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U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 28, 2004

Hale Irwin

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

RAND JERRIS: It's our pleasure to welcome this afternoon Hale Irwin. Hale is five-time USGA champion, having won the U.S. Open three times and the Senior Open in 1998 and 2000. Hale is someone who's had considerable success on U.S. Senior Open and U.S. Open courses in the past.

Maybe you could start us off with some general comments about the course here at Bellerive.

HALE IRWIN: Firstly, I think the comments I made would be echoed by all the other players. It's in tremendous condition. The work that's gone into preparing Bellerive is nothing short of spectacular. They've done a wonderful job. The zoysia fairways are heaven for a golfer, maybe hell if you're in the rough, but at least it's very, very superior playing conditions, and the greens are, again, I think as good as I've seen any greens in all the years that I've been hanging around these parts.

What we do have is a golf course that quite a few years ago was just sort of purely long. I think it has certainly grown out of that stature. There are some holes that are very much quality golf. The speed of the greens is going to be difficult this week. Many of the players are commenting on hole locations, the anticipated hole locations, where they may be, how are we going to get into those areas with the green sizes, and the speed of the greens coming back down the hills because many of you, I'm sure, have been out there. You know the pitch of the greens. They're rolling pretty good right now.

I have some familiarity, maybe more so than a lot of the players here at the tournament, but as I've tried to approach it this week, it's zero familiarity. I've tried to make this an approach where I don't know the golf course and look at it maybe from a different perspective than I have in the past. Yes, I did play the PGA here in 92, but with the changes that have occurred in the equipment side of the game, many of these holes are playing much, much differently than they did even back in 92. So, what was then does not apply to what is now.

Let's see, what other pearls of wisdom can I throw out there?

RAND JERRIS: Any thoughts of what it's like to come back and play in the St. Louis area? Talk about your St. Louis connection and what this area means for you.

HALE IRWIN: As many of you know, I lived here for quite a long time. I make my home in Arizona, although we still maintain our residence here or a home here. It's very much of a homecoming certainly. I've spent more years in this community than I have anywhere in my life, so this is probably as familiar to me as anyplace we'll ever be. While I still enjoy coming here, it was -- wherever I live is never really home because you live at least half the year on the road, so it's never quite what you think of home being. Home is really next week in Minneapolis and the week after that, it's somewhere else.

Putting down those roots are always sort of shallow roots and not easy to pull up, but certainly it's a community in which I've had a great deal of success. My children have grown up here, so I'm delighted to be here.

When I first found out that this event was coming to Bellerive, it's sort of been marked on my calendar for a long, long, long time, so frankly I'm glad the week is here. I can get it off my calendar after this week and not have to look forward to it with so much anticipation.

Q. You've been great for the city of St. Louis. You designed Forest Park golf course and you're having a clinic today that's going to benefit Forest Park. Can you talk about raising awareness to golf and exposing more people to it, an increased golf awareness in St. Louis and about the clinic today?

HALE IRWIN: I think it's important that we need to try as best we can throughout the game, whether it be for the USGA and their main programs or through the PGA and their local chapters or just anyone to grow the game is to try to bring more golfers into it, try to introduce them as best we can however we can. There's the First Tee program, Clubs For Kids program here for a long time through the Gateway Section. Our future belongs with the kids. We need to bring the kids into the game and get them interested. If the kids are interested, I dare say the parents will become interested. It behooves all of us to make that effort to bring those strides to bring them in. How do you bring them in? Incentives perhaps with various civic clubs to challenge them to get into golf and golf programs, school systems. I'd love to see PE back in the school systems. Part of that might be to teach golf as an activity, because let's face it, when you become the age of some of us in here, golf is about the only thing left you can do. The basketball and football and all those active sports kind of went with the bad joints and the sore shoulders and all that, so golf is a game that I think has lasted a long, long time and will continue to be that way. As an activity, as a way to conduct business -- I've seen many business deals go on on golf courses.

It seems to me to be a logical way in which to influence our children, if for no other reason than they have to sort of do it themselves. They have to learn some independence, they have to learn some integrity, they have to learn how to play with rules, and I think those are issues that sort of get lost in the shuffle nowadays.

Q. Bruce Lietzke was in here earlier and talked about he initially thought this was a golf course that favored right-to-left players. Now he's not sure it favors anybody. There's holes that go one way, holes that go another. Do you see it favoring a certain kind of game?

HALE IRWIN: No. I think the hole that was probably giving Bruce a little heartburn was the 7th hole, that little hole that's kind of out the chute. His fade won't work starting into those trees, and he can't even hit it over those.

I don't see it favoring anyone other than those that put it in the fairway with some shape. I got here Friday night and played Saturday, Sunday and Monday, and the course is so different from then than it is today that I might as well have not even played, and I think the course will change as we go on. We're seeing different wind direction, it's drying up, so holes that may have been very, very long in the beginning certainly are not. A tee shot shape that might be optimum by tomorrow could be something else altogether.

I'm not sure shape is what you're looking for, right to left or left to right. I think it's put it in the fairway. It's not going to be easy to play from this rough, and it's not going to be easy to get it up-and-down on these greens with some of the hole locations, I'm sure we're going to see. That's always been basic to a USGA event. Put it in the fairway, put it on the green, skate on through with a lot of pars and take the chances elsewhere.

Bruce is sort of setting everybody up, I think (laughter). He can hit it either way. I've seen him hook the ball. As much as he hates the word "hook," I've seen him hook it.

Q. You're such an intense golfer. Is your intensity level any different for a major, and especially a major here, than it is for any other tournament?

HALE IRWIN: Not really. Hopefully by this point in my career there's some objectivity to how I approach it, but certainly there's a pattern in how I -- I've played many events playing a week before, for instance, and playing into it. This time I didn't play for two weeks coming into it. I've had success both ways and I've had lack of success both ways.

To me, it's been approach each shot -- as trite as it may sound, you play them one at a time, and I hate that because you beat the heck out of it. There's not a shot here that I haven't played hundreds, if not thousands, of times somewhere else, and it's a matter of putting those increments together.

What I may have noticed that some of the other players haven't because I've played here are some of the problem areas that don't necessarily stick out that you might want to avoid. These guys, they're used to it. We're used to going into strange golf courses and picking it up. It's not like it's an accident that you remember this hole or the bounce there and they call it local knowledge. Well, these guys are professionals and know that stuff. So there's no real advantage.

I think the advantage may come with those people that have achieved in these formats. You can call it intensity, you can call it preparation, you can call it anything you want to, but the experience factor is enormous when it comes to these kinds of events.

Q. You have, I think, 60 wins between the Champions Tour and the PGA TOUR. Out of those 60 wins, how many times on a Wednesday or Thursday before the event did you have a meaningful clue a win was possible or probable as opposed to any other week?

HALE IRWIN: Probably zero. The times I felt really good going into an event, I've bombed, and there are tournaments I've played where I didn't think I had a chance, and I've won. That's not to say that I haven't played well going into an event or I may have felt fairly good about an aspect of my game, but I can't think back to any one event where I've gone in and said on a Wednesday, "Boy, do I feel good about this." More than anything else, if I've gone into an event, I think, "Boy, I've got a long ways to go." That doesn't mean I'm not confident about what I can do, but they don't give out the winner's check on Thursday, they give it out on Sunday.

So to me it's trying to get myself prepped for that sprint to the finish on Sunday and hopefully hang in there until then.

I suppose if I went back and you pointed out every one and you conjured up what I was feeling at the time, there might be a half a dozen where I could say I felt pretty good going into that event.

After the 90 win at Medinah, I knew I was playing well obviously, but I started playing better as the week went on, so I went to Westchester, and I knew it was a whirlwind, but I was playing well, and I won that event, too. There have been times when I've gone into the next event -- gone into a major championship thinking that things were okay and just absolutely bombed. It's hard to say. I don't really think about that. What's past is past and the only future to me is the first tee shot tomorrow and go from there. That's the way I've always approached it. Simplistic and boring, but that's the way it is.

Q. You've always been called boring.

HALE IRWIN: I know. That's why you and I get along (laughter).

Q. There is one issue here. You could win three Senior Opens to match your U.S. Opens, and there are probably other things that would be meaningful to you about winning here. Would you discuss those?

HALE IRWIN: Certainly the teeter-totter is a little out of balance. It would be nice to have that third, so I had that three and three. It would be nice. It balances out the trophy case at home. It's a little lopsided right now.

I think the important factor, too, is just my desire and my intentions have always been, and my career has been directed to and defined by Open Championships. It always has been, regardless of what I do otherwise, probably always will be. You might even say that out here on the Champions Tour, the PGA Seniors, because I've won four of those, but not really. You bring your history into play as a senior player, and my history was a U.S. Open championship, and I'm very proud of that. I'm not trying to change that one bit.

Winning here in St. Louis would be absolutely terrific. I've won out at Boone Valley a couple of times on the regular Champions Tour, but a major championship here would be a huge bonus, and bonus, too, would be the Schwab Cup Points. I'm presently leading, but by the slimmest of margins, so that would be a giant leap for me. I think the Schwab Cup has become a very important and well-fought race. That's just to mention three.

Q. You talked before about the clinic and the importance of getting kids around the game. What do you do when you're in that situation that really entices them and intrigues them in showing the kids the game? I think Arnold Palmer is going to be out there with you, as well. What does that mean?

HALE IRWIN: Arnold who?

Q. Some guy. But do the kids get that? It's obviously their grandparents.

HALE IRWIN: Well, the kids would be probably more familiar with Tiger Woods, and understandably so, but when you talk about people in the game that have really mesmerized many of us, brought to television in such a grand way, it would be Arnie, and I would not discount Gary's participation in this formula at all because he, too, was one of the big three without being there. In fact, I think his contribution to the game is still -- the way he still plays is utterly fantastic. Certainly him winning here at Bellerive in 65, that was a big golf course. You look at Gary, and he's not the biggest man in town, and you see how much courage and guts and determination he has. You speak to intensity, there's a man with intensity, and I think you need that to succeed.

The kids, as they associate with those players, are probably going to have to pick up on the excitement of the way, perhaps through us, but the history of the game will have to come through their parents or grandparents, but all in all, it's still the same game.

Hopefully, because many of us are grandparents ourselves, hopefully we can show the kids that there's more to the game of golf than just hitting a golf ball. It can be a lot of fun, as well. I think that's the ultimate goal is to have some fun with these kids or whomever is out there.

Q. Given the importance of the experience angle, how do you explain someone like Pete Oakley stepping up and doing what he did last week as a qualifier? It's kind of a nice story.

HALE IRWIN: I have no explanation. Of course, who would have thought Orville Moody would win the U.S. Open back in 1969. The first-time winners, who would have thought that Hale Irwin would win at Winged Foot? There's always a first. There's always someone that can emerge, and he certainly made his mark last week. Whether or not you continue or where you come from, it doesn't matter. His name is on the trophy and he proved himself that week.

Yes, there are contradictions to that general rule of thumb, but I dare say that there's not too many when it comes to -- you might say, okay, here's a handful of experience and a barrelful of inexperience, who do you want? I think your hand would probably go to the experience bowl more often.

Q. What years did you live here and how often do you come here now? You said you still have the home.

HALE IRWIN: Well, Sally, my wife, has always been from here. We were married in September of 68 and really kind of lived on the Tour. We had our belongings in the trunk of a car, but when our first child came along, we settled here. To this day we have the same home, same house, raised both children here. In fact, that's where I am this week. However long that is, we spent a great deal of time down in Arizona over the last three or four or five years, but it was -- the decision was made when I was turning 50, I needed to find a place where I had a year-round golf environment, and that was the place in which we settled, I being from Colorado and many of the people with whom I had gone to school, or I knew a lot of people in Arizona, so that was sort of a logical place to spend the year. We get back here quite often. In fact, I would say we get back here four, five, six times or more a year. Maybe not for any great length of time, but we're certainly back quite often.

Q. Early in your senior career, you said to put things in perspective that you would never rank any win that you had on the Senior Tour ahead of any win that you had on the PGA Tour. Is that a fair statement, and do you still have that perspective?

HALE IRWIN: You're playing in different environments. Let's just separate this out. The regular Tour, you might say which Open was more important. You can't do it, wouldn't do it. It wouldn't be fair. Same, once you make that step over into the enlightened zone (laughter), that would be unfair, too. Then you say, well, let's go back and forth and compare them. You can't do it. You're playing against a different -- you're in a different climate. Not necessarily the weather, but the people with whom you're associated, the whole thing, how it's set up, the intensity level is just different, the approach of the players is somewhat different, it's a little mellowed out. I will be playing in the PGA Championship in two weeks' time, and I dare say that safely I will be the oldest player in the field, and it is a challenge to know one out of 30 guys that I see, just to give you a small microscopic look -- comparisons, almost impossible. They play their brand of golf, we play our brand of golf, and do they cross over? Yes. Can I compete with them? Yes. We're seeing it in Jay Haas. We've seen it in Craig Stadler. We can compete with those guys. But to compare championships, that's very difficult. To say that winning here would be more or less important than having won at Silicone Valley or Riviera are more important than Winged Foot or Medinah or Inverness, can't do it. Just an entirely different set of circumstances each time you play.

Q. You've won a lot of golf tournaments and you've had a great life. What's left? Are there any achievements that you have yet to reach, some burning desire that maybe you really want to attain?

HALE IRWIN: I bet I could really mess things up and say winning here would be fantastic, getting my name noted and be on the Ryder Cup with Jay Haas, how's that? Wouldn't that blow him away? That would set the world upside down. I don't ever feel like I've achieved everything in the game that I can achieve. I don't know what that is. It's not money. Money, that's fantastic. I'm not debating the issue on money.

But as far as championship wins go, I've certainly lost far, far more than I've ever won, but to still have the health and the well-being, physical and mental, to continue that pursuit, is what I want to do. Now, there will come a time where physically/mentally I can't accommodate what I think I can or hope I can. Then it's time to step off. Gary and I were just talking about that an hour ago. Where do you say enough is enough, when you've been challenged all these years and risen to those challenges a number of times and continuing that quest. I enjoy the competitive experience, I enjoy the camaraderie, I enjoy the environment, and probably the older I get, I enjoy being in the people and trying to bring them into the game. Maybe it's a backdoor to bringing people back into the game that's been so good to me.

Q. Along the same lines, you had a really bad time with your back last year. I'm wondering if the thought of maybe it's over ever crossed your mind, and how did you get past the injury?

HALE IRWIN: Well, it certainly passed my mind when I was being hauled in off the golf course laying on a board. It absolutely crossed my mind, and I didn't like the thought. As you're aware, I didn't get to play in this event last year, I had to withdraw, so there was some -- in the fall when I started playing a bit more and I won an event late in the year last year and then winning this year and then at the PGA, you know, I think I'm through the "can I play again" thing, but I've said this a number of times, with the -- I'm still evolving into a new swing, a new approach how to play. There's just some things I can't quite do, whether it's physically I'm unable to or psychologically I don't want to get myself back to where I was, there's a little bit of flinch, and so to avoid that flinch I'm evolving my game into a different -- not bad, not a lot different, and some people may not see the difference, but it's there. It's a new approach to how to play, and I can't say that it's any better or any worse, it's just different.

Q. You mentioned at the beginning how equipment has changed this course. From your perspective, what's been in the last dozen years the single biggest equipment difference?

HALE IRWIN: The ball. I think you'll find every player you ask them the same thing, they'll say the ball. Then, of course, the clubs now with their metal heads and the titanium and the myriad of shafts you can put in there now. To have played a wooden-headed club that would be 46 inches long some 30 years ago, you'd have thought you were Wilt Chamberlain. What players can do now and increase the club head speed and keep the directional differential minimal, these guys are going to have to get into controlling the game, and it's been my encouragement through the years, we've got to get back to -- so you can take Bellerive which in 1965 was an enormously long golf course. It's not that long anymore. Is it because I'm hitting the ball farther or because I'm stronger? I'm definitely hitting the ball farther, but that's because of equipment. It's not because I'm bigger and bulkier, far from it. It's just the equipment issue. We've got to control it because we're taking a lot of the old courses that were revered through the years or we're going to have to build championship golf courses at 7,600 to 8,000 yards.

I play in Pro-Ams every week, and I assure you there's no one in this room that's going to play an 8,000-yard golf course very well. You have to have some character in the golf shots you're asking people to do. Not everything can be a 580-yard par 4. The 10th hole here is a long par 4. I would dare say in 65, it was probably a huge hole. Just getting it over the creek was probably a challenge. Now you have guys who will still be hitting irons in there even though it's only 480 yards.

Q. Were you here in 1965 at the U.S. Open?

HALE IRWIN: No. I was still a baby. I was watching those guys on television. I didn't get here until, like I say, Sally and I were married in 68, and we didn't settle in here until the latter part of 1970.

Q. There were more winners 55 and older this year than there have been before. What's the difference? Is it equipment or are older players staying in shape longer? What's the difference?

HALE IRWIN: Yeah, sure is (laughter). All of the above. I think there's a -- the equipment probably more so than anything else, but I do think there are more players who are cognizant of their personal health, how they live their lives, what they're able to do beyond their 50th birthday, and I think it's -- some of us did not accept the fact that you hit the wall at 54 or 55 or whatever it was and went through there, and now there are some believers that don't believe their day is over and they can keep playing, and it does not surprise me. I think we'll continue to see that push as these players coming on are quality players and they're going to continue pushing that curve.

RAND JERRIS: Thank you for your time. We wish you luck this week.

End of FastScripts.

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