SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

June 8, 2002

Larry Nelson

LARRY NELSON: I'm glad I drove the ball well. That's all I can say. I didn't hit my irons good, didn't putt good, but I drove well. I just kind of kept it in play, I guess, and it just wasn't very pretty, but apparently nobody else was either. This golf course will make you look like a fool, and I think it did quite a few people today. It's nice to play as poorly as I played today and still have a chance to win tomorrow. That's where I stand on all this. I guess in a four-day tournament if you can play all four days really good, that's probably an oddity. If you don't have one day out of four where you kind of struggle, and hopefully it's not two out of four, and I got my one out of the way.

LARRY NELSON: There weren't too many birdies to report. No. 6, I hit a 7-iron left of the green and chipped it up about four feet and missed it. No. 11, I hit a pitching wedge about ten feet and made it for birdie, which was my only birdie of the day. 15, I hooked a 5-iron, had a bad lie in the bunker, hit it to 20 feet and made bogey. 16, I finally hit the fairway on my second shot, but it was in a divot, pulled it over the green and made bogey there.

LARRY NELSON: I think the pin positions were a little more difficult today. I think the wind, even though it was warmer, I think the wind was a little bit trickier. That's the only thing I can figure. To me, I just didn't play well. I always wondered what would happen if you go out and everybody on the last day and nobody played good, everybody played awful, and the one guy that played decent, he won the tournament. Today that's what seemed to happen. For the most part nobody played good. And I think -- I mean if you had told me this morning I would have shot two over par today and wouldn't have lost any position, then I would have said you're crazy, especially when the temperature is going to be 80 degrees. This golf course kind of wears you down a little bit. I mean, I have driven the ball well and that just goes to show you that the U.S. Open and PGA, if you drive the ball well, you can do other things mediocre and still have a chance.

LARRY NELSON: Well, I think everybody gets a little bit nervous. What you're hoping is it is nerves and not fear, and I think everybody gets a little nervous. I think everybody's swing changes just a touch. And sometimes it's enough to cause a big difference.

LARRY NELSON: I'm even par for the week and bogeyed that every day.

LARRY NELSON: The first day, the course was wet and the wind was in our face and it played like a Par-7 or a Par-6. You have got an effective hitting area on that hole, driving area of about ten yards, and if you hit it in the rough, you have a hard time getting it back in the fairway on your second shot. So I mean, for all practical purposes that's the smallest driving area on the golf course, because if you don't land it within a ten-yard area you can't keep it in the fairway. So, I think that's the reason. Now you're playing a 400-yard hole or pretty close, 350-yard hole, out of a four-inch rough. It makes it real difficult.

LARRY NELSON: You don't have to mishit your driver very bad to be in a position where you can't get it to the green. I mean, I saw Wayne Levi hit it in the rough I think five or six times today and never put it on the green from the rough, and it's just tough. I mean, I said yesterday, I've played Opens where the rough wasn't this bad. I don't mind it, but I think people need to be aware of it, the press does. I mean, this is as difficult a golf course that I have a played in a long time.

LARRY NELSON: Historically I've always been able to drive the ball well under pressure. Putting, it's either good or bad. But generally the last day of a major if you can keep it in the fairway, if you can keep it in play, you're going to have a chance coming into 18. If you can do some of the other things decent -- I know at the Open, at Oakmont, the last day I shot 67. I think the last 36 holes I missed one fairway. And probably not two greens, the last 36 holes. So if you play that well, it doesn't take many mistakes from the other people. That's what happens in the Open. Very seldom does somebody go out and shoot 64 or 65 and blow by everybody. If you can keep from retreating as fast as everybody else does, then you'll do well on the last day.

LARRY NELSON: Roger Mulby may have been the one who said it. I love the heat. I love playing in the heat, both ways, temperature-wise and golf course-wise. So I've always enjoyed that. To me, it's exciting, the heat. I was raised in Georgia, staying outside most of my life. The heat doesn't bother me.

LARRY NELSON: It would be a big deal to me because what I would like to do, I would like to win both the Senior PGA and the Senior Open, to go with the regular PGA and the regular Open. I don't know how many people have won the Open and the PGA, you know, the regular Open and the regular PGA, but even less have won both the Senior Open and Senior PGA, and the Open PGA, maybe three or four.

LARRY NELSON: That would be great.

LARRY NELSON: Well, for the most part, I've played bad rounds of course, just like everybody has when you're leading or close to the lead or something in a major championship, but I think most of the time my swing gets better under pressure. I don't know if it actually tightens up. It's too loose in the beginning and it actually tightens up to where it's pretty good, but it seems like that I've hit and played some of my best rounds under pressure. That doesn't mean it will happen tomorrow. I feel confident going out tomorrow that I'll hit the ball better than I did today.

LARRY NELSON: I think some of the guys who get away with missing eight fairways a round and hitting it out of the rough on the greens and making long putts, I think that affected the guys a lot. I missed two fairways today. One of them was on 16 and that really didn't hurt me that bad. The other one was on No. 9, and I hit it just short of the green and got it up and down, but I only missed those two today. So playing out of these fairways, the fairways are perfect, the greens are fairly soft, so it is not really a difficult golf course from the fairway, but it is impossible from the rough.

LARRY NELSON: The score board, and I think this is the way it's going to be tomorrow, those sound sensor things, that's exactly how it's going to be tomorrow. You're going to see somebody is going to be under par, they're going to come back down, and you're going to see other people. It's going to be up and down. And that's the way this golf course is. Hopefully I'll stay right where I am. I got to one over today, back to even, and then two over. I didn't hit the ball very well at all, so if I could hit the ball better tomorrow, then I feel real good about the possibilities of at least shooting par better.

LARRY NELSON: I don't see that, no. I don't know what the forecast is for tomorrow. It's supposed to be warmer than today. If the greens got real firm, I mean really firm, that's a possibility, but I don't see them getting that hard overnight. I don't think it will be over par.

LARRY NELSON: No, that's odd, too. I haven't changed one this week. I'm not sure about tomorrow, but I haven't changed any this week.

LARRY NELSON: Putter. It's a possibility. I have a good second candidate before I started the week.

LARRY NELSON: I played the PGA last year at Atlanta Athletic Club, and the rough was fairly good there, but I don't think it was as bad as this, plus the greens were not as undulating and it's not as difficult to get it up and down from the greens. This golf course, I felt is playing almost as long as the Athletic Club did, with the exception of the 18th hole, 495 yard Par-4. Being as wet as the golf course was this week, as thick as the rough is, and as narrow as these fairways are, these things slope so much, a lot of them do, that you don't have that much rough. It's kind of like playing the Olympic Club out in San Francisco, a lot of these holes, where the fairways slope a lot from left to right, right to left, and sometimes you almost have to hit it in the rough to get it in the fairway. I think it was as difficult if not more difficult this week, than it was at the PGA at Athletic Club.

LARRY NELSON: Well, if they moved us back and if they grew the fairways in a little bit more. There are some of them that are pretty way, which is great. I think the golf course was set up very well for us this week. They gave us plenty of room to hit it in those areas that you need the slope to take care of in the fairways. I mean, some of those are fairly wide, but if you don't hit it perfect, don't hit it in the right part of the fairways, it's going to roll until it gets in the rough. That's what happened on 16. I hit it down the left-hand side fairly straight, 10 yards inside the fairway line and it was seven feet in the rough, just because of the way the thing slopes. So it can be tough. I know that if you had the normal U.S. Open field here and you had the normal PGA field, the regular guys, somebody would probably be 10 under. I mean, I don't know what the winning score at the World Series of Golf was last year. If you count Tiger out, what was second place?

LARRY NELSON: 7 under, 6 under, 13 under?

LARRY NELSON: Yes, when Furyk --

LARRY NELSON: You look at the difference. One under is leading here and eight under is -- with the exception of a couple of holes, which I don't think makes any difference lengthwise.

LARRY NELSON: That's what I'm saying, you take that into consideration, the best guys in the world shooting eight or nine under, and they have four and a half, five, six inches of rough here, and we only have got one guy under par, I think it's pretty -- even though nobody is scoring, it's because the golf course is that tough. Any time you've got a regular tournament where eight under wins, you can bet if you put the seniors on that golf course, it would take one under or two under to win.

LARRY NELSON: I hit a driver on every hole but three, only because if the wind was the opposite than where it was today, then I probably wouldn't hit a driver on five holes, but just the way the wind was kind of blowing in your face on No. 1, you pretty much have to hit a driver on every hole but three, for me.

LARRY NELSON: I love watching the score board. I mean, to me, I have the cheapest ticket in town. I love to watch golf. I love to watch the score board and what's happening. To me, it's kind of exciting. I enjoy watching it. So out of the corner of my eye, both eyes, or whatever, I look at the score board and just see what everybody is doing and see what the competition is doing.