U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 28, 2001

Hale Irwin

HALE IRWIN: I'm very frustrated with my game right at the moment. In fact, I'm very irritated with things right now. I've been working very hard. I'm trying to get my game back in shape. It seems like the more I work the less I get out of it. So I'm about ready to say, "See ya". I got off to a reasonably decent start. And when I turned 1-under on -- even, birdied to get to even. I had a putt at the fourth hole to go 2-under to take the lead. And here I stand at 3-over. The finish was horrible. I'm just not playing well. Simply put, I'm just hitting the ball very ineffectively. And I guess I'll have to say I think I'm lucky to be at 3-over par. You may say I've shot myself in the foot. But it's hard to walk the golf course without a foot, and that's what I feel like I've done.

HALE IRWIN: The difference is I wasn't doing this at Riviera. I wanted to completely forget about that round. Having been chastised for not talking to the press about my problems, I figure I'd better make amends. It's the kind of round that I really have no desire to talk about, simply because I can't go back and find very many good things about it, so why dwell on all that bad stuff. I've been working extremely hard on trying to get my swing in order. And things just aren't working right. I'm just going to try to wash the slate clean. What I'm going to try tomorrow, I don't know. It's just going to have to be extremely basic stuff. The course played nicely today. It's playing difficult. There's some very, very demanding shots, particularly in this wind. But that wasn't the problem with me. I'm not executing what I have. When you make a double bogey from the middle of the 8th fairway with a wedge in your hand, something is really wrong. A 5 at the 8th hole with an 8-iron in my hand. There's just not a lot of good things that I'm thinking well about and a like number of things that I'm just not executing on. I don't know where to find the lining in the clouds, but somewhere this afternoon I'm going to try to have some fun and forget this.

HALE IRWIN: It started at the first hole. I'm not hitting the ball well. I'm just really kind of scraping it and hacking it and getting it around. And you just cannot do that on a course like this. I ultimately paid for that.

HALE IRWIN: Yesterday. I didn't play this well in Nashawtuc either. I didn't play this well at the U.S. Open. I did the first round, but after that I kind of got back on this. I've been in this rut for, I'd say, well into a month now. It's probably one of the longest sort of ruts that I've been in. I'm not quite accustomed to playing this poorly, and particularly off the tee. I'm very, very off balance off the tee, and I'm not driving the ball effectively. That just sets up -- on this golf course, that's the golf course. You've got to put the ball in these fairways to have any kind of reasonable shot into these greens. When I did, I didn't hit a very good second shot. Some holes were played well, yes, I'll have to say that. But for the most part, not a lot of good shots today.

HALE IRWIN: Oh, I suppose, but these senior moments slip more and more and I can't remember when. I think right now I'm just crying in my beer. I'm feeling sorry for myself. I'm just very agitated with myself right now, and I need to get over that. And once I do, and I will, I'll get a little bit better.

HALE IRWIN: I need to not only right the ship, I need to get the water out of the bilge. I'm sinking fast. When you're hitting the kind of shots I'm hitting, and, mind you, everybody hits bad shots, but I'm talking about the way I play, I'm just hitting way too many of those wayward shots that are with clubs that I don't tend to -- I'm hitting some of the worst 2-irons I think I've ever hit in my career. There's a couple of 2-iron shots on this golf course, some par-3's, off the tee, I'm just not hitting those well at all, where you take a wedge and you can't hit the green, make a double bogey with the wedge. That's not righting the ship necessarily. That's, "What in the world are you thinking about?" So I've got this mind game going with myself. But that's golf. I think I've been around long enough to know you're going to have some problems. And unfortunately I'm having mine right now.

HALE IRWIN: I think I started getting -- in fact, I remember telling my wife on the phone Saturday night, I just felt so lethargic and out of balance. So I think I started Saturday, and I got it Sunday. I came up here Monday, I felt much better. So it was just something I had. I think it's hiding in my golf bag right now. Okay? Thank you.