FORD SENIOR PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

July 12, 2000

Hale Irwin

HALE IRWIN: Is that one of those one questions with multi-parts? Well, I think my sentiments of the golf course would be pretty much echoed by everybody else. It's in really good shape. It's playing a bit faster than I recall it playing in the last few years. The greens, certainly, are faster. That alone I think is going to add a little different dimension than what we've seen in years past. It's probably playing the way Jack and everybody would like for it to play. I'm looking forward to the conditions. I think it's going to be a good week. I think scoring will be good. I don't think it's going to be as low as last year, which was, you know, pretty low. But I don't see that happening this year. Some good scores, yes. Some really good scores for the entire week, I don't know about that. What I've been doing is just sort of kicking back. I had a couple of -- my wife and I spent some time in Arizona trying to get our house further along. I say that every week.

HALE IRWIN: Every year, for four years. But really not doing a lot. Not doing a lot of practicing. Just sort of trying to get back and sort of re-start it all again. I find that for myself, I can't stay on that pitch for week after week after week. I have to get off of it and sort of try to work my way back. And that way, I think there's sort of a sense of urgency then, rather than just trying to cruise. I let it go, and that's been successful for me through the years. But coming in here, I opened a golf course in Raleigh, a TPC in Raleigh, and that was about the only golf that I did for a week.

HALE IRWIN: I don't know. I like it. I don't know if it's Irwin-proofing them or not. I like the speed of the greens. I like the firmness of the greens. You have to be very careful. There's no casual putting around here right now, and if the weather holds and we don't have a lot of rain, I think you're going to see the kind of greens this week that I think they tried to get, wanted to have at Saucon Valley. A much different kind of golf course, but I think this is the kind of firmness and the speed they would have loved to have had.

HALE IRWIN: Well, if they are gunning for me, the golf course will eat them up. I think you have to have priorities, and you have to have your sights focused on the right thing. And if I'm wearing a target in that many players' eyes -- those are players who don't worry too much about the guys that are out there playing their game and playing the golf course and doing their best to shoot that score, not worrying about the individuals, they are the ones that will play well. If you wear the bulls-eye, you wear it. I'm happy to wear it. Fortunately, I don't say this in a bragotious (sic) way, but I've worn it before. So that's not an uncommon feeling. It's sort of in that heading of experience. We've kind of gone through this whole thing before. If you've played enough golf and you've played enough tournament golf, you're you start learning yourself and you start understanding how you react to certain situations, and that becomes somewhat predictable, maybe not always accurately so, but somewhat predictable. There's a certain level of comfort in that; and therein lies the ability to play well is when you find that area of contentment that you play to, maybe not someone else, but what you play to, and that's what I try to do. Kind of boring stuff, isn't it? Of course, we've all been here all day, too.

HALE IRWIN: I don't deny that last year was superlative play. I played extremely well, particularly the weekend. And it was a bit of a -- I think the parallel might be the weekend I had at Saucon Valley, the weekend last year; two different years two different situations, but in both cases I just played extremely well. And when I needed the shot, I needed the putt or whatever it was, I made it and I converted it and I kept the momentum going. But 129 last year on the weekend was pretty low scoring. Now, would I have it again? Yes. Absolutely. I don't know as that will be done this year, after these conditions.

HALE IRWIN: Ssshhh, don't want to tell him. I don't think Jack, being the author of the golf course, I don't think he wanted to see somebody do that. But then again, you can't control Mother Nature, and we had some soft conditions and the ball was holding. You get players -- yes, my scores were low, but you look at the field, the field played pretty well, too, I just happened to get my nose in front. The field played well. I think you'll find the conditions much the same in terms of the field playing well, but I don't think the field will go as deep as they did last year. I just can't see 21-under. Oh, yeah, I can see 21-under winning easily, but I don't think we're going to see that this year. Just playing a little too firm. Contrary to some people, they think when it rains it softens it up, it plays longer, but not in today's game. This is not necessarily a long golf course in today's game. It may on the card say 7,000 yards, and we play just about all of that, I believe. So we're not playing -- the course isn't playing that long as it might have been, 6,900 yards, 10 or 20 years ago.