INGERSOLL-RAND SENIOR TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP

November 7, 1999

Larry Nelson

LARRY NELSON: I had decided last week when I was in L.A. to go to a cross-hand putting style because I've been having so much trouble with my right arm and my right hand. One day it will feel pretty good, and the next day it won't. It all has to do with the injury I had last year. It's just been very, very inconsistent, and I decided to try to get in some position where I wasn't so right-hand dominant, and cross-handed seems to be the best way to go. So I putted very well this week compared to the way I've been putting this year. So I'm very pleased with that, and I've found that after I started making some putts, the rest of my game started getting better. I had been putting so much pressure on my iron game because I just wasn't making anything outside of five feet.

LARRY NELSON: I hurt my neck -- it was actually my neck between 6 and 7. I've got a ruptured disk here that pushes on the nerve. That affect my right arm. It's been a little over a year now, a year and three or four months and it hasn't healed totally, but some days it will be fine. Some days I'll have just as much strength in my right as do I in my left, and other days it won't be that way. I don't know with a causes it.

LARRY NELSON: When it's real bad it effect my whole game. When it's still bad, it still affects my putting. It doesn't take very much. I find that I don't have the same feel day-to-day that I used to. Going cross-handed kind of helps.

LARRY NELSON: He said it would take a year, if ever. If it ever would heal. I think it is somewhat better. I don't have the pain that I had, but it's just been -- it's taken me actually a year to kind of work around it I think. I had to change some things in my swing. It's not something you like to do. Got to live with it.

LARRY NELSON: No. Surgery, I think is an option, but the recovery, by the time I got through that I would be in the Super Seniors. I feel that as long as I can adapt myself to the problem -- it's not like it's a lot of pain. It's uncomfortable sometimes, but I notice that just -- with the strength in my right hand.

LARRY NELSON: A lot of exercise. After I first hurt it, when I noticed it at the U.S. Open two years ago at Riviera, I lost 50 percent of the strength in my right arm and I couldn't do anything hardly with my right arm. It's taken me about a year to get my right arm stronger than my left. The muscles just don't react. No matter how much exercise you do, they won't take because there's no nerve. So it takes twice as much work.

LARRY NELSON: The 10th hole, I hit driver, 9-iron; I killed it. I hit it really hard off the tee. 9-iron about seven feet or so and made birdie there. Missed it from about 18 feet on 12. Skipped a hole there. 11, I got it up-and-down out of the bunker, made it from about 3 1/2 feet. 12, missed it from about 18 feet. 13, missed it from about six feet. 14, made a putt of about 25 feet. 15, I missed it --.

LARRY NELSON: 14, I hit 8-iron. 15, missed it from about six feet for birdie. Hit driver, driver. Just on the front fringe but I had kind of a hard angle and chipped it about six feet by and missed it. 16, I hit a sand -- L-wedge about four and a half feet, made it there. Got it up-and-down on 17 from the back bunker. Made from about three feet, three-and-a-half. And then 18, I hit a 9-iron about six feet. Made it for birdie.

LARRY NELSON: I could have made a few putts -- 13 gave me trouble all week. 15, it seems like no matter where I was next to the green in two I still couldn't make birdie there. So those two are probably this whole week left a few shots out there. But I made a couple of good putts. I was really pleased. I felt like the round I shot today was about what I deserved.

LARRY NELSON: After the turn I did. I mean, the golf course played really difficulty thought and we're playing No. 10. I mean, the wind is right in your face. It's about 20 miles an hour, 25 miles an hour. I mean, some of the guys where the pin placement was, none of the other two guys in our group hit it on the green. It was very difficult. I hit my third shot on 13, and the wind just stopped. It was just like somebody turned the switch off. I would have had a much better chance had the wind kept blowing. But when the wind stopped, then I knew that it was really a matter of not whether they made any mistakes, but it was a matter of me birdieing all of the holes coming in, because it was not playing that difficult.

LARRY NELSON: I think everybody really appreciates Gary for who he is and kind of what he is. He's a very colorful character. But he's also very serious about his game. You can't shoot the scores he shoots without being serious. You can have fun just like everybody else, and he can have fun just like everybody else. But it's a lot easier to have fun when you're playing good than it is when you're playing bad. He's a good player. His first year when he came outlast year, he'd shoot a 65 and then hit 75. He just wasn't very consistent. I think that had to do with the number of competitive rounds he's played. But since he's had a chance to play more this year, I think he's a little bit more used to what's going on, and actually doing things under pressure, which doesn't take as much personality as it does to do that as it does being used it. And I think he's been able to do that. But he's good for the game. Good for the Senior TOUR.

LARRY NELSON: That's hard to say. But some people are good -- you know, Nicklaus always felt like if he played more than he played, he'd play worse. I think it has to do with personality. I think some people play too much. I mean, Gary played 16 or 17 events this year.

LARRY NELSON: That's plenty. You know, and do the other things he's doing. I think the trick, when you play that many events, is knowing when to take off and what kind of routine you need to have to come back out, to be ready to play when you comeback out.

LARRY NELSON: Most of us are happy he's got another job. (Laughter.)

LARRY NELSON: Well, we like to see him. He's a good friend. He and I both qualified on this golf course. He and I came on the regular TOUR at the same time. We're always happy to see him, but I don't think any of us really feel bad that he's got a job and he wants to work and do that and not play with us all the time.

LARRY NELSON: Well, Bruce played really well for three rounds, and you know, I didn't -- he's played so well with the lead this year that he's got a lot of confidence, and I really felt like he would be hard to catch. But when I got within two or three shots, I felt that, you know, there's the possibility that something might happen. You can't play that well all the time. But then Gary started playing well; started making some putts. So there are so many good players now, even compared to when I came out two and a half years ago. It's only going to get better. You can't look to one guy to run away with it every week. It's going to be five, six, seven or eight guys that are going to have a chance to win every Sunday. That will make it much more exciting.

LARRY NELSON: I think there's always a potential there. I've said from, I guess the beginning of this year, that I don't think anybody will ever dominate this TOUR like Hale Irwin did for two and a half years that he did it because there are so many good players now. Even though with seven wins seems kind of like a domination, it's not the same type that Hale did, I guess a couple years ago.

LARRY NELSON: 4th hole, hit 5-iron, second shot on the left fringe and 2-putted for birdie. 7, I hit sand wedge -- no, L-wedge about a foot and a half and made it for birdie. Number 8, I hit a 5-wood pin-high in the left fringe and 2-putted for birdie. So the front side, I had two two putts for birdie and one kick-in.

LARRY NELSON: I'll play at least as many as I played this year, which was 26, I think, something like that. I actually played 25 because I had to withdraw one week because of my arm, but I'll play at least that many. I'm happy with that. I play four rounds a week. One Pro-Am on Thursday, and that's fine with me. It's less rounds, less number of rounds than my doctor plays. (Laughter.)

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