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FBR OPEN

February 1, 2009

Kenny Perry

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA

MARK STEVENS: We'd like to welcome Kenny Perry, winner of the 2009 FBR Open, to the media room. If you'd just start out giving us some general comments on winning this tournament after I think this is your 22nd consecutive appearance here, and then we'll take questions.
KENNY PERRY: Yeah, I was talking to Kevin Na and to Scott Piercy on No. 3 tee box, and I told them it was my 22nd tournament. Scott said, "I've only played 23 TOUR events." This is my 22nd year to play here. It was funny playing with Anthony Kim the first two days, I told him, "My son is walking over there on the ropes, he's your age, and I've got a daughter I just walked down the aisle, and she's older than you." It feels kind of funny playing with all the young kids nowadays.
To me this is a place I always felt like I could win. I always felt very comfortable on this golf course, and for whatever reason I didn't putt well these last two days, but I hit it good enough to do well, and I thought it was going to be a special day. I birdied the first hole and I knocked it on 3 in two with a beautiful 5-wood about 30 feet and I two-putted for birdie there.
I thought, we're under control here, my game is good, I feel good. But I kept hitting it in there, 8, 12, 15 feet and I could not buy a putt. Either I'd misread it or my speed would be off. I just couldn't get it in the hole.
You know, I just had to stay patient. That was kind of my motto today, "stay patient," just hang in there, don't make any bogeys. Only bogey was the 7th hole. Other than that -- oh, sorry, I bogeyed 18. This reminded me a lot of the John Deere. I bogeyed the 72nd hole and won a playoff, same kind of deal. At least I had that to kind of draw upon.
Great week. To be 4-over with four to play the first day and basically packing my bags and going home to winning a golf tournament, that's quite a turnaround.

Q. So what do you think of the rather entertaining hole, 16?
KENNY PERRY: Well, it was dead today. Everybody was watching the Super Bowl. For one time of the year it's a fun hole. I had everything -- I had a couple comments called at me, and you just kind of have to bite your tongue a little bit and just go on and hope you hit a good shot.
I did see a stat which pumped me up. I think I've got the lowest score on that hole. I've played it 74 times and I'm like 13-under on it. I really enjoy coming into that hole. I have a lot of confidence on it.
But for once in a year, it's all right. I enjoy playing it.

Q. I think at one time or another eight guys either had a share of the lead or were within one stroke of the lead. Did you know you were in that type of a shootout?
KENNY PERRY: Well, I wasn't moving. Nobody was moving. There were so many guys within two or three strokes of me, I knew it was going to be tight. Thank goodness I knocked it on 15 in two, I hit a beautiful 3-wood and a 7-iron to about ten feet, had a great eagle try and then I hit a beautiful shot on 17. I two-putted both of them for birdies. I didn't really roll in any birdies until the playoff hole.
It was a tough day for me. I mean, I hit it great, I felt good. I just for some reason was off this weekend on the speed of the greens. I just couldn't see the line very good and I couldn't read them very good. My speed -- I mean, I was lagging them around the hole, but it never looked like my ball was -- had any authority to it. It didn't look like it had intentions of going in. It looked like a wounded duck most of the time.
But what a great way to win. To get my 13th event at my age, to set goals and to start seeing some goals come together, it's been pretty neat this last year and a half.

Q. At any point were you thinking about Kentucky and some of your family members that are having a hard time during this round?
KENNY PERRY: Definitely. The camera got to me and the guy told me I was on, and I said hello to my mom and dad, and I hope they were feeling well and I hope they were watching. So yeah, definitely. I thought about them all week.
I know, I'm pretty sure -- I can't wait to call him here in a few minutes and find out how he's feeling. Hopefully this will pump him up.

Q. Is he at home?
KENNY PERRY: Yeah, they're at home.

Q. On 18 in regulation after you go into the bunker and now there's going to be a playoff, were you able to just put that right behind you, or can you just take us through your mindset at that point?
KENNY PERRY: Well, yeah, I wasn't too upset. I missed hitting a good 3-wood by probably five to eight yards. My aiming point was probably five yards left of where that ball went right in the left corner of that bunker right under the lip. If it would have just turned over off the tee just a little bit, my normal right-to-left shot, it would have been in the fairway. I duplicated it in the playoff, hit the exact same spot.
You know, I should have just pulled driver out and just wailed on it, I guess, but I was trying to be smart about it and play it back in the fairway. I knew Charley had driven it in the bunker and I knew that wasn't going to be a good place, very easy to get on the green from, and then I hit it in a worse spot.
The playoff was ugly. We were hitting it everywhere, having to scramble from all over the place. But that was neat for me to make a putt -- that's probably the first putt I've ever made to win. Those are the putts you think about when you're a kid; you're on the putting green saying, "This is to win the Masters" or whatever, and I finally made one. It took me a long time to do it.

Q. On 17 did those water sprinklers --
KENNY PERRY: They were in my way. I had to go left of them, and I was afraid to hit it too hard because the ball would have caught that ridge and slung down to the left. So I had to really about careful what I was doing there, and I was afraid to fly it up on the green because that was the hardest and crustiest green today. They had lost that green up around where that pin was.
If I landed it on the green I was afraid it would go over in the back bunker. My play was to aim it left and short, but I wanted to kind of squirrel it up on the -- at least get it within 15 feet of the hole, which was very doable, but it checked up pretty good as it came, two bounces in the fringe and it really grabbed it.

Q. Will you go to an eye specialist this week?
KENNY PERRY: No, I'm all right. I mean, these contacts are fine. My caddie needs to read them a little bit better (laughter).

Q. In a year when there's been so much focus on the young guys coming into the game, you've mentioned a couple young guys at the start of this press conference. Why do you think you're still able to win out there?
KENNY PERRY: Well, the game has not passed me by yet. A lot of guys, new equipment, ball technology, driver technology has hurt them and they've actually gotten shorter where I've actually gotten longer. I still hit it as far as anybody. To me, at my age and as healthy as I am, I don't back down to anybody. There's Bubba and J.B. and they're going to bomb it by me, but in general I'm going to be in the top half of the TOUR in distance. I still have good touch around the green with my putter normally, and chipping, so I don't have the flinches or the yips yet.
I've always been a good ball-striker. My whole career I've always been proud of how I am from tee to green. If I could have putted anywhere like this 20 years ago, my career would have been totally different. But I've just now figured out within the last four or five years how to really settle in and get comfortable over a putt.

Q. Where do you go from here, and how do you feel about your game on the courses that are coming up on the schedule?
KENNY PERRY: Well, actually Mark O'Meara -- I finished second at Pebble. Mark O'Meara beat me one of those years when he was winning every year, and I almost won at LA, Riviera. I had the course record there for the longest time and Corey Pavin beat me there. I haven't played that course in Tucson. I've got two good events coming up. I'm very fortunate. It's nice to get off to a good start now, and hopefully I can relax a little bit and be a little bit more aggressive and get in there at Pebble and LA and have some more good tournaments. I really think I can do something special.

Q. Could you describe the last putt?
KENNY PERRY: 20-something feet, two balls out. That's what my caddie says. He said, "It's two balls out," and we had been missing them all day, and I said, "All right." When I looked up I saw it two balls out, and I saw it breaking and it had a little more speed on it than I thought, but then it kind of just hugged right inside that right edge of that hole and sucked it down. Pretty exciting. Pretty nice way to win one.

Q. I think you've spoken of getting to 20 wins. Are you amazed that at 48, if you're really 48 --
KENNY PERRY: You know, I set it -- that goal was an unrealistic goal. I said it because they wanted to know something, so I said that.
Ryder Cup last year was an unrealistic goal if you really think about it. I'm 100-something in the world at the time, pretty much -- I had to do something magical, and I did, I won three out of five tournaments in the middle of the summer. All of a sudden I jumped right on the Ryder Cup team. That kind of spurred me on.
So I set a goal out there that's probably unrealistic and unreachable, but yet here I am. I'm only seven away now, not eight. So you never know.
MARK STEVENS: Thank you very much, Kenny.

End of FastScripts

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