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THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY MORGAN STANLEYMay 28, 2008Kenny PerryDUBLIN, OHIO LAURA NEAL: Kenny Perry, thank you for joining us in the interview room this morning. I know this is a special event for you and you were talking in your earlier interview about your preparations trying to get rested up for this week. Talk about your expectations coming into the tournament. KENNY PERRY: Well, they're very high. My golf game's really in good order right now. I played really nicely the last four weeks and this is a special place for me. I just always feel like when I come here I've got a great shot at winning the tournament. And I shot 63 here Sunday of last year to finish third. So hopefully I can kind of live on that a little bit and carry it on over into this week and keep making putts. LAURA NEAL: Questions? Q. Seems like everything in your game is going well the last four or five weeks. Just talk about what it feels like to be in that position, coming to a course that you like anyway. KENNY PERRY: Yeah, it's just nice I got some consistency now. Driving the ball a whole lot better. My irons are nice. But I'm putting a lot better and I think that's been the big key to why I've scored a lot better here the past month. Then I look at this week and I just know this golf course so well. I've just played here so many times and I just understand how to play this golf course. I just love the greens. I love the speed of the greens. It just fits right into my wheel house. It's a driver's dream golf course if you drive the ball well. You just seem to have a little bit more of an advantage if you can find these fairways out here. To attack the pins, because the greens are always in gradients out there and you have to hit the ball within a 20-foot area to try to keep it near the hole, because it will always funnel off. And it's just, I just am very focused. Everybody knows I'm trying to make that Ryder Cup team. And to me every shot matters right now. And every shot counts. And I've just been very focused. This is my sixth week in a row. I been home one day in six weeks. And I'm just very focused and I'm just very determined. I've just got a goal there to make that team and I'm just going to throw all out there, put it all on the line and just see where I end up come September. Q. You just said it, you've been out for six weeks, is there some point here where you're mentally stressed? KENNY PERRY: I was last week. I wouldn't say stressed. I would say tired. Colonial is usually a good site for me. I usually play well there. And I just told Sandy, my wife, I said, I'm tired this week. And I shot even par for the week, I actually hit the ball beautifully, but I made too many mental mistakes. I didn't chip the ball very well. It just seemed like I couldn't get my head in the game. Couldn't get focused enough to really get in that golf tournament. It took a low number to win, but it didn't take a very low number, I think 5-under finished Top-10. And so I need all the Top-10s I can get may hands on. So it was definitely a situation to where I could have -- I had another great week and I could have earned a lot of points and kept in the eyes of Paul Azinger. So that was a week lost. So hopefully I learn from that and this week I prepared differently, I only played nine holes yesterday. I didn't get here until yesterday and I probably will only play nine today and I'm not going to practice that. My game's -- I feel great hitting the ball. And maybe putt for awhile. But I'm hopefully -- when I come out here at 9 o'clock in the morning tomorrow morning I'm going to be mentally fresh and ready to go. Q. Can you describe what it feels like to be mentioned in the same sentence as Tiger and Jack as the only multiple winners here? KENNY PERRY: Well, that would be truly an honor, but I'm definitely not in near their class of player. But it's nice to have your name mentioned with that type of player. Only if it is for just one tournament. Great people, great friends. Just think the world of Jack Nicklaus. Had a great time with him and Barbara with two of my Presidents Cups where he's the captain a couple times. And got to really know that family a little bit. And that was a dream of mine. And then just to kind of rub shoulders with Tiger all the time and hang out with him and play golf and see how great he is -- I've been lucky, very fortunate, I came, when I started the TOUR in '86, Trevino, Jack, they were all playing. They were all still out here playing. A lot of the great names. And I got to play with them back then. Arnie was playing. I became real good friends with Byron Nelson. So I've -- Byron would always write me notes and always encourage me. So it's been a very special time for me to get to know the greats of the past and now to actually play with Tiger, one of the greats of the future. So it's been a very nice roller coaster ride for me. I've really enjoyed it. Q. You just mentioned Byron, which leads to my question, you won here, you won Colonial, you won Arnold's tournament, I guess you need -- KENNY PERRY: I need Byron for the slam, I guess. The Coat Slam. Q. Do you think about that at all? KENNY PERRY: No, only the people who tell me about it, you know. Or keep reminding me. This is the only one you need to win. Q. But you heard it before? KENNY PERRY: I heard it many times. A lot of people have mentioned it to me. Mostly with the tournament, the Byron Nelson tournament, the guys in the red slacks, they come up to me, you know, and remind me of it. But that would be a neat accomplishment to have those four wins, be attached to those great men. And I just don't play that golf course very well. Los Colinas is not -- I always struggled there, it's always going to be tough, it would be a miracle week for me to somehow win that tournament. But D.A. went in there this year and changed the golf course, actually, it was a lot better course now, so we'll see. I played okay there. It just -- Sunday got me in that high wind. I was actually in contention to actually had a chance to win that tournament this year. But I shot a high number one Sunday and that was in 30-mile-an-hour winds. But we'll never know, we'll see. We got two more years before the Champions Tour. So we'll see. I got two more tries at it. Q. Obviously the Majors are going to play a big factor in the Ryder Cup with the points being double. Just curious, do you see Torrey Pines being much different than what you saw in January? Will that have helped you to be there or is it going to be completely different? KENNY PERRY: Totally different. I looked at all those tee boxes that they had set up, a lot further back, and was just in awe of them to tell you the truth. And I know the rough's going to be up. So it's going to be a totally -- and the speed of the greens are going to be I would say two to three feet faster, they're saying on the Stimpmeter-wise. And I don't know how they're going to be able to do that. The putting is going to be out of control out there. So it's just going to be a totally different test. You'll just have to wait until you get out there to see, to try to get a feel of what it's all about. Q. Tiger injury aside, does what you just said, does that mean that people shouldn't be putting so much stock in him doing well there because he's had success during the Buick tournament? Obviously the course is going to be a lot different as you said? KENNY PERRY: Well, that's his -- that was his backyard course. He said he's played a lot of rounds there, I don't know, as a kid and all. It would be like you coming back to my hometown and playing my course where I played millions of rounds of golf. I mean, you just -- he understands the golf course. It's kind of like me coming here. I understand the golf course, I understand the greens. He knows where every blade of grass is. It's obviously going to play faster and heavier rough and it's going to play a little bit harder for him, but he'll definitely still understand how to play the golf course. And that's always a huge advantage out there. Q. Can you put too much pressure on yourself as far as the Ryder Cup goes or is that a good thing in terms of focus? KENNY PERRY: I think it's a good thing for me. I played well this year, that being my only goal. Just I don't think I have, -- I've always played well when my back's kind of been against the wall a little bit. Struggling early in the year and trying to figure out a way to get back in there and, but this year I haven't really struggled. I played -- 13 events I played, I made the last -- no 14, I made the last 13 cuts in a row and just been very steady. Just, you know what, I'm just laying it on the line. Just trying to get out there and it's really not about pressure for me any more. It's just a goal. If I make it, great. And if I don't make it, that's fine too. I just want to prepare myself to do the best I can do. And if I don't make it, I can live with that. It's those tournaments when I don't seem to prepare well enough and I let get away, like last week, that really bothers me. Because I could have done something differently there. And I didn't. So you live and learn and go on. But I'm not nervous anymore. It's not about pressure. I was talking earlier, it's just kind of smelling the roses along the way for me now because I've been out here so long and I played so many tournaments and to me it's just about having fun. I lost in Atlanta and that was, I had a great chance to win that golf tournament and that was fun. It was fun getting in the heat again, knowing that I could do it. And that was a big confidence boost for me and I think that will carry me on through to the rest of the year. So that was big for me. Q. Along those same lines though, do you wonder, could you have played like this every year? KENNY PERRY: Well, I had surgery in 2006 on my knee and that really threw me a curve ball. It really did. I came back too soon. I really got some bad swing habits there and I have just now two years later gotten over it. I can play golf, I could have played golf a month after my surgery, and I came back at -- I had won twice in 2005 and what I wanted to do, I wanted to get back to defend my titles. I didn't defend at Bay Hill, but my first was to defend at Colonial and that was too soon. I should have waited. And what happened, I ended up I couldn't get my right leg to go toward the target at all. It was just staying planted like somebody drove a stake right through my knee. So I ended up hanging back and lagged the club underneath me and flipped it all the time so I hit pull hooks all the time. And I couldn't stop it no matter what I did. If I could have gone back and done it all over again and waited another month and come back and played with my knee, my career would have been a whole bunch better in 2006 and 2007. But I floundered, I just -- and I've just now got to where my lower body's actually matching up to my upper body now during the golf swing to where I can actually hit good quality golf shots. And now my swing's repeating week in and week out like it used to. And I'm hitting good golf shots, driving the ball good again. I'm not -- I very seldom hit it to the left. Whenever I played my best golf, my misses were always to the right. I would miss the driver right. Well, all of a sudden now you're missing everything left, you're pull hooking everything, boy, it really messed with my head, my psyche, it messed with everything. And so within the last month now I'm seeing a golf ball start down the right side, draw back to the middle where I've always played my whole career. And I'm starting to get some confidence again. Q. Just wondering though, could you be this driven every year on TOUR? KENNY PERRY: No. Q. Is that possible? KENNY PERRY: No. No. Q. No? KENNY PERRY: No. I don't think so. You get tired. I don't know. If I would have been this driven, I would probably have been Tiger Woods. That's just the way that guy is. He's driven each and every week to win each tournament. That's his only goal is to win. That's not been my goal. My only goal is to survive out there, you know. And I definitely don't have the talent that kid has, but you know what, I've done okay for 22 years. Been very happy with my career, so. Q. Paul was in hear earlier talking about the new points system and getting the hotter guys on the Ryder Cup team. In previous Ryder Cups you would have been further behind, you would have had a hard time making up as many points this year. Just kind of your thoughts on the new system and -- KENNY PERRY: I think it's great. I really do. I think you'll have the best players going in at the time to compete. I think we'll have our stronger team. I really do. We'll have a more motivated, more focused team. We'll have a team that's sharp. They're razor sharp. They will have played more, trying to make that team. And then he gets to pick four players, which I think is a neat idea because I don't know how he's going to set Valhalla up. I heard him say that he's going to grow the rough up really deep up to 280 yards or whatever and then past that it's going to thin it out. So he may pick a bomber team like Bubba Watson, JB, guys who can carry all the trouble, and widen the fairways out at 300 yards to where it will be more to the Americans' advantage. So it will give him some options of how he wants to -- what kind of chemistry he wants to put on the golf course on the team. Q. But is it easier this year for you to say, okay, I'm going to grind because I can make up ground? Like two years ago you might not have been able to make it up? KENNY PERRY: That's true. Yeah. But it was still always the second year, Ryder Cup year, it was a double-point year. So I slid in on that -- my -- I had a great -- the Hal Sutton year, the first year was good, but the year of the Ryder Cup year I didn't play that good, but I still had earned enough points to where I got on the team. So, yeah, so you're right, I think with the changes, you'll definitely have a stronger team. Q. You talked about driving. You looked at Torrey Pines. Can you talk about how now with the tees, not only, they're not just straight back, but at different angles and you were talking about Tiger. That seems to be something that y'all are going to have to learn now on how to drive that ball because the angles will never be the same. KENNY PERRY: Well, that's true. He will definitely see a different golf course. His sight lines are going to be off. What he's so used to looking at on each of these holes they're not straight away, they're all going to have some little quirky angles to them now. Which might throw him off. I don't know. It's definitely going to be long. It's 76 or 7700 yards long. It's definitely going to be a bomber's golf course for sure. And with the rough, when I was there earlier this year the rough was still bad. I mean, I'm sure now it's really going to be worse. And with him coming off knee surgery, he's done it before, he's -- I would have liked to have seen him play a competitive round here or there before the U.S. Open for him to be sharp, but he has done it in the past, come back from being off a long time and win tournaments. But it will be different for him. That golf course will not play anywhere like he's used to seeing it play. You get those greens that fast and that much slope on them, it's going to be a definitely defensive test out there. You're definitely going to have to be razor sharp with your irons to keep them under the hole somehow to where you can actually make a birdie here and there to kind of take a little heat off of you. But like I said, with the -- I just, I distinctly remember that one par-5, I forget what number it is, the tee box is 40 yards back and it's probably 30 yards to the left so it's actually going to make the hole -- the hole was dead straight now it's a little bit of a dogleg. And I kept looking at all those other tee boxes and they are, they're, it's going to be a totally different looking golf course when we go out there. So I don't know. I don't know how to answer that question. But it's going to be very hard. It's going to be very demanding. Q. I think it's a different knee for you, but what you were talking about earlier about coming back too soon, is that any kind of a lesson there for Tiger? KENNY PERRY: Well, he's not doing it, so obviously he knows -- he's smarter than I was. I was in a hurry to get back. I wanted to get back and play. Obviously he's, he wants to be mentally and physically ready to, when he tees it up, that he's ready to win golf tournaments. And it's, he's in a different situation than I was. It's his third surgery on that knee, so I don't know if it's more severe than what they let on to, if it's something worse or whatever. But he really never let's on, so you really never know what's in that kid's, what actually is really wrong with him. Q. Yours was the right? KENNY PERRY: The right, right. LAURA NEAL: Kenny, thanks for your time and good luck this week. KENNY PERRY: All right. Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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