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TRAVELERS CHAMPIONSHIP

June 26, 2009

Kenny Perry

CROMWELL, CONNECTICUT

DOUG MILNE: We want to welcome Kenny Perry here, 11 under par, currently in the lead at the Travelers Championship. I heard you outside. Great day with the driver, hit every fairway. Not quite as many putts as yesterday, but you're still in good position.
KENNY PERRY: Yeah. In good shape. Happy with the round.
I hit 16 greens and didn't miss a fairway, so had 33 putts today. I think I figured that right. And 25 yesterday, so that's eight strokes. That was the difference between my two rounds.
But it was fun out there. I had control of the ball today, hit it nice, and just couldn't get the speed today. They were a lot slower to me, seemed like today, the greens were, and I just couldn't get enough pace on the ball, seemed like, to make some putts.
DOUG MILNE: Is that part of the experience being out here, learning not to get too frustrated when you're hitting that ball that well?
KENNY PERRY: That's okay. I'm used to it. I don't normally putt well anyway.
DOUG MILNE: Questions for Kenny?

Q. Do you think you hit the ball better today than you did yesterday?
KENNY PERRY: Definitely. Yeah. I hit a lot more quality, longer irons were nice today, seemed like. I kept hitting it in there 15 feet from the hole. It's a putt you think you should make, but you probably don't make many of them. I just kept hitting that range, all day, all day, all day. I had a couple close ones. I think I made one putt over six feet today.
It was just frustrating day on the greens. That's about all I can say.

Q. Can you talk about what the rain did to the greens? Was it that much slower than yesterday?
KENNY PERRY: I couldn't get them to the hole. I left a couple, quite a few coming in short, and then when I did try to put pace on it and hit it hard, I just blew it right through the break. It was just like I didn't have any touch.
What I felt was the right speed was always short, and then when I tried to hit it, I couldn't stroke it. I was hitting the putt, then I was blowing it right to the break. So I definitely didn't have much feel out there today.

Q. For 15 years you have four wins out here and all of a sudden in the last five or six years you've had nine more. Did something happen that changed your game?
KENNY PERRY: Could have been a lot of things. You know what, I just think experience, for one thing. Comfort level maybe. Kids grown now. They're doing great. One's married. My son just graduated, my youngest is a senior at SMU, so my kids are doing great, so it's just Sandy and I traveling. So that takes a lot of pressure off me. The kids doing great.
In the mid 90s and late 80s they were always wanting me to come home, be a dad thing, so I've kind of refocused in on my golf in the 2000s, and it's been just me to get out there and get after it a little bit, and I think it shows.

Q. 20 wins, you've thrown that number out there before, does it seem a lot more realistic?
KENNY PERRY: Well, it's a pretty unrealistic number, I mean if you really think about it at my age and where I am in my career, but making the Ryder Cup team was unrealistic, too, last year also. I was 100 something in the world when I made that goal of trying to make the Ryder Cup team, and I ended up winning three times and making the team.
It was just a number somebody -- they said, what's your next goal, and Davis had just won 20, and I liked that number. So I may not ever get it, but that's okay if I don't ever win again, I've had a good career, but it gives me something to shoot for and work for.

Q. Kenny, you said you were frustrated. Do you feel that you gave away a little bit to the field today?
KENNY PERRY: No. I think the pin placements on the Back 9 I thought were all Sunday pin placements. They were in some tough spots on that Back 9.
I actually don't think the scores are going to be that good today. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe my putter was just that far off. You're really going to have to hit some golf shots today. All the pins are in the back, and with the slope of the greens, you gotta somehow get the spin off that golf ball.
My ball would get up and come whipping back and I'd end up having that 15, 20-footer. You gotta really hit some quality shots to keep it around that hole today.
It just seems like the pins yesterday fit me, fit my shot shape and all where today I had to maneuver out of my comfort zone a little bit. So played more safe today, played more to the fat of the greens.
I played nicely. It was an easy day at the office. It really was. It was just I didn't get them in the hole.

Q. (Inaudible question).
KENNY PERRY: Well, I mean when is it going to end? Last week was out of control long, and this week is probably one of our shorter events on Tour. It's, what, 6800 yards long? It may be the shortest.
I think TPC is 6900 there in Jacksonville. All they gotta do is narrow the fairways and grow the rough. If you actually want to change the scoring conditions, you don't have to have length at all. You have to get the guys to think a little bit out there and play a little more course management instead of the old bomb and gouge approach.
So I mean I love this golf course. It's one of my favorites. I enjoy playing it. It's got a lot of risk-reward holes. The finish from 13 in are just beautiful golf holes coming down the stretch, and no, I don't think they need to lengthen this course at all.
I hope the fans like excitement. I hope they'd rather see us making birdies than fighting to make pars. That's just kind of the way I like looking at it.
DOUG MILNE: Anything else, guys? Thanks, Kenny. Thanks for coming in.
KENNY PERRY: You're welcome.

End of FastScripts

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