LANGER: Yeah, I started playing a lot better on the back nine. I just got off to a very rough start. I hit some bad shots and got some bad breaks and just didn't feel too good. Probably had too much lunch or something. I couldn't focus.
Then eventually I got it back to what I am capable of playing and I tried give it a run on the back nine and came close, but no cigar.
KELLY ELBIN: What was the length of the putt at 18?
BERNHARD LANGER: Probably 55 feet, 60 feet. I'm not sure.
KELLY ELBIN: Open it up for questions.

Q. At 18 how disappointed were you with the approach? What club did you hit in and what exactly happened on that shot?
BERNHARD LANGER: I wasn't too disappointed with that shot. It was a 5-iron and I was, I wanted to hit a 6-iron, but I went with a 5-iron, because my 6-iron has different grooves. I wouldn't have made it.
So I actually hit a pretty good shot and just the wind caught it a little bit and drifted it to the right.
That's really -- you can't expect to hit it within a few feet when you're that far away and into that green. That green, if you go left you're dead, if you go long you're history, short is no bargain. So you never know.
I wanted to make birdie, but at the same time there was no guarantee he was going to make par, Jay.
So I hit a pretty good shot and that was just a tough hole to make birdie on.

Q. Can you talk about the really it was a day-long struggle for all three of you. Just how tough -- Jeff mentioned that the course got so firm at the end that it made it so much tougher than it had been earlier in the week. Just talk about the struggles of the three some in the final group and the way the course played today.
BERNHARD LANGER: Well, the thing is it got dryer so the greens were a lot firmer. But what I didn't like is they got slower. I left all my putts short. Pretty much the one on 18 was the first putt I got past the hole. I must have left numerous putts short. Just one after another after another.
And I saw it in Jay as well and I saw it with Jeff. We all left putts short. The greens on the golf course were nothing like the putting green. They were several feet slower. And I don't know why, whether it's just the sun that makes the grass grow or whether they didn't want them to be too fast, I have no idea. But it was, the last two days it was a struggle to get the ball to the hole.

Q. How surreal was it when you opened, it, when all three opened today with such a firm lead and then the field, you guys dropped back in the field. How surreal was that feeling at that time?
BERNHARD LANGER: We all knew that there were -- I said that yesterday -- there's a bunch of guys in it, not just the two or three of us.
We didn't have a huge lead. It was, what? Two or three shots behind the other guys, ahead of the other guys. It wasn't like a ten shot lead.
It can -- I probably lost two or three shots definitely on most of the guys on the first hole when I double bogeyed. So it can go in a heartbeat around here.
But there was one stage that it looked like there were 10 guys in it at about halfway around. Or maybe after five or six holes it looked like everybody had a chance if they played the back nine well. And then Jay distanced himself somewhat. And then I got close again and maybe one or two others as well.

Q. In talking about the second shot at 18, you said you weren't disappointed with that shot. As you look back at some of the other holes or shots that you played throughout the day, what were the ones, if any, that you thought perhaps you let get away that you'll look back and regret?
BERNHARD LANGER: Oh, there were a number of them. My tee shot was bad on the first hole. The next one was somewhat unlucky. Then there were my 4-iron wasn't real solid on the third hole. Then I thought I hit a good tee shot on 4, but it bounced into the rough.
So it went on and on. But there were probably numerous shots that weren't properly executed, let's call it that way. My most disappointing bogey might have been actually on 8, because I hit a real good tee shot down the right side, I have a wedge in my hand, and the tree is over hanging into one third of the green.
So I got a wedge in my hand and I can't even hit it to the flag. I have to play eight or ten yards left of the flag. And I played up there almost pin high and now I got to putt it through the fringe because the green slopes so much if I putt it at the, on the green it would be ten, 15 feet right.
So I try to putt it through the fringe and obviously didn't hit it hard enough. So I make bogey with a pitching wedge from the fairway. Things like that, that's very frustrating. But it's done with, and he I just got to go on and take the good things out of it and move on and hopefully won't make those mistakes in the future.

Q. On the first hole, you say that's discouraging or the toughest, what gets you back going? How do you tray to forget that and say, geez, it's the first hole, we got to get ahold of it?
BERNHARD LANGER: Well, you have to. You can't dwell on that because if you do you might as well pack in and go home. You still got 17 other holes to play. And if I played those other 17 well, I still would have won. There's many opportunities and everybody else is going to mess up somewhere too. It's just that type of golf course that type of set up, it's almost impossible for someone to play 18 holes without making a mistake. And the wind was tricky too. It wasn't consistent. The forecast was for southwest wind and we actually had north to northeast wind. So figure that one out.

Q. In your recollection of '95 Ryder Cup, 2003 PGA and this week, has this golf course gotten more difficult to play, I know age is a factor perhaps in some of that, maybe not in your case, but is this golf course a different playing golf course? Is it tougher now than it was the previous two times you visited?
BERNHARD LANGER: No, it's all about how they set it up. And what the wind does, the wind always makes golf tough. Doesn't matter where you play. Whenever you have wind the scores go up. When you have no wind the scores are better. And we had four days of windy weather here.
Then it depends on the setup. The setup was tough, but reasonably fair. Only thing that wasn't brilliant were the greens. The afternoon, the greens got bumpy and we missed two, three foot putts, almost everyone did at times. And leaving 10, 15 foot putts short going up the hill, that doesn't happen very often out here. So the greens were not great.

Q. You saw many of the best players on the tour struggle all week to get chips and pitches on the green or control them, can you talk about that a little bit and maybe run through your shots on the ones that you had on that par four are, 14th hole today?
BERNHARD LANGER: Well chipping and stuff is extremely difficult out of that thick grass. They said the rough was three and a half inches long, it looked more like five to me at times. But and it was very juicy, dark green, like fertilized rough. Whether it was all the rain they have had lately or whatever, I don't know. But it was very thick.
You don't know how the ball comes out. And 14 was a typical example. I drove it up there, 50 yards short of the green, and the pin is only five yards on, so I have a very delicate difficult shot out of the rough and I try to land it a foot on the green because it sloped away from me to release, and I left it a foot short of the green and I'm still in the rough.
So those two feet, you know, they make a huge difference. You just can't judge it perfectly out of the rough.

Q. How was, you were there with Jay, how was he holding up and what did you think about his performance today, how he had to endure many of the same struggles that everybody else did in that three some. And does it, I know you're on the other side of it in '95, but he maybe redeemed himself on this course after what happened in '95.
BERNHARD LANGER: Those were several questions. First of all, he made two very long putts. I can't remember where. He made a bomb somewhere, I mean from out of town, it seems. And another one.
And then towards the end he started driving the ball very well. He drove it on to -- he hit the 10th fairway, he hit the 16th fairway, 17th, and 18th fairway. Those are not easy driving holes.
But he did have struggles with the putter. I said he made two long ones early, but he struggled with the putter just like the rest of us. He 3-putted No. 2. It wasn't that far away. He left the first putt like five feet short. Which, again, the green speeds are slow.
So he struggled there a bit. And he was a bit unlucky, had a couple of lip outs and all that kind of stuff too.
And he did say, when we were finished and I congratulated him and said, well done and we'll deserved he said, well, you know there was one guy after the Ryder Cup in '95 that came over and said some nice words to me and you know that guy. And he meant me.
So he thinks highly of me and I think highly of him. Because he's a great gentleman and it's always a pleasure playing with him.
KELLY ELBIN: You hit just five fairways.
BERNHARD LANGER: That's scary.
KELLY ELBIN: Were there any issues out there technically?
BERNHARD LANGER: No, it just wasn't swinging quite as well and got a couple of bad breaks. I thought I hit number 4 and it bounced into the rough.
There was one other one. Number 7 I thought that was a good shot and it, the whole fairway goes this way and it hits and goes that way to the rough. So there were two or three bad breaks, but the rest were just bad shots.
KELLY ELBIN: Bernhard Langer, runner-up in the 69th Senior PGA Championship. Thank you.
BERNHARD LANGER: Thanks again.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297