U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 26, 2001

Larry Nelson

LARRY NELSON: I really do. I just really enjoyed playing last week. This golf course, although it's a little bit different, the grass texture is pretty much the same. So I think that won't hurt my confidence going into this week. I think this is the first time that I've gone in a Senior Open having played well the week before. So that's encouraging. Even though physically I'm probably not in the best shape I would like to be in. I played nine holes yesterday, I played nine holes today, haven't hit any practice balls. I'm just trying to keep my neck and shoulder in as good a shape as possible. I love the golf course. I think the golf course is really a good one. It's going to be a good test. If it gets firmer especially, as the -- maybe it drys out towards the end of the week. I think it's going to be a good week.

LARRY NELSON: Well I think the -- yesterday I played it when it was fairly wet, soft. The fairways are extremely wide. Having played a whole bunch of U.S. Open courses, and British Open courses, these fairways are probably -- some of them are 45, 50 yards wide. Normally the U.S. Open courses probably are 30 to 28 yards wide or 35 to 28 yards wide. So the fairways are a little bit wider. But having not played this golf course when it was firm, with the slopes and stuff on the fairway, that may be the way it should be. Me playing it yesterday, with it being soft, the fairways seemed really pretty wide. Wider than a normal U.S. Open. And I've played -- we were talking about it just a few minutes ago - we played some golf courses that have so much slopes on them that they didn't give you enough room for the slope. Maybe they have done a good job this week in getting the slope the way it is. I think all in all -- the fairways may be a little wider than what normal -- they're much wider than the golf course we played last week.

LARRY NELSON: No, I think we have -- well, historically, our majors have always come in the same pretty much the same time of the year. If you're not playing good from April to June, if that happens to be a time when you're not playing very good, then you're going to miss all the majors. Whereas the regular Tour's majors go from April until August. So there's a possibility through there that you might go through a period of time when you're not playing as well and maybe get back on your game for one of the majors. So now there hopefully they're going to be spreading out a little bit more. We're trying to do that. I think that it's -- I feel like that that probably has kept me from winning any of the majors to this point, it's just that I really wasn't playing well, hadn't played well during that time. Even though I finished second in every one of them except for this one.

LARRY NELSON: Well, my preference is playing these older historic golf courses. I mean, to me, there should be an emphasis on shot value, but not emphasis on perfection. There's a total difference. This one you can hit good shots for 18 holes and you could have possibly 18 good opportunities for birdie, birdie putts. A lot of the modern day golf courses you could hit 18 pretty good shots and they have nine realistic shots or putts for birdie. Simply because if you miss the ball, miss the hole maybe five feet to the right on some of the modern golf courses you end up 35 feet away. Same as a bad shot. And that's my only argument with some of the modern day golf courses that we play is that a good shot and a bad shot ends up the same place. What you have to do is hit a great shot. Nobody's good enough to hit great shots every time. So I think this golf course, you can go around and play this golf course if you're a good player, and if you're hitting the ball reasonably well, you'll do well here. But whereas some of the golf courses, the modern golf courses, you can play reasonably well and end up shooting over par because you don't hit any of those perfect shots to get -- it wasn't a five or six foot area that you have to get in for a birdie. And I like the fact that on these older golf courses a good shot turns out good; a bad shot turns out bad. And you don't get robbed that way.

LARRY NELSON: Yeah, I think it's one of those things I would love to do. I would love to win both the Senior PGA and the PGA and the Senior and the regular Open. So I think I got the hard part out of the way. If I can get by and do the next leg. And it would be important to me. And I think this time, this week U.S. Senior Open-wise, this is the first realistic chance I've had since I turned 50. I had to withdraw because of the neck problem that I still have that bothers me in my first U.S. Open which was in Riviera. I played eight holes there and had to withdraw. And so this is, I feel, like really my first legitimate shot at having a chance. I feel like I'm playing well enough this week; that if I don't make too many mistakes that I might have a chance this week.

LARRY NELSON: Purple Martins? Yeah, they have been pretty good. But I didn't realize when I first -- first of all, you know, this is how things travel. I saw up on the board that Tom had made double bogey. And I assumed that he had hit it in the water. I mean that's probably pretty much the only way you could make double there. Then we got, somebody stopped me in between green and the tee somewhere and said he hit a goose. So I said, that's okay. And then when I was in the press room somebody came in and said it was a Purple Martin. Now I didn't know what a Purple Martin was. I had no clue. I knew it wasn't a goose. But then somebody told me that it was a very small bird and then I knew what kind they were. They were the ones that scoot around the ground looking for insects and that kind of stuff. Flying real low. And it's not a very big bird at all. It's very unfortunate that something like that would happen.

LARRY NELSON: I am going to stay with the same irons I hit last week. I went out today with two different drivers that I used yesterday in the practice round. And I think I found one. The one I used, the second one I used today is probably the one I'm going to use this week. But I'll look at what they have tomorrow and what I can put together tomorrow. Drivers have always been kind of a feel thing for me. When I won the PGA in 1981 at Atlanta Country Club I went to the practice tee on Thursday with two drivers figuring out which one I should use that day and actually ended up using the one that felt the best, which I drove the ball really well all week. And I didn't use the driver again. I never used that driver again. It never felt good after that. I used up all the drivers in it I think.

LARRY NELSON: I think you knew I switched irons last week. Is that right? And I used a set of Taylor Made irons that I used for over a year and because of my neck and different things, I just didn't feel comfortable. So I decided I would call Taylor Made, told them that I needed some clubs with some graphite iron shafts to take some of the pressure off my neck. A little softer and they had a little softer hit. And I saw some of the 360 heads, which is their big cavity back head and I asked them just to go ahead and send me a set of the 360 heads with the graphite shafts in them. And they got to me Tuesday right before I came out to the FleetBoston on Wednesday. And so I made a decision, well, I'm just going to stick with them for two weeks. I left my other irons at home. I was going to bring those with me too just in case. But I didn't want to be tempted so I said, okay, I'll just leave them at home. But I told my person that works for me where they were just in case. So that if I had to have her send them up she could do that. But I actually hit the ball really well last week. I was really pleasantly surprised. And my neck made it through the four days really pretty good. I'm just trying to take it real easy this week and use the same ones.

LARRY NELSON: Well you all are easy. I want to thank all of you. I really enjoyed being up here in Massachusetts. People have been great. They have just been terrific. And this is a good venue. Going to be a good week. And it's really nice to see all the young people out here. I think that's very healthy. Healthy for our senior Tour, but healthy for golf in general. So it's really neat. Thank you very much.