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OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE PRO-AM

April 16, 2010

Mike Reid

LUTZ, FLORIDA

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Okay, Mike, you start the 2010 Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am with double bogey, but you come back and shoot 31 on the back nine for 5-under 66 and you're one off the lead.
Few general comments about your overall round, how you played, and then go through your card, if you could.
MIKE REID: I think, you know, I tried to put the double bogey on the first hole behind me as soon as I could. But you always know in golf it's hard to recover from a double bogey, much less get many shots back beyond that.
I just kept reminding myself for the next ten minutes that that hole was just 1/54th of my score and tried to put it behind me. I felt like I was hitting some good shots on the driving range and in practice, in the Pro-Am yesterday, and I just said, you know, it's just a matter of being patient. You know, with a little luck, maybe some of those shots will come back.
So I wish that formula worked every time, you know. But it was a day -- I think the last 17 holes I hit a lot of good shots. I think you're probably gonna hear the same thing from most fellas that have a good round here that you invite in here to talk about their rounds.
This is a good golf course, and you've got to play some good shots and hole some putts. That's what I did the last 17 holes.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: Let's run through the card, what happened at 1 and go through the birdies.
MIKE REID: You know, the drive I hit wasn't too bad at 1. In fact, Lon Nielsen, my playing partner said, Good drive, and then it kind of took a right kick and went into that bunker.
I bladed it out of the bunker into a bush over the green. I had to take an unplayable lie drop. I pitched it on a little bit short and actually holed I think an eight- or ten-foot putt for the double bogey.
Then I made some pars. I think a couple of them were up-and-down pars. And then I got my first birdie on 7 with a wedge from around 100 yards to six feet.
Then I birdied 8, which I didn't expect. I hit a good drive and 6-iron pole high about 20 feet. That went in and gave my quite a lift.
But it was equally, I think, as much of a lift to par 9, because it was right into the wind. I hit a drive and a 5-wood and 2-putted from the front fringe, which was probably about 50 feet.
Then 10 I hit a drive and a pitching wedge -- or a 9-iron that almost went in the hole. Left me about a one-inch putt.
12, it was a good drive and a 6-iron up to within a foot and a half. Made that for an eagle.
The next hole was a 3-wood, 52-degree wedge that I hit about 12 feet and made that.
14 was a drive, hybrid, and a sand wedge that I tried to push a little too far. It hit near the front of the green and backed off the green, and I made a putt. I was really just hoping to two-putt from about 25 feet over the fringe and onto the green, and then that went in the hole.
The last four holes I parred. 18 I was in the fairway bunker and then left of the green, and pitched it to six feet and made that.
So it was a good day after an inauspicious beginning.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: Maybe talk about the early part of this year, how you've been playing.
MIKE REID: I think owing it partly to the kind of start and stop of our schedule. That's the way my game seems to have been: a little bit inconsistent.
But I'm looking forward to playing a few weeks in a row so I can get into a little bit better rhythm. Seems I find my game and things are in pretty good order like they were at -- was it Allianz or -- somewhere I finished in the top fifth or so. Just seemed to hit my rhythm there. Then other weeks I'm searching for it all week.
So I hope to have found it this week and can build on it a little bit. But my game's been a little bit spotty starting out.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: Can you maybe brief them on your victory last year at the Jeld-Wen Tradition and where you were. That was a big win for you.
MIKE REID: Yeah, that was a big win. That was exciting. It altogether unexpected, I think, based on how I had been playing prior to that.
I wish there was a formula you could dial in and say, This is what I do when I win, and then you can attempt to duplicate that.
Golf resists that kind of approach. I just think you have to take what you have on the range that day and see how it feels and how it's going and just go play.
I think at our age, most of us out here, I think good play is due almost in larger measurer in your state of mind and your attitude than it is your swing and execution. From what I could see among my colleagues out here, their swings haven't changed a great deal over the years.
So I think the Jeld-Wen, to me, will forever kind of remind me that, you know, there's no substitute for just a good -- just a good attitude. Just a good positive attitude. Try to picture the shot you want to play, and...
PHIL STAMBAUGH: Questions.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about how the partnership with Ken Green came about and what you're expecting next week in that event.
MIKE REID: I think a month before that tournament last year I was looking for a partner. Because I hadn't had enough wins, I sort of resigned myself to playing in the other decision. I think it's call the Rafael Division.
I called Mark Hayes and I contacted another friend of mine or two, and they had already gotten partners.
I guess Ken had heard that I was looking for a partner, and he had won enough so that we could play in the upper division if he could find somebody else to play with.
So he called me, and I said, I would be delighted. We just got better as the week went along. He'd also been a friend, but not the kind of guy you see in the locker room and go out to dinner with.
We had been friends for a long time, but it was great to get to know him better, and his brother, his wife, just the family. My wife was there. We just had a great time. We went out to dinner a few times.
So after his accident this summer, I texted him. I gave him about two weeks and then I texted him. I said, You're still my partner, and we can beat most of these guys on three legs. Get in shape. I expect you to be playing in April.
He texted me about six weeks ago and he's sort of, I don't know if I'm playing that good. I'm playing a 5 handicap. I don't want to hold you back.
I said, Look, it's more about the fellowship than the championship. It's gonna be great for both of us. It's golf. We're gonna hit some good ones and we're gonna hit some bad ones, but we're gonna have a great time together. I haven't heard anything from him in the last week or so, but that's what I'm looking forward to next week. I think it'll be therapeutic for him.
I think as your question evidences, it might have been the story of the tournament. Talk about attitude. We text back and forth and I talk to him and I've seen him twice since this at a fundraiser we did this summer, and then again just a few weeks ago in Florida.
He is on a mission, unlike the Ken Green that we've known before. I think it's inspirational, and people need to know that. So I'm looking forward to it.

Q. You mentioned that you were hitting it well on the driving range. Is that a good indication some weeks of how you're...
MIKE REID: Only in a very general sense. But, you know, I wish it meant more. Maybe in the Olympics if people could flash up style points and you could somehow carry that to the tee with you that would mean something.
But I think by this time in my career I've been all over the map. I remember a tournament I won on the PGA Tour. My caddie had accidentally washed my grips with Gatorade. (Laughter.)
You know, I don't wear a glove so I'm sort of sensitive to what the club feels like. It's Sunday and we're in contention, and I said, This feels terrible. What's wrong?
He says, Well, is it the pressure? I said, Give me a break, you know. Something's wrong with these grips. Finally, another guy walked by and said, Did you wash your grips in that bucket? Me caddie says, Yeah. He says, Well, they put Gatorade in that bucket. It looks like water, but...
I hit ten balls, went out there and shot 67 to win the tournament. So I sort of forever put to sleep the idea that you got to practice well to play well. It doesn't mean a great deal.
Yeah, I might have my caddie wash them in Gatorade tomorrow.

Q. With as much experience as you guys have had through your career, do you think it's easier, as you get deeper into the rounds, to put a double bogey behind you, to play good final round?
MIKE REID: I would like if think so, but golf just -- it's such an in-the-moment challenge. I don't think that that -- I don't think the requirements of, you know, staying in the moment, keeping your mind in the present tense -- if you travel that road often enough, it needs to be repaved.
And so every time you tee the ball up you're gonna be repaving something, in spite of the fact that you've been there many times before. You know, if you've read Bobby Jones' classic book Down the Fairway, he discovered patience. The.
In the first part of the book it was such a revelation that he came home to his parents and he said, I'll never play a bad round the rest of my life. I've learned the principle of patience. Today I played patient and it worked well.
It was just interesting how the entire rest of the book, that requirement was just impressed upon him time after time throughout his entire career. He could look back on that moment and almost laugh at it thinking he had arrived. He had learn that had principle and it was behind him, and he would never again be impatient on a golf course.
Again, that's the way golf is. You're gonna be tested, but you just hope that you're of a mind to keep going forward even though you may be stumbling.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: Mike, good playing today.
MIKE REID: Thank you.

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