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TOSHIBA CLASSIC

March 4, 2009

Ben Crenshaw

NEWPORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA

PHIL STAMBAUGH: We're joined by Ben Crenshaw this afternoon here at the Toshiba Classic. Ben, I thought I would have you in this week based in your finish two weeks ago in the ACE Group Classic. You tied for third, and the fact that you finished third in event the last two years. Coming in with some confidence and some good vibes. Talk about your play of late and about this week's event.
BEN CRENSHAW: Okay. I played well in Florida. The first week at Boca Raton was okay. I got a little bit better the next week. We played a very hard golf course in Naples. It was our first time, a young course and very exacting. There was some fine players right there at the top. Gene Jones continues - continues - to play very well. Loren Roberts just kind of knocked us out at the end.
But, no, I've been playing well lately. I started off the year just completely, luckily, with the skins game. Got in by virtue of the fact that Peter Jacobsen went out with a rotator cuff injury. They asked me if I wanted to play and I said, Yes, I would like to. So that was my first skins game.
Then I had the ideal partner in Fuzzy Zoeller, because his attitude has always been the same his whole career. He's very -- plays very loose, and his attitude has never changed. He's not too up or down. That's ideal. We did some timely things and we won that, so that was a good start, too.
But coming in here, I think that, you know, many of the golfers have always said this is one of their favorite tournaments. Not only where we are, but the golf course that we play. It's a special challenge here. It's pleasurable to play. Not so physically taxing, but it's a course that you feel like if you're on your schtick you can shoot a good round. It gives you that.
But then it's the kind of golf course, too, if you're not exact, if your approach shot -- because the greens are kind of smallish, your score will -- it's troublesome. At the end of day, you say, Well, God, how did I shoot that? Or look back and you say, Well, I didn't play that well or you didn't get the putts in and this and that, but you feel like you have on opportunity to do well if you play well.
But it's a very traditional golf course. I think it's a fun mix of holes. You know, apart from the par-5s, which a lot of guys can get to, on certain days it gives you a chance to retrieve maybe a mediocre round or something like that.
But then there's some really good holes. The 8th hole is probably one of the best par-3s, one the best simple par-3s, I've ever seen. It's usually a long iron shot back into the wind towards the ocean, but it's a green that's very subtle. Just slants away from the player a little bit from left to right. You have to hit it really good -- you know standing on the tee that you would like to leave your ball below the hole somehow.
But in three days of competition, you usually will find yourself putting sort of desperately for a par one of those days. It's a wonderful hole, but there are a lot of good holes on this course.
You know if you don't produce, too, there's a lot guys behind you who will be there, too. They have the opportunity to shoot well, too. But we've always enjoyed this very much.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: I know you have sort of an attachment to the area with a house in the area. This tournament means something extra for you as well.
BEN CRENSHAW: Well, it does. Julie and I have had a house here for over ten years. Julie's mom and dad...
(Audio interruption.)

Q. Do you feel this is a course that if you're rolling it like you can you can win here?
BEN CRENSHAW: Well, I'd like to just get in that position. That's first and foremost. I can't think about winning it, but I'd like to play well and get into position. That's what I'm striving for anyway. But I would like to get in there again.

Q. You said you've been playing well recently. What do you credit that to?
BEN CRENSHAW: I've been driving the ball well. I drove the ball well in Florida. It's put me in better position. My irons need to be a little more precise. You know, we'll all say -- we all have to hole more putts. That's what gets you over the hump. You've got to see the ball go in enough times at the right time to put yourself in position.
So timely birdies and timely putts here and there, usually the short game, at least to me, that breeds confidence. If you see enough balls disappear, that's -- I think most golfers will tell that you gives you more confidence than anything.

Q. (No microphone.)
BEN CRENSHAW: Same kind. I've get a couple backups. Just kind of mix and match them. I still got the old Wilson 8802 type, and a Cleveland type.

Q. How long?
BEN CRENSHAW: I've had -- I've got a Cleveland Classic that was made in '88. I have my old putter that could go in as 1967, so...

Q. Which one did you have in 1995?
BEN CRENSHAW: I used a Cleveland Classic for that Masters win. I really have putted most of my career, and still now, with this old Wilson 8802. I've got another backup that I just had regripped.

Q. Have you thought at all about this being the 25th anniversary of '84?
BEN CRENSHAW: I have. I've done a couple interviews for Augusta so far this year. Doesn't seem like 25 years, but then again, I think about it a little bit and, yeah, it was that long ago.
Certainly '95 is a little more fresh, but '84 was a real relief to me to win that tournament. I had had a number of close finishes in major championships, but you never know or prove it to yourself until it happens. So it was a great relief for me to win there.

Q. Can you talk about the memories that stand out most from '84?
BEN CRENSHAW: In '84, getting in position and then birdieing 8, 9, and 10 on the last day. I had a bogey at 11, and then a quick birdie on top of that on 12, which really helped at the time, because I was battling Tom Kite and Larry Nelson and then Mark Lye.
I had, I think, a two-shot lead playing No. 14, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, I think it was two shots. Then I made a really hard 2-putt on that green. Not to drop a shot really helped me. It helped calm me down quite a bit at that time.
I knew if I didn't do anything catastrophic from there in, that I had a good chance. But I birdied 15, which really helped.

Q. (No microphone.)
BEN CRENSHAW: Yeah, it was. I still can't believe to this day that I played that well on that particular week. I've said many times it's unexplainable. Under the circumstances, I don't know how I got through. In retrospect, I played the whole week with 5 bogeys, and I've never done that in a major tournament.
So there weren't many slip-ups. When I made a slip-up, I got right back on the next hole. I had a very even keel attitude that week, and I'm anything but that usually. I'm very up and down emotionally.
I just couldn't believe that I was getting the opportunity to play like that on that week where everyone was thinking of Harvey Penick that week. Hard to believe still.

Q. How much time do you spend on your design business now? You have a very successful design business. I know you got a project in Tasmania that's about ready, right?
BEN CRENSHAW: Yes.

Q. Talk about your design business, and if you could, which five projects are you most proud of.
BEN CRENSHAW: Well, business is off right now, like a lot of things. So it's a little quiet right now. But I've been lucky enough to have had a wonderful partner in Bill Coore. We've been together since 1985, ironically, the same year I married Julie. So we've both been together 23 years.
We haven't done so many projects. We always liked to just work on one or two at a time. It's been fun that way. Bill, in our first year, he said something to me that I've never forgotten. We've always tried to adhere to what he said. He said, "Ben, if we can treat this foray as a hobby and not a job, we'll be just fine." We have treated it as such, and it's been so much fun.
Yes, we could have done more, I suppose. But we have a small crew, some of whom were employed by Bill longer than -- when I met Bill. We have fun building on pieces of land that most of the time we gravitate to because we think that the property is -- will yield some interesting golf.
It's usually the topography. We always try to judiciously pick a piece of property because we're more comfortable fitting the holes to the landscape as opposed to moving mass quantities of earth. There are so many people better in the business than we are doing that.
It's not that we don't want to do it so much, but some people are just better at it. It's very difficult. The most difficult proposition, if you start moving lots of dirt, is to make the product look natural. It's very difficult to do.
But I don't know. We just have been very fortunate with our pieces of land. Some of the courses have been -- Sandhills in Nebraska; Friar's Head midway out on Long Island; Old Sandwich in Plymouth, Massachusetts; Bandon Trails, the third course there at Bandon Dunes; Tuscawilla halfway between Atlanta and Augusta; Plantation, absolutely, at Kapalua. That was like our second or third course that we did.
But we've been very fortunate with pieces of property. It's been fun. We just try to learn. We have learned for the rest of our lives about building. For my own case, my study of golf history and architecture came in one week when I played the U.S. junior in Brookline in Boston.
When I was 16 years old and I played this golf course, and I had never been out of Texas really. I played this course, and it's dripping with history. The golf course was fascinating to me. It was kind of quirky and old-style, and very New England. Looked ancient to me.
I started reading everything I could find. From then on, my nose has been in a book forever, and it's been fun. Like Bill said, it's been a hobby.

Q. How did you celebrate when you won the Masters back in '84? What did you do that night?
BEN CRENSHAW: Well, they asked the champion to have dinner in the trophy room. (Audio interruption.)

End of FastScripts

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