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84 LUMBER CLASSIC

September 14, 2005

Jason Gore

FARMINGTON, PENNSYLVANIA

DAVE SENKO: Jason, thank you very much for joining us here in the media center at the 84 Lumber Classic. Maybe just get us started. This will be your third time playing this event, the second time here. Maybe just talk a little bit about changes since you played here in 2003, and you had a chance to look at the course yesterday.

JASON GORE: It's a much better golf course than it used to be. He's made some great changes. The golf course is in phenomenal shape. I'm looking forward to playing it.

I really feel like it's a place very similar to where I won down in West Virginia not too long ago, a Pete Dye golf course. This isn't Pete Dye, but it's got a lot of the same feel and same terrain and the same grass, and I'm looking forward to it. I feel a lot better this week than I have in the previous few weeks, so we'll see.

DAVE SENKO: Maybe just talk about your year. It's been, I guess, an interesting year and a special year with everything that's happened the last couple months.

JASON GORE: Yeah, it's been pretty crazy, that's for sure. You know, hopefully I will become a better player and move on. These last three weeks haven't been great, but we'll figure it out. We'll get back up on our feet again. We're all mortal, most of us are at least (laughter), but it should be good. I feel like I'm swinging good and we're ready to go.

Q. After the experience at the Open, it would have been easy probably with all the euphoria and everything that you felt maybe for that to be like the pinnacle and to come down from that, but you used that the other way, as kind of a springboard.

JASON GORE: Yeah, it was a great learning experience. That's really kind of what I took from it, and at that point that was all I had left. I mean, I lost my chance to win the U.S. Open, but nobody ever really has a chance, we all just have an opportunity.

It was a great learning experience, and I took that learning experience back to the Nationwide Tour and had a little bit of success. It was a wonderful day, and I don't think I would I'd like to change it, but you can't, and you take what you can out of it and go from there.

Q. You talk as if there's a part of your season that was just blank, not pleasing to you, but since the Open, I mean, the things you've been able to do are almost perfect. You had a plan that some people might not agree with, but it was certainly the right plan for you. How can you take an experience like the U.S. Open, and in our minds, those of us who didn't know you before, just become a different player and be on a higher level?

JASON GORE: Well, I think that there are so many great players, especially down on the Nationwide Tour, that it could have been any one of us. I just happened to play well during a pretty big week, and I gained some confidence from it. I mean, it's not that I'm physically better than any of the guys out there; I just rode the confidence and kind of, I guess, had a little Tiger syndrome out there. Once my name got on the leaderboard, it was pretty much game on. That's a pretty good feeling to have. When you're over here, people go, "Oh, no, there he is again." It's a great confidence booster. That's really what it was. There's so many great players in the world now, it's, I guess, just pretty fortunate.

Q. So the real difference is believing in what you can do?

JASON GORE: Absolutely. I mean, once you're not scared to go up and hit a shot, you're not thinking, "Oh, my gosh, there's water left." You just pick out a target and you say I've done it and it's one stroke and I can go ahead and hit it. It's a different approach, just looking at it. I'm really not worried about everything that can happen. I'm only worried about what I can control, and that's the way I think and the way I swing it.

Q. Do you think all the best players think that way?

JASON GORE: I don't know. It makes a lot of sense to me. I don't know, I can't speak for them. I'm sure they probably have some sort of version of that, and they're just worried about hitting the shots, don't worry about what it's going to do. They're worried about making one stroke. That's really all it is.

The tee ball tomorrow morning on the first tee is just as important as the last putt. It all counts as one, and that's really the way I'm trying to approach it, not get too up or down over one shot, not get too freaked out or nervous. It's just one over a scheme of an entire golf tournament.

I think that's where I started to play well, because it just not every shot was as important as I thought it would be. If we thought it was a life or death situation, it's really not. We're pretty lucky. We get to play a game for a living, and that's really the way I look at it.

Q. How would you categorize your life from the week before the U.S. Open to where it is now?

JASON GORE: Whirlwind. It's been pretty cool. I mean, everybody asks if my life has changed, and I just tell them, you know, my phone rings a little bit more often, but it hasn't changed much. I mean, what's happened since the U.S. Open just means I'm doing my job a little bit better. I still want to be a good husband, good father and a good son. That's really kind of what it comes down to.

Like I said before, we get to play a game for a living, and that's really my perspective on what it comes down to, to what really matters.

Q. How has the reception changed from the gallery? Three months ago the gallery didn't really know who you were, and now you're as household a name as almost anyone out here.

JASON GORE: I don't know about that. It's been pretty cool. It's been pretty cool to not have kids come up for your autograph and think that you don't hear them, and they go, "Who's that?" Now they go, "There's Jason Gore." I've had a very warm reception.

It's been pretty neat for people to come up and tell me their stories. I've had people come up and say, "I started playing golf because of you." I'm always like, "Gosh, I'm sorry." It's pretty neat. I don't see myself as somebody like that, but whenever you hear something that maybe you've made a dent in somebody's life, it's pretty cool.

Q. Other than the kids knowing who you are, any particular moment in the last few weeks that maybe illustrates how things have changed in the interaction with fans?

JASON GORE: I've gotten a couple letters from people that have sent me through the Tour about people one guy spent his last few moments with his father watching the U.S. Open, and he was dying of cancer, and he goes it was something along the lines of, "Keep watching this kid." It was like a tender moment, one of their last moments together. It's a father son. It's pretty well documented how my relationship with my dad was, and that was pretty touching, pretty cool, to know that it really wasn't just me, it was just somebody in that position being, I guess, the all American story of Mr. Underdog and fighting and clawing his way up to do that. It was really pretty cool to know that I was involved in such a wonderful moment or a tragic moment if you want to look at it that way. That was pretty special.

You get letters like that, and it's pretty neat (smiling).

Q. Can you talk about the popularity of golf right now and how it feels to be part of it at this time?

JASON GORE: I think we're all just thankful for Tiger. You know, this guy has made golf a very cool sport and a very it's a sport that everybody can relate to. 15 years ago, my story might have just been a blip in the comics section. Now that everybody loves golf and loves that guy, loves Tiger, I mean, he's changed the game for us. He's changed it forever. It's the same impact that Arnold Palmer had in his day and Jack Nicklaus had, and it's pretty special. I mean, the guy is just then you get great players like Vijay and Daly and Mickelson, and a lot of people love to watch golf now because it's every man. You get Tiger who's a physical specimen, you get me who should donate my body to science fiction (laughing). It's turned out to be a pretty popular sport. I'm glad to be just a small blip on the radar screen, but hopefully it'll change it.

Q. Have you thought about rescheduling next year? I know this is early, but given your circumstances I wonder if you're thinking about the beginning of the year, where you want to play and how much you want to play?

JASON GORE: No (laughing). To tell you the truth, I'm just looking forward to right around Thanksgiving time because my feet are going to be up on the coffee table and I'm just going to look back and enjoy it, and we're going to sit back for a week and start getting ready again. It's going to be pretty exciting, get to start off on the West Coast. I'm a California guy, but I've got some pretty thick roots here. I'm just looking forward to being able to pick and choose my schedule because I never really had that before. It's going to be pretty exciting.

Q. Your first couple Tour events, what has been different for you that you're not pleased with with your game?

JASON GORE: I haven't driven the ball very well, and that's usually my good part. I'm not really worried about that. That will be fine. I mean, I think I was leading the Nationwide Tour in total driving, so I'm not really worried. I'll just get it figured out and get back on line.

I led Boston for a little bit, and I putted like garbÃƒÂ¡ge. But putting good for nine holes, and all of a sudden got in the lead in Boston and had a bad weekend and had a bad back nine that second round, and that's golf. You're going to fall down, and we pick ourselves up and move on.

Q. Are you using that new Nike driver?

JASON GORE: Can I no comment that?

Q. Well, I saw it on your hat.

JASON GORE: I'm still hitting the same driver I've had all year. I'm not really in a position to change right now. I'm a little scared to change drivers, so I've still got all the same equipment I've had in there all year. Maybe it's more superstitious than anything.

Q. Tiger hasn't changed, either.

JASON GORE: Yeah, it happens that way. We're all kind of we all fall in love with our clubs. Once we find something we like, it's tough to get it out of our bag. Unless they're putters; they go like underwear.

Q. Is that something you might change over the winter?

JASON GORE: What?

Q. Underwear (laughter).

JASON GORE: The driver?

Q. Is that something you might change in the off season?

JASON GORE: I'm sure we'll do some testing. We'll figure it out. It's a long way away, though. Really all I'm trying to do is worry about tomorrow morning. I'm sure there's going to be some testing in the off season, and it should be a lot of fun.

Q. Have you seen Goosen at all since Pinehurst?

JASON GORE: I haven't. I still owe him five bucks (laughter).

Q. Do you think when you do see him, you guys will be able to laugh about that?

JASON GORE: Yeah, I hope so.

Q. You seemed to kind of click with him.

JASON GORE: Yeah, he's a good dude, a great guy. To be able to walk off the 18th green, I mean, all this stuff even happening, he was acting like a champion. He is a champion, and he's a gentleman.

I think that was really important for me to see, too, just to see how really solid this guy was and how it really didn't matter. It was just a golf tournament. It might have been the U.S. Open, but we're going to wake up the next day and nobody is going to lose a finger. It was pretty cool to see a true champion act like that.

Q. You should pay him off now.

JASON GORE: Yeah, of course I'll pay him.

Q. What do you think happened to him that day?

JASON GORE: That golf course, you really didn't have to play that bad to shoot those numbers. We both just missed a couple fairways and missed a couple greens in the wrong spot. I mean, if we were on any other golf course, it might have been even par, maybe 2 over, which isn't good, but that golf course was brutal. You know, I don't know if anybody went out there and played it on that Monday because I know some of the media went out there and played, but it was brutal. It was relentless.

There was no breathing hole, you know, where you walk up to the tee and go, "Okay, get things back on track, I've got a chance to make birdie here." You walk up to the next tee and it's a 490 par 3 with a green that's about the size of this microphone head here (laughter). It was a great golf course, but you really didn't have to screw up that bad to have a bad score.

Q. You mentioned that you said you have roots here. What are your roots here?

JASON GORE: My mom graduated from Turtle Creek High School. She lives in Monroeville right now, my brother lives in Monroeville, and all my mom's family lives here.

Q. What is your mom's name?

JASON GORE: Kathy.

Q. What's your brother's name?

JASON GORE: Ron.

Q. What do they do here?

JASON GORE: My mom is retired, and my brother I don't know what he does now (laughter). He's bounced around a couple times.

Q. What's your mom's maiden name?

JASON GORE: Fulmer. She moved back about four years ago after my dad died.

Q. She moved back here from California?

JASON GORE: Yes.

Q. Is that why, because of family?

JASON GORE: That and my brother lived out here and it was before I was married and had Tank. He's the size of a five year old, that kid.

Q. You never lived here?

JASON GORE: No, but, I mean, we spent most summers here. This is actually where I started playing golf. My uncle was a teaching pro at Manor Valley.

Q. That's the one with the lights, isn't it?

JASON GORE: Yeah, his name was John Kovach, and he just passed away about six months ago. We came out here one summer and I kind of played golf, and he gave lessons and was a really good player, and I kind of went out there and I shagged balls after he gave a lesson, and once his lesson was over I'd go to him and I got to shag them again. That was a lot of work then.

Yeah, so this is really where I kind of grew up playing golf, that and Manor Valley had three golf carts with the steering wheel that went this way, and I thought that was really cool.

Q. Do you remember the lights?

JASON GORE: I don't. The clubhouse was kind of up on a hill and there was this little kind of side way over here, and that's where we hit balls. It had a little green that you'd chip up to. I remember spinning a couple carts out going down. It scared the crap out of me.

Q. About what year was that?

JASON GORE: 1780, I don't know (laughter). It had to have been probably '85, '86, I'm guessing.

Q. What was the first course you played on?

JASON GORE: Manor Valley. That was the one where I really started playing golf.

DAVE SENKO: Thank you, Jason.

End of FastScripts.

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