ENERGIZER SENIOR TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP

November 5, 1997

Hale Irwin

HALE IRWIN: That is right, golf.

HALE IRWIN: Well, it has been an awesome year obviously. I have played extremely well. I have had a lot of very good things happen at the right time. The combination of the nine wins, I think is reflective of what I had set out to do at the beginning of the year. Without having a specific goal of money, total, and without saying I want to be the leading money winner, which was sort of what everybody can't quite grasp, the fact that that wasn't the intent last year, nor has it been this year, it has been to win golf tournaments and see what accumulates towards year's end. And if I could -- I have tried to keep my goals relatively specific each week and not get caught up in the count down to 9, and I am not trying not to get caught up in the possibility of 10, although that is kind of hard to do because it is something I very much like to do now that I have reached the No. 9 plateau. But, all in all, whatever happens this week will not diminish from the year that I have had. And no way will this be a disappointing week and in no way will I feel short-changed by the events that may unfold. I am very proud of the year. I would be silly not to say that. And, I want to think that there is still some more left. I have never felt like -- I have never been one that was completely satisfied, you know, sometimes I think nine can be ten. Well, ten can be eleven. That is the way I think you keep going forward. If you stop and thought about how good it is, then you have stopped. And, I don't think that is the way, in a competitive environment, in which we find ourselves, that is not always the best way to keep your game improving. I have said many times this year, I am still learning about my game and I think this has been one of those years where I have learned from last year. I have continued that learning curve. I have extended that learning curve. And, it has paid big, big dividends.

HALE IRWIN: Well, I think part of the problem that I encountered here the last several years and today as well is the weather. I try not to let the weather be a factor, but it seems as if - at least my body and most of The Senior TOUR bodies - don't do too well in the conditions under which we have found ourselves the last several years, you know, the turn to cold weather and whatnot. Two years ago I had the distinction of a four-shot penalty, so that kind of hurt. Not too many people get a four-shot penalty at one time, so, I feel kind of like that is -- I am in the record book there. And, then last year, I just didn't play as well as I needed to. I just didn't play well. And, the fact that -- I do like the golf course. I very much like the course. But, we have never really seen it under conditions, say, that we saw last week in L.A., warm conditions and not all bundled up like we all were at 7:30 this morning. That is difficult to go out and play the kind of golf that I would like to play. But, with all that in mind, there is no excuse why it is the same for all 29 -- how many players are there this week?

HALE IRWIN: Larry is not here, right?

HALE IRWIN: All 30 of us have the same problem.

HALE IRWIN: It is not the toughest, but I think it certainly is that. And -- well, again, I go back to -- I don't know.

HALE IRWIN: This is so weather driven this -- we are near the ocean so we can get some of the winds and we are so late in the year that you can get some of the colder air that we have received, and, we are, I guess, predicted to receive, so, I think we are going to be the same ole, same ole this week.

HALE IRWIN: Well, I like the course. There is nothing about it I don't like. If I can just kind of get myself in a better frame of mind to deal with the warm -- or the cold weather, then I should do all right. But, that is the hurdle I have to get over.

HALE IRWIN: Apples or oranges or -- it is kind of hard to -- certainly has to be one of those years that I will never forget. I don't think you can look at the kind of results that I have been able to come by this year and easily forget that. I will -- this will be a banner year. It will rank right up there. But to compare it to another year; I felt like 1990 was an awfully good year with the US Open win and the Westchester. I felt like 1975, '76, '77, those years were awfully good years, I played well back then. But, to -- I would throw all of those years in the same pot and they are all satisfying in many ways. This, probably from a pure technical strike-the-ball and get-it-in-the-hole year, has probably been, if not the best, certainly a tie for the best year I have had. I throw away the dollars because that is hard to compare the dollars then to the dollars now. But, just from execution and doing what I wanted to do, this has to be the best.

HALE IRWIN: Well, much of it, I believe, just comes from application of what I have learned through the years and as I said earlier, I really feel like I am still learning about the game of golf. I don't go out and just say, well, that is what I did yesterday, so therefore that is what I am going to do today. Even though I may have played well, I really try to improve. I try to pick up on the things that I think would make me a better player. And that is what keeps me driving forward and I do think that as long as I will play competitive golf, I will always try to be better. I don't want to ever sit back and say, "Well, that is it. That is as good as I can do it or as good as I can be." I just don't like to do that. That doesn't mean that you go out and it' becomes a cause - not at all. I just think that there is a lot of moving parts in the golf swing. A lot of things that can go wrong that usually does. And if you can just sort of eliminate a little bit of that as you go, then you just get better. Some of it may be just a lot of things coming together that this year -- the approach I have had towards the game in terms of being a little bit more patient. Patience has always been my biggest problem. I just have -- I have always pushed the envelope and this year I just tried to be a little bit more patient and that may have allowed some of these other things to click in and work.

HALE IRWIN: I don't. The problem I have had in year's past -- when I go wrong with my putting and I did the second, third round last week and I did it today -- is I tend to push the ball. I allow the toe of the putter to open slightly on the backswing and then I hold it in place, so when I come back to the ball, it is slightly open so the ball is always starting to touch to the right. And what I tried to do over the winter last year was figure a way in which I didn't have to change anything-because I like -- the stroke felt good. It is just that I can feel it opening. So, all I did was I just sort of went from a grip that was sort of like that and I just sort of ran my finger as a trigger and what it did, it kept -- kept a little bit more pressure on the putter shaft. It is not completely down the shaft. But it kept the pressure there. So now when that blade was going back, it was pressing against something. So, it kept it square. That, more than anything else, led to immediate results at Hualalai. So, all of a sudden I have got this patience thing; I have got this trigger thing, and it is working. Just sort of snowballed throughout the year.

HALE IRWIN: No, like I said, I think about things. I don't -- I don't always hit balls. I get just as much practice done up here thinking about what I did wrong; thinking what I might do to improve it. What could I do that is not going to necessarily be a big crosshanded -- I like going from here to here. That is a huge change. I change putters, but they have always been basically the same kind of a putter. I just felt what can I do to that makes things very simple and yet is a change. I have tried it, saw immediate results. The thing I did have to do is I started pulling some putts then, so I had to find that comfort level that has worked and it took me just two, three weeks just to do that. And the time I got away from it was in the middle part of the year during the US Senior Open and that -- in that say May, June, July timeframe, I got away from that; didn't putt as well. Went right back to it. I think it was maybe Bank of Boston, somewhere in there, took me a while to learn, but eventually got there.

HALE IRWIN: Well, like I said, it is only a hypothetical question, isn't it?

HALE IRWIN: If I could go over there and play like I have been playing over here. Yeah, you'd like to give it a try. Could I play the same? I don't know, you are talking about again a different environment. I think I could have had some success over there. A lot of it -- for me, I think the biggest difference between taking my game as I have had it this year and taking it over there, is that you are playing longer golf courses. You are playing under a little bit more intense environment. Tens meaning you do have a cut. The four days doesn't bother me. The cut thing doesn't bother me, but that is a little bit different than what you are accustomed to here. If my performance at the PGA, for instance, was any barometer in how I could have done, I think I would have done all right. I am not going to say I would have won a tournament or won any X number of dollars, but, you know, I did not putt particularly well at the PGA, but I played tee-to-green just as well as I think anybody there that week. So, I am happy with the year. I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about the what ifs had I been over there. I have accepted my position as a Senior TOUR player and I will make my little very rare forays over to the other side, to the dark side, and still test my abilities over there. But, I am a Senior TOUR player and that is where I will stay.

HALE IRWIN: Well, they have twice as many players, approximately. And, you start talking about -- you have got not only twice as many players, but if you accept the premise that they have got the best players, if you tick off the top 10 players over there and could our top 10 Seniors play them head-to-head? Maybe. Who knows. We don't do it. We don't do it from the same tees, so the comparison is never there, the direct comparison is never there. There are some players on this Tour that if they applied themselves with the same level of desire and intensity and preparation, could still play well on the regular Tour. But, they have an alternative and that alternative is the Senior TOUR and this is where they are most comfortable and it is where they probably belong. I am one of those. I think Gil is one of those. Larry Nelson is one of those. Raymond could be one of those. You can pick five to ten players. But, when you start talking about over the length of a year, let us say, a 5-iron shot versus a 7-iron shot, that 7-iron in the long run is going to beat you every time in the hands of these players. And if that is what we are talking about, 15 to 20 yards difference per hole, that is a big difference. Now, maybe not on one single day or single hole or single day, but over time, that will happen.

HALE IRWIN: These players on this Tour are extremely good with their short irons because that is what we play. You go over to the regular Tour and now you are not just into short irons; you are into some longer clubs. So, whereas, we have mostly short irons and the middle irons. You rarely hit a long iron to a par 4. You may hit a long iron to a par 5 or somewhere, but, you generally don't hit a lot of those. On the regular Tour-particularly at Champions- where that thing can measure 8 miles long, you may be hitting a lot of those.

HALE IRWIN: Yeah, this course right now is playing and with this weather is playing quite long. So those are clubs we, as a group, you are playing these and then you start moving into this other group. That gets to be a big difference.

HALE IRWIN: I think it is similar. Again, you are taking more players over there. You have got twice as many players. Our players are not short. I think all the players here understand that we are older. We may not hit the ball as far as we once did. But, ah-hah, I think we are hitting it longer than we used to. But, they are also hitting it longer over there. Those kids grew up with all the modern stuff. They learned to develop their games around perimeter weight of clubs and all so they probably don't see a distance. We could than what we used to play to what we play now. I think as a group we have probably increased our distance and they have probably stayed the same. Whereas, it may have been miles a part before and now it is much closer. Their longest player, outside of Tiger and John, you know, those are exceptions, are probably not that much longer than our players. So, a few yards is not a big deal. I don't think five to ten yards is all that big a deal. But, you start getting more than that, and now you are starting to talk about that not one club differential but two, and two can be three.

HALE IRWIN: I think we learn to played shots when the conditions weren't as good. I mean, the strides in agronomy and golf course preparation, I think, are maybe the understated difference in the game now versus then. We play fairways now that are just about as good as some greens we used to play. So, just the superintendents are now really very good at what they are doing; not that the old ones were not. They just have more education and technology to prepare the golf courses. Irrigation systems are better. Just the whole thing is better. Consequently, your practice facilities and everything that you do is more refined. So, they grow up learning to play off of good conditions and can learn to play one shot and play that one shot. Not that they can't hook-and-fade, but they just play that one shot. Whereas, you take a Lee Trevino - you mentioned Lee Trevino - Lee can, you know, he has always sort of done everything with the ball. He has been a very good maneuverer of the golf ball. But, most of The Senior TOUR players, that is how they learn to play. I like to think I maneuver the ball. And most of the players do. Because you kind of had to learn that way.

HALE IRWIN: I think, too, it is part of their culture not to be very up front and out in the public with their opinions. Isao is extremely good player. He has an unconventional swing as we might term unconventional. But, I don't look at it from the standpoint of unconventional. I look at it as -- it is very repetitive. He repeats his swing as wonderfully as anybody, I think, in the game and his hands, his touch. He is terrific.

HALE IRWIN: A little bit.

HALE IRWIN: We do more nodding. You kind of talk golf-talk. Golf-talk is fine. But, you know, at least he has made some strides to learn English and you can communicate. Versus if I went to Japan and do what he has done, I would have a very difficult time. So, my hat is off to Isao for what he has done. I think he has made great strides. He is a welcomed player and we all enjoy him and want him to be here. And, I think he has brought great dividends to the Senior Tour. And his play is exemplary. You wouldn't find a guy that is any better around the greens. They can talk about Seve and talk about some of these magic chippers and putters, but you better throw Isao Aoki into that mix because he is just as good around the greens as anybody I have ever seen.

HALE IRWIN: Well, see, when I started in June -- June of two and a half years ago, there was a glimmer of hope, look sort of like Hailey's comet except it was Hailey's desire to make the Ryder Cup in 1995. That was in my mind: Did I want to curtail my regular Tour schedule to play The Senior TOUR or did I want to reverse it. Did I want to play the Senior TOUR and just play occasionally, hoping to make the Ryder Cup team. That was my predicament. I finally accepted that, you know, I can't let one week, the Ryder Cup week, influence six months. So, once I kind of got that out of my system, then it was a better transition into The Senior TOUR. But, that is the dilemma I had. It wasn't Senior TOUR, regular Tour, where I wanted to play full-time. It was going to be Senior TOUR, but when was it going to happen. And, that is what I kind of waffled with for a while. But, once I made that decision, then I was fine.

HALE IRWIN: I thought you were "The man." Well, hopefully there will be more to come. You don't -- I look back at all the years that Jack Nicklaus, let us say, or Arnold Palmer, or any of the great players in the past, have really carried that mental well. I think they have all been very good at representing not only themselves, but the game and did it very well. That crown or that designation, it is not always the easiest thing to do. There is a part of me that really likes the private side. After this week, I am going to kind of go off somewhere and kind of get away from -- because I need that part of me. There is a real strong desire in my life to kind of get away from "The man" thing, as you say. It brings me back to the central issue of what is important in my life: The family and the friends and, really, the basics, really what drive my life. So, coming out here, it has been wonderful. It is an absolute dream come true and I want to keep it that way. But, I don't want to kill it. I don't want to destroy the thing that has been so good by, let us say, playing more, going from 23 official events this year to 30 next year - no chance. I am just not going to do it. So, hopefully I can continue -- I have enjoyed it very much. There is -- but I am always looking for change and new exciting things. The new exciting thing I don't know what that will be, but I am always trying to do that. Again, trying to go west, young man, go west. My wife hates to go in a car with me because I say: "Oh, there is another hill, let us see what is over the next hill." I can drive her crazy and I don't blame her, but I kind of just got that urge to kind of go out there and do something.

HALE IRWIN: Yeah, I am proud of that, but I guess I am as proud of the play of some of the other players and I don't want to let Gil Morgan's year go unnoticed here. Because I think Gil has -- take away my year and look at the year Gil had - five wins and a million 8 plus. That, in itself, I think is a great year. And, Aoki, we have mentioned. Here is the quiet man from Japan. Mr. He'll-cut-you-up in -- I think he worked at Benihana one time with those guys because he can sure cut you up easily. There is some really outstanding play, I think, on the Senior TOUR. And if my year is reflective of that, then I am very happy, but I think this is -- I think we are together as Senior players, maybe a little bit more so than the regular Tour players, are together. I wish we had some way and we could kind of have this Ryder Cup kind of thing. It will be kind of fun to do that. But, we are sort of such a small group. It is hard to break it up and pick somebody else to play against, but that would be a lot of fun.

HALE IRWIN: Oh, yeah.

HALE IRWIN: Are you shaking your head, no? I am shaking my head "yeah."

HALE IRWIN: It is not the money part. It is not the money part. I don't look at that and say, okay, 2 point whatever it is going to be. I want to better that. I want to go out and specifically I want to play better in the Majors. Yes, I won one this year. But, last year I won one and finished second, three times. This year I won one and I don't know where I finished in the other, so I'd really like to improve that and get a little bit more focus there. My schedule, by virtue of winning as many times, has kind of set for next year. I know where I am going to play a lot, so, again it is going to be - there will be a few tournaments that may turn over and play somewhere else. But, for the most part, my schedule is kind of intact very much as it was this year.

HALE IRWIN: US Open. Again, I will have to requalify for the PGA. I am not in The Masters. So, Bell South, if they require my appearance in Atlanta, so, again, I may be over there 2, 3 times. Going back to Hilton Head, I'd love to go back there, but that is opposite PGA Seniors. So the tournaments -- Memorial has been opposite Birmingham or something in the past, so kind have had a hard time to get over there and play some of those events that I'd really like to play that have been very good to me. Muirfield, Memorial, has been very good to me. Hilton Head, obviously, has been very good to me. There are a handful that I'd like to.

HALE IRWIN: Well, I was there the year Watson won and that is about as --

HALE IRWIN: This tournament here, two years ago, was about as cold as I can remember playing in an entire tournament for cold weather. It was not fun.

HALE IRWIN: Not that well, no. Who does? Anybody in this room know Tiger?

HALE IRWIN: I know Earl better than I know Tiger. That is what I read about all the time - Earl. I don't know either of them. I have never met his father and I have just visited with Tiger very briefly.

HALE IRWIN: Just like most of us. I see it from afar, or I watch him on television, just like everybody else that likes to see what is going on in the limelight. I have seen him swing the ball. I think his play over the last several months has not been indicative of what I think we will see in years to come. But, it also may be an awareness thing for him, hey, you know, being the best is not the easiest, and if you are going to be the best, you have to kind of spring it out and kind of pace yourself a little bit. And I think the great secret for Jack Nicklaus was that he paced himself very, very well for a lot of years. And, Tiger is really -- he gets into it, very big emotional way, and that can take its toll.

HALE IRWIN: He has won a little less than that, so let us keep that straight, Jerry.

HALE IRWIN: I don't know anything about Tiger's life away from golf life. I don't know if he has played any other sports. Again, it is just from what I have read. It has all been golf oriented from since he was quite young and that is fine, but I think you have to have a balance. I try to encourage parents that have young kids that really like golf or show a tendency to maybe be a good player, I say let them do the soccer; let them do the baseball; let them do something else for that balance, because I think you learn -- golf is an athletic move, whether some of us agree with that or not, it is athletic Atlanta movement of the body; maybe more so than other sports. There is balance. There is a lot of moving parts and there is a definite hand-eye coordination. And, all of that is balance and the balance thing is critical in any sport. You can name it. You can pick anything in the athletic world and if you don't have balance in golf, you can write it off.

HALE IRWIN: Well, I just did a lot when I was young. I enjoyed -- again, I am going to go back to I like to do those other things. I like to go out and test the waters over there and I like football-- what reason did I have to play football. Well, it was a way through school. You know, I literally worked my way through school. Some people might not say that, but once you get on those pads, you get your bell wrong, you know, all of a sudden, you have got a job and that was the way I did it. I didn't have a golf scholarship. It was never offered to me. That was a sport that I enjoyed. There was again that part of me that enjoyed that. And basketball in high school, and that was sort of what was after football and I enjoyed that. The thing I didn't enjoy was track and I remember junior high school - just a quick side bar - I met a guy, Van, who I hadn't seen since high school. And he is now a pilot, he flies for this pharmaceutical company and I was running against him in a junior high race. It was what was then the 880, now it is, what, the 800 meters. Then it was 880. He had the first leg, and I had the outside leg, so, here we are going around the turn, I am thinking and I have never run this before in my life. I haven't run 220 yards in my life, but anyway, boy, I am going -- I am thinking, man, I am flying because I can't see him. And we round that corner. He went by me so fast it was like he was jet-propelled. So, I didn't like running, track, field events. I could jump and I could throw and all that, but running wasn't my bag. But just about everything else, other than a straight line running, I was proficient at.

HALE IRWIN: Back then a freshman could not play varsity sports, which is the smartest thing going. Freshman playing varsity now is, I think, is silly - if you believe in education, which I kind of do. Secondly, you had to play as freshman spring ball but after that, if you can make the varsity team, then you were exempt from playing spring football. Now, it has become such a business now and we see these schools that are having to drop some of their programs because they are not making enough money when, in fact, I think if they -- even if they down scaled, provide the opportunity -- Boston University, I guess, is the most recent one that had to drop out. I hate to see it. I understand it, but if you can make those other sports, then you didn't have to play. But, if you went out for baseball and didn't make the varsity then -- if you were on scholarship -- then you had to play. Well, I made the golf team, so I didn't have to play. But I also told them when they were recruiting me that I was going to play golf. And they accepted that.

HALE IRWIN: No, I was a captain my senior year. So, I think I had their respect. They knew -- I tried as hard as anybody and harder. I was in better shape than anybody else. You just put away the golf clubs comes 1st of August. I had about a two month season between working as a construction laborer and playing Colorado tournaments which I could and then when August came around, I just didn't play anymore. I never played in a US Amateur. I just started getting ready for the war. So the transition there, I don't know, it just -- I think I was fortunate that I could take my athletic abilities and play them where --

HALE IRWIN: I would guess because that you say it was a young lady.

HALE IRWIN: She probably started when she was about three. And she -- probably that is all she has -- she probably got up at 4:00 in the morning and that is all she has ever done and consequently never got to develop any of those other kinds of hand-eye skills. Just a simple fact of throwing. You can go to Great Britain where they don't have a lot of, like, baseball - anybody here from Great Britain? I don't want to -- but, you throw them something, they can't catch. But, boy, you throw them something, they can do it with their feet unbelievably. So, it is the training. It is the background. We have kicking. We have throwing. We have catching. A lot of people aren't accustomed to that. Like basketball, anybody that can putt, can shoot a basket. I think they have got that touch. And I think free-throw shooting was one of the easiest things going. I see these professional players can't hit a free-throw. I am thinking, no one bothered them. They are halfway their with their arms.

HALE IRWIN: Well, they are up there too. The ball is clearly down there. But, I think there is -- you take a decathlete, I think that may be one of the best examples of a best athlete going -- I think they can do a lot of things well. But, golf is not a game that a lot of people can do well right away. Because it goes against the grain of what you are trained to do, like throwing. Golf, you don't -- unless you want to hit a big slice, you have to keep it underneath. So, there are some moves in golf that are very hard for a good athlete to overcome.

HALE IRWIN: Well, immediately comes to mind is the defending champion Sigel. He hits the ball a long ways. And, distance here is going to be good. I think, again, Ray Floyd, you have got to throw him back into the mix. Ray has got a good track record here and he is long enough. I think you have to look at guys that can get the ball far enough off the tee and have a good enough iron game and have short touch to play this course because the greens are a little bit quicker than what we are accustomed to. Graham Marsh, I think, is another guy that would have a good chance around here. I will feel badly if I leave out somebody that is an obvious -- John Bland is the kind of guy that is very steady. This kind of golf course, under the conditions under which we might find ourselves, may be the thing -- stayness may be the thing to have. Larry Nelson -- did Larry make it?

HALE IRWIN: I think this would have been a course for Larry. Who am I missing? That is it. Only guys that can win. (laughs).

HALE IRWIN: I have seen -- yes, I have seen -- Yes. But, I have seen some pictures lately of me in my younger golf career and when I compare them with what I look like playing football and what I look like now, I think "Who is this guy." There has been a little bit of a weight distribution since then, whereas my water is up from what it used to be. It is not alarmingly up. But it is more. But, I look so much bigger now than I did when I was, let us say, in the early '70s, mid-'70s, I just looked bigger. I know I am bigger because coats and jackets and things that I may have found in an old closet don't even come close to fitting anymore. I think I am stronger than probably two years ago. I was probably as strong as I have ever been - maybe about this time even last year. I used to carry a lot more weight on my legs back when I was in college, in football, with all the running and stuff, but I never lifted weights in college. That was another thing I didn't -- wasn't going to lift weights. Sort of a dumb thing to do if you are playing football, but I should have, but I didn't. But, I think that mindset of physical conditioning has been very helpful through the years as I have, particularly when I turned 40, I made a conscious effort to become more physically fit and not just to turn 50, but through those years that I felt like the waning years on the regular Tour and in preparation for The Senior TOUR, I really did work at it quite hard. And I intend to get back into it this winter.

HALE IRWIN: I think the stretching is good for everyone. But I also think the proper kind and amount of weight lifting is not hurtful at all. In fact, I think it can be helpful. But I think a long with that comes good stretching and some aerobics, particularly for Senior players. I think we have to learn to maintain our strength. We are not going to gain strength, but you have to maintain strength and by aerobics, you can keep yourself going and a lot of stretching helps do that.

HALE IRWIN: Thank you.