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BUICK OPENJune 29, 2008Kenny PerryGRAND BLANC, MICHIGAN STEWART MOORE: Like to welcome the champion of this year's Buick Open, Kenny Perry. I know it was very dramatic and you had to watch Woody Austin come to the 18th green with a chance to tie you, and you had to watch Bubba Watson do the same. Why don't you take us through your thoughts on the driving range watching what's going on. KENNY PERRY: Well, I didn't really want to watch to tell you the truth. That's kind of why I went to the range. I wanted to get away. I didn't want to sit on the 18th green and worry about anything. Peter Kostis had that little camera deal and we were kind of watching. I could see on that; it was like a little TV that I could watch what they were doing. When Woody missed, I said, well, we dodged one bullet. But I figured Bubba would make birdie; he's got an incredible short game. I still can't believe I won. I feel like I need to go make a birdie out there to go win this tournament. Just a terrific day for me. I shoot 4-under on the front nine, and that really set up the whole tournament for me. 12, 13, 14 are risk/reward holes. If you can make birdies on those holes -- tournament usually comes down to those holes. I messed one up on 13, but holed a bunker shot I'm usually not very good at on 14. It was probably 30 yards, and went right in the cup for eagle, and that really pumped me up. And then I hit one of the prettiest 5-irons on that hole and wind up shot it and buried it in the right bunker and needed to carry a few more yards and it would have been fine. Then I made another nice birdie on 16. I made a beautiful chip from the left of the green over there to a couple feet, and then I figured I needed to make one more coming to 18. I hit a beautiful drive right down the middle, but the wind, I knew the 8-iron wasn't enough, so I didn't want to go over with 7 and played it to the middle of the green and somehow run a 20-footer in there, and thank goodness that was enough to win. STEWART MOORE: Speaking of today, you pick up 4,500 FedExCup points and virtually lock up your spot for the United States Ryder Cup Team. You and Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods are the only players with multiple victories this year. Put that into perspective; I know coming into this year, your expectations were not met early on, but you've been on fire the last two months. KENNY PERRY: I tell everybody, you just need to learn to set goals. You know, my previous career, I had not really set a lot of goals. And come January 1, my only goal was to make The Ryder Cup team, and that's really got me focused for whatever reason. It's just it's at home in Valhalla in my home state and at a golf course that I lost the 1996 PGA Championship to Mark Brooks in a playoff; just feel like I needed to go back there. I want to go back, end of my career; it's the icing on the cake for me to be able to play at my age. I'll be 48 when it comes, and just in front of my home folks, just something I wanted to do. I told Sandy, this might be the worst thing I've ever wished for; I may play poorly and get drilled, I don't know. But I hope I continue to play well. I've got a lot of confidence and I love my game the way I'm playing right now. And, you know what, with Tiger out, you know, it's just a great opportunity for an old guy here to actually steal some money in that FedExCup, so that's what we're after now. (Laughter) Q. What car are you going to drive to Media Day next year? KENNY PERRY: Hopefully I'll fly in and not drive like the last time, and if I do drive, it will be probably a GMC pickup, which don't take offense to that. We kept our last Buick. Sandy drove it for a long time, the Rendezvous. We enjoyed that very much. Q. Is the Ryder Cup the most important thing to you in your career? KENNY PERRY: At this stage, yes. Now if I would have been a lot younger, 20 years ago, I would have never said that. But for me being in my home state, just I'm going to have everybody there. I'm not going to be able to get enough tickets. It's just going to be one of those kind of deals where I'm going to be able to showcase my career, what I've done the past 22 years in front of my home folks and that's kind of what I'm after. Q. Are you still skipping the British? KENNY PERRY: No, I'm going to play Milwaukee. I've won Milwaukee. I set my schedule up this year, I committed to all these tournaments before when I was ranked 100th in the world. And now all of a sudden I've won twice, I'm probably top 20 in the world now, and I've already committed to Milwaukee and I'm not going to back out on them. That's a tournament I've won. I'm a champion there and I've Top-10'ed it there the last ten to 12 years straight and so to me, it was an opportunity to make more points. That's how I approached my schedule this year is to try to make as many points as I could to make sure I made that Ryder Cup Team. Next year, I'll play them all. Next year I'll probably play all the majors next year. I'll probably go to the British and I'll definitely play our Open. That's just the way it was this year. Q. (Inaudible.)? KENNY PERRY: I actually shot 58. I shot 29, and then the next day I turned around and shot 29 again, so I actually backed them up. Q. Playing on the back nine this year -- KENNY PERRY: Well, I played okay. That 13th hole had my number this week. Never seemed to hit a drive where I could actually go for it. I knocked it on in two one day but knocked it in that back bunker twice and missed the green short today, and didn't get up-and-down and made bogey. Played the next hole beautifully. Drove it on the green yesterday and 2-putted for birdie and holed it out of the trap today for eagle on 14, and I played 12 okay, so I made some birdies there. Q. The bunker shot -- KENNY PERRY: Well, when I got in it, as I was setting up to it, I was saying, you could hit this shot. For some reason I had a great feeling over that bunker shot. I didn't ever dream I was going to make it, but I felt I could hit it within ten feet of the hole, no problem. I wasn't nervous about it or worried about it, and it came off like a dream, took two hops and just slam-dunked right in the cup. You never expect to make them, but that really energized me for the last few holes. Q. Until today, Tony Lima, Julius Boros, Vijay and Tiger were the only multiple winners of this event. What's it mean to you to be part of a club with great players like that? KENNY PERRY: I've also been multiple winner at Colonial and Memorial. It's always nice to have your name associated with the greats of the game. I mean, I'm just hanging on to the shirttails; I'm the guy that's going to get their clubs out of the trunks of their car. It just lifts you up a little bit when you're associated with those kind of names, and that's a great feeling. Q. You're also the oldest player to win this; does that make it a little more special? KENNY PERRY: I guess, I don't know. I mean, it just nice to win, I mean, period. I struggled '06 and '07 with the knee surgery and all that, really got me behind the game. It's nice to get back on form again, and to feel like I can win. I still hit it plenty far enough. I still hit it as far as anybody, except for your big hitters, and putting better than ever. Usually your putting goes when you get older, but mine's better and that's why I'm playing so much better. Q. When you won here the first time, it seemed to springboard you to really exciting things over a good stretch; can you draw on that to maybe use that same kind of a springboard forward again? KENNY PERRY: Well, I hope so. I only won this event in '01 and I didn't win again until '03 but I played okay. I just think with my maturity and my experience, it's really going to help me through these next few months. I look forward now to playing the FedExCup tournaments and seeing what I have for those events. I look forward to the PGA. I look forward to the Ryder Cup. I mean, how nervous am I going to be in the Ryder Cup; all these people this week were pulling for me. I've never heard my name called out so many times on the golf course. Most tournaments, I don't hear my name called out a lot but for some reason this week the fans were really behind me. That was a neat feeling, and that's what I'm going to feel at Valhalla and it's definitely something I can draw on for sure for that week. Q. To basically lock up your goal of playing in the Ryder Cup here, you're in good shape obviously before this, but to know that you're in now, how does that feel for you? KENNY PERRY: Tremendous. I'm ecstatic. I mean, I guess it really won't sink in until I'm actually putting on the red white and blue and actually walking out there. It's just hard to believe. I've been kind of speechless this week. Normally, I don't know what to say. It's just all happened so fast here in the last two months. I've just been on a roller coaster ride from shooting 18 Sunday at TPC when I was in the last group at THE PLAYERS and then hit it off a tree the next week, bounce it back in the water; and lose to Ryuji Imada in a playoff; and then to win the Memorial and finishing sixth in the Travelers; it's been an incredible run. We've been on the leaderboard every week that I've been playing; I've seen my name up on the board, and you know, I've been a streaky player. That has just kind of been the history of my career, when I get hot, I get hot. In 2003 when I won back-to-back Colonial and Memorial, and two weeks later I won Milwaukee, and finished third in the Open that year; it was in between all that. I've had stretches, but this is probably the longest-sustained stretch in my career where I've played tremendous golf each and every week. Q. This is your best stretch? KENNY PERRY: Probably so. For time able to-wise, months-wise, these last two months I've just played unbelievable golf. Q. You talked about going to Milwaukee because you felt you needed to get the points there, but now you probably don't need to get the points there; so why would you not want to go to the British Open, a major? KENNY PERRY: Well, I'm sure the sponsors -- I've already committed to their tournament. That just wouldn't look good, in my opinion, to be committed and then just stone them to go play in the British Open; that ain't right. I'm not going to do that. If the Buick Open was that week and I did it to the Buick Open, I'm sure they would feel slighted or whatever. I'm going to stand my word. I committed to them the first of the year and that's where I'm going. Q. So do you need to set a new goal? KENNY PERRY: Probably so. Good question. What are we after now? I mean, Freddie says, FedExCup. Q. When you woke up this morning, did you think you would be sitting here as a winner; did you have that feeling? KENNY PERRY: To be honest, I never thought about it. I didn't think about winning today. I just thought about, you know, playing a good front nine. To be honest, that's all I wanted to do. If I could have shot a low score on the front nine, that was my goal when I shot 4-under. It's a tight nine holes. It's tight, it's tree-lined and you have to really maneuver the ball well around the front nine. Because I know ten, 12, 13, 14, there's a lot of birdie holes, 16, and 18, you can make some birdies on the back. Nine so, if I could get through that front nine, I knew I had a chance, and that's when I started thinking I could win the tournament. Q. There are a handful of you at the top today; did you feel the pressure of just coming down the final stretch? KENNY PERRY: No, I didn't feel the pressure. I mean, I just wanted to execute good golf shots. I didn't feel I had anything to lose. Those guys had everything to gain. They had not won. Bubba Watson has never won, and Woody is trying to get in the winner's circle, and Daniel Chopra won earlier in the year at Mercedes. I feet like being a winner a couple of weeks ago, I just didn't have nothing to lose. To me, it was just pedal to the metal, let's go see what we got. If I pulled it off, great, and if I didn't, great. I was just very focused and in the moment. Q. Is there a special meaning being the tournament's 50th winner? KENNY PERRY: That's pretty neat, yeah. I saw Billy Casper in the locker room and spoke to him a little bit. I've gone over to Morocco to play with him in his outing over there. It was good to see some of the old champions come back. That's a pretty special, to, have your name associated with them. Q. Can you talk about the eagle on 14, what you hit there out of the bunker, and what that did for you after making the birdie or the bogey on 13? KENNY PERRY: Well, I wasn't too upset on the bogey on 13. That hole, I just kept mis-clubbing on that hole. I never had the feel for that third shot into that green for some reason. And then I hit a good drive on 14. I necked it just a little bit and so it kind of turned over into that front bunker, which I've been hitting great bunker shots this week. I was very comfortable with the sand, and I knew I could get it up there within ten feet of the hole. I wasn't trying to make it. I was just trying to get it up there to have a realistic birdie chance at it. And when I hit it, it took two hops and jumped right in the hole and really energized me and gave me a shot in the arm knowing that, you know what, we can win this golf tournament now. Q. What club? KENNY PERRY: It was a 60-degree sand wedge. STEWART MOORE: We went through most of your back nine, but the four birdies on the front nine and 10. KENNY PERRY: 1, I hit driver, 3-wood to 40 feet and 2-putted for birdie. 4, I hit a driver and a sand wedge pretty close. That was probably a 4-footer, 3-footer. 6, I hit a good drive and a 54-degree sand wedge to about 15 feet and just short of the hole in the fringe and knocked that in. And then the next hole, I hit a driver and a killed a 3-wood. I had 272 to the front, 292 to the hole and I hit a 3-wood probably to 30 feet of the hole and was able to two putt for birdie. STEWART MOORE: Kenny, congratulations. End of FastScripts |
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