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THE SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY MASTERCARD

July 24, 2008

Bruce Vaughan

TROON, SCOTLAND

STEVE TODD: Thanks for coming in, clubhouse leader at the moment, an eventful round.
BRUCE VAUGHAN: Yeah, it was an interesting round.
STEVE TODD: Your thoughts on it?
BRUCE VAUGHAN: I started off, I birdied the second hole and the fourth hole, and then I hit a 3-wood off the tee on that par 5 because I knew I couldn't get there, and I hit a another 3-wood and I pushed it to the right, and it was like a bird's nest in there. I didn't think I could get it out, and I didn't get it out, I barely advanced it. Then hit it up there short of the green and didn't get it up-and-down and made double and was right back to even par.
Then I birdied 8. I hit it in there close on 8 and 9. I hit a great shot in there on 9 about, I don't know, seven, eight feet and made birdie there. So I turned 2-under, and got it back, and then made a long putt on 11 for birdie.
And then 12, I don't know what happened on 12. 6-iron there to the right of the green and in that bunker and had an easy bunker shot. Flat-skulled it. I skulled it right over the green and almost hit somebody back there. Then it was sitting bad and I barely advanced it, and then got it up just barely on, and then 2-putted for triple.
Then turned around and hit a good drive on 13 and wedged it up there, made that for birdie.
Then, I birdied the par 5. My caddie talked me into hitting it over that ditch, and we knocked it over the ditch and had 8-iron to the green and 2-putted up for birdie.
Then 18, I made about a 30-footer on 18 for birdie. So it was either feast or famine. Outside of those two hockey sticks, it was a good round.
STEVE TODD: A lot of talk before the tournament about a chap from Kansas, and obviously a strong field, but you've done well there today, beaten a few big names.
BRUCE VAUGHAN: Well, it's just the first day. A few more days left. Just golf.

Q. Have you played in The Open before?
BRUCE VAUGHAN: I played in two British Opens and I played last year at Muirfield and now this year here. So I've played 4-over here.

Q. Any other majors?
BRUCE VAUGHAN: I played three U.S. Opens. And I played at Turnberry, and I played a few years ago at Hoylake.

Q. What do you think of links golf?
BRUCE VAUGHAN: I love it. I love coming over here. I wouldn't want a steady diet of it, but it's great to come over here. To play these kind of golf courses, I don't know how you could not come over here.
You know, they are great courses and they are famous courses, and you've just got to think yourself around and plot yourself along. It's not like at home where you bomb it down there and knock it on the green and if you miss the green, you grab your L-wedge and go for it. .
Here, you just kind of dink it here and dink it there and stuff. It's fun.

Q. What do you think of see somebody like Kenny Perry, qualifying for The Open but not playing in it?
BRUCE VAUGHAN: It's hard to say. You can't say what someone else is thinking. His main goal is to get to the Ryder Cup, you know. And the comments I heard him say was that when he had already committed to Milwaukee's tournament, and it was before he was exempt into the British Open; at the time he wasn't exempt into the British Open and he just felt like he should make his commitment, you know, and stuff.
I'm sure the tournament would have understood if he went to the British Open. So it's hard to say what somebody else -- me personally, you never get a chance to play that many majors. There's only four a year, so hard not to play in them.

Q. In your bio, it says before you were a golfer you were a fire fighter?
BRUCE VAUGHAN: Yeah, that's how I got started playing. I'm a country hole, grew up in western Kansas, nine-hole golf courses and working at a fire station, 2 1/2 days, that's all I ever worked and had to find something to do and started playing golf.

Q. Something less dangerous than fire fighting?
BRUCE VAUGHAN: Well, we really didn't have that many fires. Only had a couple last year. (Laughter).
I tried playing in high school, my team in high school.

Q. Did you play any other sports?
BRUCE VAUGHAN: I played a little football.

Q. How well-known is Tom in Kansas --
BRUCE VAUGHAN: Well, he's in the Eastern part. He's in Kansas City. I'm out in the middle of nowhere. It's as flat as this table where I grew up. But yeah, Tom, he's a Midwestern boy, so he understands what it's like out that way.

Q. Tom is popular here in Scotland and greatly loved everywhere; is he the preeminent sportsman there?
BRUCE VAUGHAN: Yeah, he's like God there. He's Tom Watson. I mean, you know, anybody thinks of Tom Watson, Kansas -- he's still the man. That's what I tell my caddie, I say, "There's the man." He only plays a few tournaments out here, and every time he plays, he's got a bad hip and looks like he can hardly walk but he can still play.

Q. He hit the green on 18.
BRUCE VAUGHAN: I wouldn't be surprised. He plays really good, but I've never played with him.

Q. Why did you take up golf?
BRUCE VAUGHAN: I don't know, it was something to do. I mean, I only worked 2 1/2 days a week in a town of about four and a half that you people. There's not a whole lot you're going to do.
Actually the golf guy that got me started playing golf was Ralph Terry, a famous pitcher for the Yankees back in the heydays and stuff and he married a girl from out that way and when he retired from baseball, they moved out there. So when I'm playing bad, I always cuss him. (Laughter).

Q. (Do you ever play in the wind at home)?
BRUCE VAUGHAN: You know, it's crazy. I grew up, it blows just like this all the time at home, if not harder. It's the windiest part of the United States where I grew up, and I hit the ball high, which can't figure that. But you know, all of the years and playing the Tour and stuff over there, you can't hit it low.
I can hit it low, but it's not my natural shot to hit it low and stuff. So a lot of times, I just take two clubs more than wood and just three-quarter shots and stuff, but that's just imagination. You have to just try to do that. The three days of practise rounds, that's all I did around the greens was just 6- and 7-irons and just chips and runs and stuff like that. I guess I should have been practising a few bunker shots, too.

Q. Any anxious moments fire fighting?
BRUCE VAUGHAN: I grew up around fire stations all my life. My dad was a fire chief and I grew up around fire departments all my life. There was a couple fires and actually there was one I was working, and I put them out, so it was -- at the time it was a big deal but just natural for me because I've just been around it all the time and stuff.
Mostly it was at a mental hospital, lots of buildings. There's like over a hundred buildings on the area and stuff and most of them had sprinkler systems and fire alarms and stuff like that. There was a lot of places where there weren't stuff like that and they were mental patients and they were seeing some weird stuff go on there.
STEVE TODD: Thanks a lot for coming in, Bruce.

End of FastScripts

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