SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

June 5, 2002

Hale Irwin

HALE IRWIN: I think I've been asked a number of times when the last visit was here and I just referred to the placards in the locker room and I think it was '94. In that time period we've seen the design of one golf course and the redesign of that course and the redesign of the new south greens. So quite a bit has happened in the last eight years. My play coming into this week has been very good this year. No compliance. My play coming into this week I've had two weeks away from tournament golf, so in that sense I'm somewhat ready to play and somewhat rested, but one never knows until we get out there and get into the actual competition. But all in all, I'm hopefully relying on some fond memories of Firestone South and some good shots hopefully will follow. I don't like to predict things, but I feel the two weeks was a badly needed break and with the upcoming tournaments not only this one but the weeks beyond it's going to be fairly full schedule, so I'm trying to pace myself. That's why I was the first one out this morning for a quick nine holes and I'm finished for the rest of the day.

HALE IRWIN: I did go over and visit a potential design job over in Palm Springs, a redesign I should say. I spent the Labor Day weekend back in St. Louis. We kept our home there, and my daughter and her husband and baby were back there. I had a good time. I flew back to Arizona for four days and then had a birthday last Monday, and we sort of celebrated it this last weekend. Just doing a lot of moving around, but more than anything else, try to not do as much as I had to do, not more than I had to do, because there is going to be a lot of golf, a lot of activity in the next two or three months.

HALE IRWIN: Zero.

HALE IRWIN: Zero golf. Practice, yes. Hits some, but not a lot. But zero golf.

HALE IRWIN: Well, it's primarily -- right now and actually I shouldn't say right now but for the last several years when I'm not playing, I have my design company. Those jobs, and still trying to get the house -- the house itself the structure is finished it's just getting all the landscaping and everything tied together. It seems as though we're gone things slack and when we're there, things pick up as you might expect. So my wife has been doing most of that work. Now that the inside is pretty much finished. Guess who is in charge of the outside. So, therefore I've been there quite a bit.

HALE IRWIN: I have the U.S. Open next week. I probably will miss Baltimore. I'm not certain, but then we have the U.S. Open, Senior Open, in Baltimore, then it's nonstop after that. I say nonstop. I will play one of the other of either Boston or Chicago. I know nothing about the Chicago course. I know a lot about the Boston course. So there's a tendency to go in that direction. Just a lot of golf well into September.

HALE IRWIN: Monday, it was running pretty good. The greens were quite firm. The rain yesterday softened it up a bit. I've tried to get out each morning. I got here midday Monday, so I played Monday afternoon. I was out here early yesterday, and out here early this morning, so the soft conditions in the morning certainly don't hold in the afternoon unless we have some rain. The biggest difference I'm seeing in the golf course, we're playing shorter tees than what we have had in the World Series or the American Golf Classic, however far you want to go back. But the greens, they put some lumps and bumps in the greens and actually lost some hole locations because of that. I'm not saying they're worse it's just different. I told my caddie this morning, I've got to erase some of the memories of hole locations and influences that were there in the past and really kind of look at it freshly and sort of a start over campaign of relearning these greens. The course itself is in great condition. The fairways are good. The rough is very consistent. All in all, it looks like it couldn't be prepped any better. It's about as good as I've seen.

HALE IRWIN: You probably will. There are some hole locations we could have out there now that we might not see on the regular tour. Rightly so, this is a big tournament. It's a big championship. It's a major championship and it should have all the ingredients of that and part of the formula is the course has been prepped and the hole locations should not be easy. There should not be ones -- we haven't seen those in the past, so I don't know why we would have any change in the formula. We should see the more difficult hole locations. The big difference -- let's just say on hole No. 7. Inasmuch as there doesn't appear to be a lot of difference, the green, the Par 3, the green is either elevated a little bit or they put a knob in front of the green, so you don't land in front and pitch on the green. Now you land short and hit left or right or short. So now you have to think about what club you're going to use to fly into that hole and now the green is pretty firm. Those are the shots you have to erase from past memory banks and put in new thoughts. That's the purpose I felt, Monday, just to get a feel for the game, Tuesday to check it all out, and Wednesday is to reaffirm what I've seen in the last few days, but I don't want to over do it. I think it's better to go out with anticipation rather than thinking you know it. I tend to perform better sometimes when I have that little higher level of intensity and I feel I need to get there. I seem to focus a little bitter.

HALE IRWIN: How about masterful performances. That will get that word "master" in there. Yes, I did the same preparation down there: Got in early, sort of a review process. Plus, I don't have the patience to stand out there for five- or six-hour practice rounds. I wanted to get my work done and relax, have lunch and rest for the rest of the day.

HALE IRWIN: Come work out with me this afternoon. You'll find out what kind of shape I'm in.

HALE IRWIN: I beat myself silly yesterday. While those guys were out in the rain, I'm in the trailer working out. Go ask the trainer. I don't want to comment. But ask Mike, the trainer, and get an answer from him.

HALE IRWIN: 45. Don't exaggerate.

HALE IRWIN: I would have to say from that distance there is an equal amount of skill and luck. You obviously have to have the skill to just look at it and anticipate how the ball is going to move. Secondly, how hard to hit that ball and that's experience from having hit so many putts. You may not have hit them during the day, but during the course of the round you get a feel for the greens. I think there is a great deal involved in doing that. But once the ball leaves the putter, now you're subject to all the inconsistencies there might be in the greens. Now Medinah, the putts you're referring to, was -- the greens were very, very pure, very nice. We have got poa annua in these greens so the ball can do some hopping. So there is more of an element of luck in these greens than you would normally find.

HALE IRWIN: It's probably in the feel of greens. I think often times you may have the putts read correctly, but you're hair is off. The next day you may say I read that one poorly, but it just comes to how you're putting. The feel is not right so you're sort of guessing at the line. What do I do if I hit it too hard, for instance? Do I need to read less break, more break. I don't think the reading of the greens goes off that much. It's more the feel and what you're doing that day, probably relates itself back into misreading because you're anticipating a bad putt. It's that negative stuff. I try to keep positive on it. And if I read the putt wrong, it's probably not a consistent read wrong. It's just that one putt, and it may have come from hitting it too hard or too easy.

HALE IRWIN: It doesn't seem possible.

HALE IRWIN: I think it's just proving what I've said all along. It's a number. In the past you may have had players that sensed or read or was told that was the number and they sort of get it in their mind that's the number. Obviously, there are things that happen when you get older. You don't hear as well. You don't remember as well, whatever it is. You might not recover from injury as well. You may not have that ability to go out and pound balls all day long. With the little ache in my hands and wrists now, I can't hit the ball practicing as much as I want to. Which is okay, because I can still think about my golf swing, so when I go out to hit balls, if I'm limiting myself to one or two buckets, whatever it may be, I do it with some diligence. Thirty years ago, I went out and pounded balls and I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I'd stand out on that practice tee before and after tournaments and hit balls and balls and balls. Now I do it with some idea of improving an area and not several areas at once, but an area, try to have a swing thought that's going to improve an area and that will have that domino effect. Getting back to your question about the age and the window, for me I think I have more experience now. I know what I can do. I know what's best for me. I'm wrong sometimes, but for the most part I tend to make better decisions regarding my practice schedule, my playing schedule. And then my on-course management I think is just as good as it has ever been.

HALE IRWIN: I have to write it down on my palm. I have to take my golf glove off to read, and I need my glasses to read my palm because it's not far enough out. Lots of problems.

HALE IRWIN: I think you'll have to go back to it's more than just luck. The best years of playing golf that -- the best year was 1997. I was on the Senior Tour, and I played exceptional golf. For me, for Hale Irwin, I played the best golf of my career, and I've said that many times. It was also probably the time I was in as good of physical shape as I was in with the exception maybe when I was playing football. I think one ties to the other. The older you get -- it doesn't come overnight. It isn't in a jar. It isn't in a pill. It gets harder and harder. Right now I feel when I skip a week, it feels like I skipped a month. If I skip a month, it feels like I skipped a half a year. If I skip an hour, it feels like I skipped a day. It's constant maintenance. I started the maintenance part earlier this year, and I tried to ease into it because I'm one of those people, if a little is good, a lot must be really good. So I've tried to distance myself from that attitude and do it slowly and with a little deliberation. I'm sort of half joking, but I could take you to the workout room and go through a workout with me and you judge whether you think it's good or bad. I beat myself up yesterday pretty well, but I wanted to that because I want to get ready for Thursday.

HALE IRWIN: At least an hour, by the time I do what I want to do. Today I'm going to go in this afternoon, but it's going to be a more abbreviated, lighter weights, maybe more cardio than I did yesterday.

HALE IRWIN: If I had done 30 years ago what I'm doing now, I probably would have been worse, who knows. I think there is a residual carry over from my football days that lasted probably through my 20's. I think I was still in very good shape, but I think once I got into the '30s, certainly in my '40s -- I started running when I was 40 and I did that for a while, and it hurt my knees. It wasn't a knee injury, but inflamed, something about my patellar tendon. When I quit running, it quit hurting. So that was easy. And then I started getting lazy again, and I got back into it -- in Chicago, Medinah, I was very active with weights and working out, so I think some of my successes have not come from just because I'm thinking about my golf game, but I'm working at the game physically as well, keeping in good shape.

HALE IRWIN: I don't have it any more. It's in that house in Arizona. You saw Money Pit? I've got one.

HALE IRWIN: The visualization -- once upon a time, knowing that Arnie did it or Jack did it, I thought, I don't see no damn golf ball going out there, where is this visualization thing. But I think for me, it's not so much getting behind it and visualizing it and seeing all that, it's a matter of saying, This is the shot I'm trying to play and very quickly clicking through the points in my mind that I need to do to hit that. It's not seeing it as much as it's going through the swing thoughts in my mind that produce that shot, and then -- and this happens very rapidly in saying, is this the appropriate shot, do I feel my anxiety level is too high, am I too pumped, and weighing how I feel, because obviously my feeling is going to dictate what shot I'm going to play. You have to weigh the situation. The relaxation for me comes from playing well. The higher the level -- and I don't want to say it's relaxed, but I feel a bit more in tune with everything. Everything is more crystal clear. The decisions are made without guesswork. And that's relaxation. To me I'm not relaxed when I'm playing poorly. I'm not relaxed. When I'm playing as well as I can and things are going well, then it's relaxation. If that makes any sense. It's hard to describe because I don't buy into this "it's the zone" thing. The zone thing is Star Wars or something. To me it's more in tune with what you're doing. Your body is reacting to the mental stimuli you're putting out and things are -- decisions are easy and the decisions are made quickly without any hesitation.

HALE IRWIN: Well, I don't know. When I won at Winged Foot, I had won the Harbour Town Tournament, The Heritage Classic twice, so I had won a tournament, I won two tournaments, albeit one, and one on a pretty tough golf course, Harbour Town, so we got to Winged Foot and I saw how difficult that course was. I finished second in Philadelphia the week before, so I was currently playing well. I thought there is going to be a lot of people that will give up this week. It is just so difficult, and par is going to be a very very good score on every hole. If I can make a par, great, because there are going to be very few birdies on this golf course, and there's going to be a lot of bogeys and up, 6s and 7s are everywhere. There is potential every hole for a big score. So I just approached it from the standpoint with maybe the discipline I had from football. Look, I'm bigger now than I was then, in girth maybe, but I felt like this is going to be a trial of stamina and don't give up. That's a big opponent we're playing out there, a big opponent, and I think the discipline I had there won the day for me. It wasn't that I out played everybody. I just out toughed -- tough hanging in there, than anybody else, because it just beat everybody up. So the best players in the game just got that trashed and that's how tough Winged Foot was. It brought about a book, The Massacre at Winged Foot. I don't know how many books are written after the results of a tournament. That sort of proved to me that it doesn't take necessarily the world's best talent. You have to have talent certainly, but you have the intestinal fortitude, and you see that in Jack Nicklaus. He has the ability to rise to the occasion when he turns on the switch. Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Sam Snead -- God bless his soul -- Nelson, they've all had that ability. Tom Watson, we've seen, he hits the switch when he hits the British Open. It's pretty impressive. If you ask the those guys the same question, you might get a totally different answer, but it boils down to the same thing.

HALE IRWIN: Yes, I am. I can't tell you why. Why would I have won three U.S. Opens and not a PGA or something. I had several chances at the British Open. I felt of the four majors, The Masters is the one that least fits my game. It's one of those mysteries. I have great success at Riviera, Pinehurst and Harbour Town, great golf courses. Medinah. Winged Foot, this is one of those difficult golf courses that we've played through the years.

HALE IRWIN: Well, yeah, sure.

HALE IRWIN: Difficult, it is, yes, because this is obviously a big tournament. And I'm trying not to look beyond this. This is a very important tournament, but you can't put your head in the sand and ignore the fact that the U.S. Open is next week at Bethpage, but that's all it is for me right now. I've never been to Bethpage other than seen it from the road. I've never played it. I'm not trying to put any thought into it. I'm more concerned about this tournament this week. You have to boil it down to that, if you get too extended in your thoughts and you're out of the present. I don't want to get into the future right now. The future is what it's going to be, but I can affect only what I do today. Having these tournaments stacked up in a row, it does take a little bit of a toll on you.

HALE IRWIN: Maybe. I still have the entry in my briefcase.

HALE IRWIN: The Senior. Not the British Open, no. But then again, I have to say, I am supportive of the U.S. Senior PGA Tour, and I want to see that particularly in today's times, do what I can to help it succeed. So I would say the odds are I'll stay here than go over there, but it doesn't seem to be the appropriate time to do that.

HALE IRWIN: The Masters tournaments?

HALE IRWIN: In Augusta?

HALE IRWIN: Are we talking about the Senior Tour?

HALE IRWIN: The Senior Tour versus the regular Tour? You have The Masters on your mind.

HALE IRWIN: Tim, we just changed your tour. I don't disagree. There are obvious differences in the format. Four rounds with the halfway cut. Three rounds on the Senior Tour with no cut. We play approximately half the number of players on the Senior Tour than the regular Tour. The course setup probably 10 years ago is substantially different than it is now. I think our courses have become a little bit longer. The hole locations are a little bit more difficult and that's always been the case on the regular Tour. They play a little more of the golf course than we do, but that is changing. I think that the hardest part about playing, for me, is to juggle the other things outside playing. When I was 25 years old, married, and trying to learn how to play the game and travel and raise a family, it was a narrow vision because that's all there was. I didn't have a lot -- I didn't have a golf course design company, I was more in tune with what am I going to do with my child and how are we going to travel from here to there, and it was that alone. As you get older, your priorities may change. It may become, I want to be home for that baseball game with the kid, or you want to be home for graduation. We saw Tom Watson miss a tournament in Kansas City because his daughter was graduating. Here is his hometown. I'm sure they wanted to have him there. So your priorities change, and the intensity about which you go about your life may change. Those of us that have been around a little bit, we feel a little more prone to kick back and not take it quite as intensely as we once did. But that's where I think my game has been aided, because I have not lost that intensity in my game. I still love to play competitively. I don't play a lot socially. I enjoy the heat of the battle. I lose far more than I win, but I love the ability -- or the opportunity, and I appreciate having the ability to try.