U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 26, 2001

Hale Irwin

HALE IRWIN: Got to remember back a long ways, let's see. The opportunity to play Southern Hills again and particularly in a United States Open Championship was very exciting. The start I had was very exciting. I felt like I played pretty well. I didn't play right on top of my game but I don't think courses like Southern Hills or for this week this venue will ever allow you to get really on top of your game because you are playing a lot of defensive golf shots. But Southern Hills was playing very difficult. The greens were quite fast as well. The problems associated with the 9th hole and 18th hole I think from a player's perspective were very much on your mind when you were playing those holes but those weren't the only problems. My problem really was the first round I got off to a bogey-bogey, birdie-birdie start, so the start even though it was even par was a little left-footed but then I got righted, got on my way. But the following three days I started bogey-bogey, double-bogey-par, bogey-par, so was out of the box in sort of bad shape everyday. And never really got that momentum going that I would have hoped that that first round would have led me to. My goal was to go down and to be competitive; in that sense I think I was. Disappointed, yes. I would like to have finished it off a little better. I must say Tom Kite's final round on Sunday was really a fantastic round. I just think the message there was, if you keep yourself in good shape and keep your game in good shape, and have some of that confidence that goes along with good golf, over 50 is not -- you are not done yet. Maybe the key word there is "Yet." Somewhere along the line we are all going to succumb to time, but certainly I was encouraged by the way I played the first day. It was fun. It was a lot of fun to get in there and mix it up with the young kids once again and get at that level of intensity and level of achievement that you have to get to play against the best players in the world. So...Having said that, now what?

HALE IRWIN: That was one of my goals when I got on the SENIOR TOUR to win the Senior Open. Not that it is relatively select company; that was not -- not to join that crowd but just to do it for my own self satisfaction, one of my own career goals. You don't have to be a genius to see it, I have said this many times the USGA and U.S. Open Championships have been the trademark or hallmark of my career. I have looked forward to those events and I have had my day in the sun with some of those tournaments. Being able to do that not only once but twice in the Senior Open Championship has been very, very nice. But the first one at Riviera was played on an extremely good golf course. And coming back from a horrendous first round of 77, it did look bleak to say the least. But I think it kind of -- I kind of put my head down and took it one shot at a time - the old cliches that you hear in sports all the time, I try to avoid those, but essentially that's what I had to do and get away from is not remembering what I did wrong, but to look forward to what I needed to do right. That's sort of what I have tried to do throughout my career. Sometimes you do better at it than others. But I think that is what you have to have in an Open Championship, whether it be senior or regular, you have to have -- your skills have to be there. You don't have to be the best at every aspect, but you have to be there pretty much. I think what we saw in Goosen at least I never saw him get -- he was unflappable. It just seemed like he was just sort of mellow the whole time where you have to have yourself sort of in control in some fashion. You may look out of control with others but if you are in control within then I think you are going to be all right. If your game is there then you are probably going to play well. An Open Championship, boy, there would be -- whether it be Senior or regular, you have to position the ball in the fairways and you have to position the ball on the greens, particularly this week if the greens speed up. If they get firm we are going to see the Donald Ross greens that we have heard so much about. When they are wet as they have been the last day or two we are not seeing them. I am sure he is lurking out there somewhere and going to come forward with those little nightmares that we keep hearing about unless somebody is telling us a bunch of stories like Oliver North over there.

HALE IRWIN: Well, I would think that the USGA has their own set of standards by the way they do set up each venue. Those standards are generally higher than what we might see on the regular Tour. Now, will they go to the extremes that we would see at Southern Hills, for instance? This golf course cannot be stretched to that length. It's a relatively moderate length golf course. It is not particularly long. There are some holes that are going to play very long. Two is going to be a long hole. 17 is going to be a long hole. 16, the par 3, will be a long hole. There are some long holes but there's also some shorter holes but because of the rain we had over the weekend it is soft right now. But if it firms up I think you are going to see the course play a little shorter. But I think what Larry is referring to would probably be -- when you are talking about major championships and when you are talking about players who have won those championships which Larry has and you have been to the top of the mountain and you have played golf at a level that is fun, you have played at it where your skills are really challenged, that is what you want to do. You want to be continually challenged. That's what I think his reference is to is hopefully we will see standards this week which are higher than what we might normally see week to week. I didn't hear him say it so I could just guess at that. But that is my guess.

HALE IRWIN: Well, I love it. I really do. It's fun to come -- to play golf and it's fun to come to where there was not back when there wasn't the thought given to roads and backyards and community association, and it was a -- it was a golf club. The ground was picked to be a golf club. And the shots required were not necessarily straightforward where you could see everywhere you are going. There was interest in that you had to be creative; not everything was shown to you, you had to be aware of where you were on the golf course. It was really more of a science of playing the game rather than just an activity. Now most of the courses that we see being built now are part of a community association or parts of a total community package and I, being in that design business, you go through some of the questions and answers of doing all that. So when you come to a Salem Country Club and you see that this is an old style, very traditional, what you see is not necessarily what you get kind of thing and you have to go beyond just this shot. You have to kind of play the hole up there where is the hole located, where do I want to be, here, and how do I get it there, rather than just straightforward golf which is pretty ordinary. I think that's what I was alluding to earlier, you kind of have to have more than just your physical game you have to be kind of thinking ahead and if you can't keep those two in concert then you are not going to play very well on this kind of a course.

HALE IRWIN: April 30th.

HALE IRWIN: It looks like a different golf course. The one I saw had an awful lot of winter kill as we have documented, added to the fact there were no leaves on the trees. Looked like we might be playing in Alaska. I will have to say that the club and the superintendent in particular have done a Yeomen's job in getting it ready. It looks good really nice. There are still some areas of concern out there. But gosh, you wouldn't know it from what it was and to now, in a very short two months. Pretty impressive.

HALE IRWIN: The inevitable "what is your score going to be.."

HALE IRWIN: So much will be determined by if the course dries out. If it doesn't then I think scoring will be lower than what we might anticipate. If the speed of the greens -- now I have played each morning - I haven't played in the afternoons - I don't think the greens are going to speed up appreciably from morning to afternoon but right now they are not particularly fast. I am sure they can be given some time and preparation, but right now, they don't seem to be terribly fast. Unlike Southern Hills, we were just referring to Southern Hills which were, whoosh, they -- to let some of those greens like 18 grow for three days before you can keep your coin on the green. So we aren't going to see those kinds of speeds. As far as a winning score, we have got a couple of longer holes have been converted to par 4s, dropping the par to 70 and the players, I think, there's enough medium length, shorter length shots, 6-irons, 7-iron, 8-iron that they will birdie some of those holes because if you keep it underneath the hole which you are going to have to do in many cases, they are very puttable. So I don't know if, God, you want me to go out and say something. I don't want to say it. I think if you were to go around anywhere from 6, 7, 8, 9 under par I think will be a pretty good score if I had -- 4 -- if I had four 68s I'd sit right here and watch it with you and take my chances. That might be good by 4, 5 shots. It might not be. If we get some wind it is going to be a lot different. If the wind blows around here I could see it would be very difficult. But this time of year -- the forecast seems to be fairly good, depends on what they do out there. The greens make Donald Ross golf courses if they firm and speed them up then we will have some problems.

HALE IRWIN: No, not really. Those kinds of pressures really come from within. I am not putting that kind of pressure on myself anymore so than I did last week at Nashawtuc or next tournament in which I play. This is a special tournament, certainly that, but it has been special for a long time. Another thing is that you are not coming back and playing the same golf course. None of us other than, I guess, Dana is the only one that's really played any golf here to speak of so we haven't established any kind of expected results. We don't know what is out there until the time comes. And trying to be objective about my approach to it, I have just tried to keep it in the realm of okay, this is what I want to do, not what I did last year, or the year before, but this is this golf course, a much different venue than what we have seen, referenced as a more traditional golf course and maybe have to be played in a more conventional way than power golf which we see a great deal of now. That is one of the things I saw at Southern Hills. Again it was a more -- it is an older course, a Dick Wilson course, traditional if you want to call it traditional. But overpowered almost, just -- these guys just lash at it unmercifully. I don't know if you can do that here and get away with it. You might -- but not too many lashers that are 50 years old and up (laughs). Maybe some creepers but not any lashers. They may creep up on it before we lash at it.