FORD SENIOR PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

July 12, 2002

Hale Irwin

HALE IRWIN: Started the day quite nicely with a birdie at the first. Hit a drive and pitching wedge to about 15 feet, making that.

Then I got to the fifth hole. Probably one of the two bad swings today. I pulled it a bit left and it hit a tree and it ricocheted out-of-bounds. So I had a double-bogey there.

But came back with two nice birdies at 7 and 8. 7, making, again, a 15-foot putt for a birdie.

And then 8, hitting a 7-iron to eight feet of the hole and making that. Even with the unfortunate out-of-bounds, I still turned at 1-under.

And then I hit another poor tee shot with a 4-wood at No. 10 and I hit it in the right tough, and from there it went to the left rough and ended up making a bogey.

But again, I played the 11th hole well, 12th hole well.

Hit a great drive at 13. Hit a 5-iron to the green, and promptly 3-putted. I hit a very nice drive.

I played 14 well.

15, I hit it just a little bit left of the hole and it went down into the left bunker. Made a bogey.

Played 16 well. I hit a 5-iron -- my tee shot was in the fairway and I hit a 5-iron. It landed on the downslope along the bounds of the green and went through the green and made a par there.

But played 17, 18 well. So I kind of look back at the day and say: Where is the nine-shot difference? And I'm having a hard time finding that.

Certainly, I didn't -- I drove the ball well. Not quite as well as yesterday, but pretty close. The irons were not nearly as effective. Although, I didn't hit bad irons. They just didn't end up close to the hole.

Like I said, I really didn't test my putting yesterday because I hit the ball so closely, and today I certainly threw up a couple of tests, and I didn't pass all of the tests. There's a little examination that's going to have to take place here between now and tomorrow.

But, you know, the good part is, I'm three shots back, which you'd like to be three shots up, but at the same time, I have two days to make up that deficit. And I know I can play the course well. I feel like today was a bit of an aberration because I didn't play that badly. Whereas yesterday, I really felt like I played very well.

Today, I just didn't feel like I played that badly and didn't get very much out of the round.

All in all, if somebody says, okay, take a 69-68 or a 68-69, I would have been quite at that point and I taken it. When you do what I did yesterday, I know that hitting those irons as close as I did on that front nine, you're not going to do that all the time, and I know that. I hit some really good shots on the back nine yesterday. You know you're going to lose a little of that crispness, but it wasn't that much off. It was just enough to make a difference.

Q. Was the golf course more difficult today?

HALE IRWIN: Well, I thought some of the hole locations were a little bit more difficult. I would rather have had -- played yesterday afternoon and this morning, given the hole locations, because I think today some of the hole locations were really hard to get to, and with the greens firmed up. I don't know how you get close to 18. Best you can go is about 30 feet from the hole, and that's okay.

But they are not consistent through out the golf course. Some greens just stop on a dime and others just roll very hard. It's just kind of hard to figure out.

Q. You don't have to necessarily go to the practice range and work something out; nothing is really wrong?

HALE IRWIN: There's nothing really to fix. That's what I've kind of been thinking. I went out yesterday and kind of fixed a few things that I let a little loose.

I think I'm just going to go have an early dinner and take my wife to a movie and play golf tomorrow. See what happens. Sound like a good idea.

Q. Care to guess what you think will win this tournament?

HALE IRWIN: Well, we're 10-under now, so if the weather holds, I guess the weather is supposed to be pretty nice. The course is playing very short. I think they need to put water on. I think this course should not play as hard -- "hard" meaning firm as it is; it's just way too short.

Why do they do that? We get here and it's nice and green, but by the time the tournament starts it's brown. I just don't get it. That's not a complaint; that's just an observation.

I think we are probably going to have to go to 16 -, 17-under, my guess. You don't throw Hubert's score out because he's 10-under. But you look at the pack, and it's 7 or 8 ( -under) whatever it is. Double that; that's 15-under, but then you have Hubert out there, so he is sort of the determination.

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