FORD SENIOR PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

July 13, 2001

Hale Irwin

HALE IRWIN: Well, I think in a nutshell today -- I'm sure Allen spoke to it -- I putted very well today. I did not hit the ball particularly well. The formula from tee-to-green for the week has been fairways and greens, and then in many cases, that's what I'm doing, but they are not terribly impressive shots. But, fortunately today, I had a very hot putter. I felt like yesterday I didn't putt badly at all. I made some nice putts yesterday as well, but today was a particularly good day. I had a few more chances. I saved some nice pars, and when I had a birdie opportunity, just about in every case, I took advantage of it. I don't know how many one-putts I had, but there were a few, and when we go through, we can certainly determine that. But they were not exactly kick-in putts. They were putts of some magnitude in about every instance.

HALE IRWIN: Today I had maybe a few more birdie opportunities. I hit the ball a little bit more -- a little bit closer to the hole, but still, all in all, I've had over the last several days, a lot of long putts. Long putts meaning in that 25- to 40-foot range, which I've been fortunate to make a couple of those, and then 2-putting a couple of really long-distance putts. Very, very good putting. Driving is mediocre. Iron play is a little bit loose. But I would -- I'm working very hard to get to the greens. Once there, today, it was easy. Tomorrow could be the complete reversal. I might have a great tee-to-green game and can't make it from a foot. So, we'll see.

HALE IRWIN: I had a great save at 1. 1 was typical. I drove the ball in the right side of the fairway. Good angle to the green. I hit a very poor second shot. Even though it was on the green, it left me quite a tough putt up and over the hill probably from 35 feet. I ran it past six feet and made that for a par. So right out of the box, I am in a difficult position to make par and I converted. 2, my ball is just out off the water in the hazard. I was standing in the water if I wanted to hit the green. I opted not to. I pitched it back to the fairway and hit a wedge to within 12 feet of the hole and made that for another par. 3, I hit a very nice drive. I hit a very poor second trying to hit a 5-iron just up in the throat of the green where I can hit my third, and I pulled it into the left bunker. It was quite a long bunker shot. Playing a pitching wedge from the bunker, I put it up there probably 15 feet from the hole and made that for a birdie. 4, I hit in the bunker. Very difficult bunker shot and I hit it out and just a tap-in par. 5, good drive. Very poor second shot to the right of the green. Rather weak pitch to within seven feet of the hole, making that for a par. Actually 2-putted the next two holes. 8, I hit a 7-iron 20 feet from the hole making that for a birdie. 9, I made a second putt. I putted from the fringe, but my second putt was probably six feet for par, which I made. 10 was the only putt I really missed today. I hit it to about five feet from the hole for birdie and I missed that. But I hit a little 6-iron to 11 to within a foot of the hole for a birdie. I hit a 6-iron at 12, to probably 20 feet behind the hole, making that for birdie. Driver and a 4-wood at 13. I was on the right side of the green. Probably had a 60-foot putt up and over, and I knocked it down there probably five feet from the hole making that. I hit a 5-iron at 14 to within 18 feet of the hole making for birdie. 2-putted 15. 16, I hit a 3-wood into the right rough. From there, put it in the bunker short of the green. I hit a bunker shot out probably eight feet past the hole, making that for par. I 2-putted 17. 18, I made it from 30 feet for a birdie with a 3-wood, 7-iron. 30-foot putt.

HALE IRWIN: They need some control up there. Those guys from -- let's say some behavior that's not conducive to a golf tournament up there in those tents. It's distracting. But if you are concentrating well, if you kind of block that out -- give you an idea where my concentration was. You had to step away once, and once you step away, you start listening to everybody's conversation. They need some control up there.

HALE IRWIN: Well, I just heard that coming. That was the shortest train going. It only the engine. It's disconcerting. You would hope there would be a little bit better behavior by the people, than to be as loud as they were up there.

HALE IRWIN: Certainly, when you are playing -- in this case, now being the co-leader starting the day, I always feel like it can always help my game by playing with the players that are playing the best, and Allen certainly had a -- I thought he played extremely well yesterday. Hit a lot of very good shots again today. But then again, you can't get so absorbed in watching another guy play that you forget about playing your own game, and I felt like what I needed to do was get a little bit more aggressive with some of my shots earlier in the day. I think I was a little bit light in my preparation to get ready to -- when I say "light," I don't think I was quite as aggressive as I needed to be. Maybe tried to be a little too hyper-finish shots rather than -- come on, the only way to make birdies here, you can't make these 30- or 40-foot putts all day long. You have to start hitting it in there. I think I started to think a little more aggressively. But at the same time, even though the front nine was 2-under par and it was okay, I really kind of got it in gear and played a little bit better with my iron game on the back nine. Certainly, playing with Allen, or Watson or Bruce or whomever would be in the lead is helpful.

HALE IRWIN: I don't think the changes have made a great deal of difference. Yes, some of the fairway cuts are in a little tighter, but not that much. The bunkers at 6, 7 are there, but are they really affecting play? No. The course is playing so firmly right now that that bunker on 7, if you hit a good drive, you're knocking irons on the green. The hole that I think only makes the biggest difference is 7, but it's such a short hole being you can be very careful with that and still have a wedge to the green. Outside of that, I don't think there are that many changes that have really affected the golf course that much. The course is playing different. The course is playing quite firm. There are some shots out there where it can get away from you very quickly. I think 16 is -- yeah, 16, that little bunker there, a lot of players have hit it in that area in the past. I've been over there now three days in a row. I have a difficult time getting that ball over to the left. But that's my problem. The other players I've seen have been hitting it there quite nicely. For the most part, those changes have been minor, I don't think really affecting the play that much. Any affect is going to be how firm the golf course gets or how much the ball will run, or if they soften it up at all.

HALE IRWIN: I think tee-to-green today was probably pretty much like yesterday. Very similar. The difference being that I made some really nice putts today. The greens this morning were a little better than they were yesterday afternoon, simply because you're in the morning versus the afternoon. The wind yesterday I think dried the greens out more so than we might see them today. But I just really had that feel and I had the pace, and when you play relatively quick greens, the pace is so important, to get the line, and I had a good pace today. Almost all of the putts I hit were right to the hole or just beyond it. That means -- even from long distances, and that means that you've got a nice pace going, and I was right on that today.

HALE IRWIN: Well, I'm still thinking. (Laughs). Well, each day gets a little bit better. I'm going through a few -- I'm trying to get rid of all the technical stuff. I'm just trying to get back to thinking about scoring and playing. If I'm making these adjustments and I'm getting the scores I'm getting, obviously I'm going in a good direction. What would be very nice would be to start hitting my irons a little more predictably. Because of the firmness of the greens and where some of the holes are located, they are sort of sucker pins. You don't want to hit to some of them. You've got to play out to an area. Particularly so, yesterday, I felt. Today I just felt the same situation, but be a little bit more aggressive, rather than backing off. If I'm aiming 20 feet from the hole, maybe aim ten feet from the hole, rather than trying to give it so much room. I spent a lot of time yesterday, 30 or 40 feet from the hole and that's hard to 2-putt all of those. Today I tried to narrow that down and get a little bit more aggressive, and I think we saw that many of the putts that I made were in that makeable range.

HALE IRWIN: Again, it's history. Seeing that pin, seeing the ball do that, why mess around with going at the pin. Why not play it out to the right. Okay, well, just aim it out to the right and play this shot. Getting into the hole is this direction, it's not this direction. It's this direction. That's a shot that comes from experience, having done it before.

HALE IRWIN: Oh, more technical. I've sort of bounced between playing well and not playing well over the last several months. The last tournament I really played kind of well throughout the week was Birmingham. But since then, it's been a little bit of a struggle. I think the U.S. Open, it showed. Any time you play a major championship, it shows. The PGA Seniors, I played pretty well, but not quite on. But when you play the better golf courses under more trying conditions, your game will show whether you are there or not. And yeah, Southern Hills, I played well that first day. But the second day -- it's hard to explain to you, but I wasn't quite as confident as that 67 the first day would have indicated. And my score the second day was probably more like what I was playing. Then Saturday and Sunday, sort of the same thing. Same thing at the Senior Open in Salem. I had a slow start, pretty good second round, pretty good third round, and I had the start of a good round on Sunday there, and I'm just not hitting enough good shots on the courses that require those hole after hole after hole to kind of keep that -- that generates that kind of comfort level that I need. So now, you start thinking about, well, what am I going to do to fix it. And then I start falling into quicksand. We all do it. Everybody who plays golf, we are all stuck in that same stuff. I'm just trying to get out of it now and simplify it. If I can get a hold of those few good things, those reminders that I'm trying to go back to some of the things that I've done in the past, just freeze up all that technical jargon. Everybody falls into it. Everybody, you, me, you name it. We all do.

HALE IRWIN: You know, 17 is not necessarily a birdie hole. Even though you're driving it way down there, but because it's so firm, hitting at that green is almost foolish, you either have to hit a bomb way down there way past where I'm capable of hitting it or take a chance. Now, yesterday, I was a little closer to the green, and I hit a 3-iron to the very front. It was a riskier shot than I felt like playing today. I was a little closer where I could fly a 3-iron on the green and get on the slope and role down, and now I've got this big long putt which I did 2-putt. Today I'm back a little farther. I'm playing for position here and I did not hit a particularly good second shot. I pushed it, but that's okay, I make a mistake over there. But because of that, I gave myself a longer shot than what I wanted to have back into that wind. Now I've got a shot I'm going to hit high, back up in the wind, and it's going to be spinning more than I want it to spin. I just didn't hit my second shot quite in the position that I wanted to. But then 18, yesterday I hit driver off the tee and hit it almost in the creek. Today I hit a 3-wood just perfectly, and again, I didn't aim at the flag. I aimed a little bit left. And when I pulled it left, rather than being a 15-foot putt, if I hit it right where I wanted to, now I've got double that. But it went in, so it looks like I hit it like that. Things I've got to tighten up a little bit. Not far off, but just a little bit.