U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 6, 1996

Hale Irwin

HALE IRWIN: Well, I continued to throw away shots each round too, that is the discouraging part. The encouraging part is, yes, I am improving. There, again, was a couple of 3-putts today which, boy, they are putting cold ice on the fire, I must say. You get it to 3-under par and 3-putt 8 and knock it on 9 and 2 and 3-putt there and hit a sand wedge at 10 that hooks great, hits the pin and goes off the green into a bad lie in the rough, make bogey there. Those holes right there, 5, 5, 5; 8, 9 and 10, played the holes fairly well. It was real discouraging at the same time. 3 under par, it's an encouraging score, good score, solid score. Obviously not enough to catch what's his name?

HALE IRWIN: 8 back, you know, it seems like an awful lot. But I know that there is an awful lot of golf to be played, and certainly Dave would be the first to tell you it is not over yet. It is quite easy to shoot an over-par score here, and somebody in the pack is going to have to come out relatively early and make some birdies and apply a little pressure and get Dave thinking that it is not just a hit in the fairway. And obviously he is playing well. He must be putting well too. He is not hurting in confidence. He is not hurting with his short game, and in this kind of a golf course is right up his alley; not terribly long, and a lot of short shots. And it is a perfect course for Dave to go out and play the kind of golf that he is showing us how to play.

HALE IRWIN: Not a lot of people, but...

HALE IRWIN: Again, I don't worry about how many people. I don't really worry about how many strokes back I am. I just go out and try to do what I need to do, and I am not doing that. When I can play to the kind of golf that I have played this year, then I can. But the missing ingredient this week has been on the greens.

HALE IRWIN: I have putted well this year. I have played very well this year. And there was no reason to believe that I would be putting like I am. But those hiccups happen. There are potholes in the road, and I had -- I didn't play the last two weeks. That probably hurt my short game more than anything else. And I just wasn't sharp, and I am paying the piper now.

HALE IRWIN: Doesn't sound too bad. Again, I have played well. I don't like to say that is the best I could play, but obviously, as I sit here, I am saying I played very well. You have to go out and continue to push is the envelope to continue to move those goals forward and that is the way I have always approached it. That is the way I have always tried to play and at the end of the week, whoever wins is going to win and we will go on to next week and I will continue to try and get better. You know, I am still trying to learn and I am learning more and more about myself. Unfortunately, I forget as much as I learn.

HALE IRWIN: Birdied the second hole from about three feet, hitting a 7-iron. 3-wood and 7-iron. Birdied number 3, hitting a 7-iron, pin-high, making about a 15 foot putt. Birdied 6, driving in the left rough and then hitting out short of the green, pitching it on and lipping it out, actually, and making about a 6-foot putt to go to go 3 under. 8: I hit 4-wood into the right rough and when I played a pretty good shot into the green, from about 30 feet, I left it about three feet short and then missed that. Lipped that one out for a 3-putt. 9: I hit two good shots onto the green. The first putt was probably from about 60 feet and I left that about six feet short and missed that. So I 3-putted for a par. And number 10, I hit a sand wedge from the fairway and really a good shot and it hit the pin, ricocheted back down the slope into the rough where I had a bad lie and ended up making a bogey there. Which is really 5, 5, 5, I really didn't play badly at all, bad break, really bad break at 10. But then I made a nice par-putt at 11 after a first putt that went long from about six feet, made about a 30-footer at 12 for birdie. 13: I played a good second, just short of the green, I thought I was going to -- it's going really good, it came up a bit short. Then I missed about a 7-foot birdie putt. 14: I made about a 10-foot par-putt. 16: I pitched it just about six feet from the hole. I had hit it down to the flat, short of the green; pitched it up about six feet from the hole making that for a birdie. And then 18, I hit it in the right rough and then into the right trap from where I made it from about 8 feet for a par. So it wasn't all bad putting, but there were some bad putts along the way.

HALE IRWIN: These -- if you have a good touch this week -- I mean, touch comes and goes and if you have the feel for these greens, the speed of these greens, then I think you are going to play them well. Right now I am very mechanical in my putting. My feel is just sort of the way the Indians played last night-- Ugly. But it has been good all year, so I have kind of switched. I used a different putter today, trying to neutralize that bad feeling from the first two days - not that I putted any better, but at least it was a neutral position which I felt like was a move forward, and if you get the feel, which he has got, well, maybe he doesn't, let's see here (WATCHING TV) He has got the feel for it! (STOCKTON MADE THE PUTT). And when you have the feel on rapid greens, you can really make up a lot of ground or distance yourself from the pack and Bob Charles is very much the same. They both are very good putters to start with. They always have been and that is what they are known for, and that is what is happening here. If your touch escapes you, then some of these little slick putts and down the slopes and just kind of mechanically throwing it out there, like me, and you really don't have much of a chance.

HALE IRWIN: On this course, yes, because we are not playing a real long golf course, but there are some long shots, but we are not playing a golf course that has a lot of length to it like we had last year at Congressional, for instance. So when Dave can play -- he is not long and he doesn't play his long game as well as some other guys, so you keep him where he can manage it around and use his assets, which is A-game: His short game and his confidence. I think the two are interrelated very closely. He can be hard to catch, but I don't think there is anyone ready to run you up the white flag and surrender as yet. Last I heard it was a four-round event and we have seen some bizarre scores this week that could happen to any of us.

HALE IRWIN: I think Dave has always been a very confident person. I think he is very much -- (WATCHING TV). He hit another bad drive. (SAID KIDDINGLY) He is very much his own cheerleader kind of guy. He is always boosting himself up. That is fine. That is Dave Stockton. And what a great week to get it all together and when he has got that confidence rolling and he -- I haven't seen him play much. This is the most I have seen Dave hit all week, but I know him enough to know how he must be approaching the game right now and I am sure he is just bubbling over with that inner confidence that he has.

HALE IRWIN: It is almost -- it is very much the same kind of putter. I went from a TPA Model 3, which I have used for years and years and years, to an Odyssey, and today the offsets are very much the same. Everything about them is very much the same. The looks are slightly different. One is black. One is silver. But the -- mechanically, what I was trying to do on the putting green yesterday is keep the angling in my right-hand consistent what I have been doing, like here, (DEMONSTRATING). And when I bring it back, I am loose with it; then I lock it. When I come back, it opens the blade, so I have been hitting almost everything to the right. Today I fought very hard to keep that it way, but there are just some putts where, again, you can't always be thinking of mechanics, mechanics, mechanics. You got to think about putting the ball in the hole. When I thought about putting it in the hole, I broke down again, so I am sort of through a rock and a hard place. Every time I felt I was good mechanically, I was coming up short. There is a slight difference in the two shafts of these. The one I used today hits the putt a little with -- less lively. It comes off a little deader and the one I am probably going to go back to tomorrow is a little livelier; gets a little kick.

HALE IRWIN: To neutralize. I often change putters maybe for one round. If I am going bad with something, leave it for a little bit and try something else even though it is virtually the same kind of -- typical kind of putter, typical in the kind of putters I use. It is new. It is fresh. You go from negative to neutral which is a step up.

HALE IRWIN: Absolutely. 1979 I had 5-shot lead, playing the U.S. Open going to the last round and you know you should win; everybody thinks you should win, but getting there is a long way to go. Now, whether Dave can do it or not, I don't know. 11 under?

HALE IRWIN: Oh. What did he birdie 16?

HALE IRWIN: He is just -- right now he is just -- everything is on and when everything is on -- if something goes off, however, if something in your armor gets a little chink in it, then it rapidly can come apart - sort of like pulling a string. You can unravel very quickly because -- and we have seen it in other sports. It just can get going the other way just as easily when you are playing, that fine line that we all are -- the talent level is pretty narrow when you are playing at this level and all it takes is just a little hiccup and some guys pass you and if you hiccup twice, a lot of guys pass you and all of a sudden you got the hiccups and you just can't stop, but at the same time, if you can continue on and write yourself, you are fine, but I got a feeling that Mr. Stockton is going to hang in there. But again, my thoughts are not with Dave. My thoughts are right here and do what I can do tomorrow to close that gap.

HALE IRWIN: No. After 10 holes I was ahead by 6. We got to the 17th tee and I was ahead by 5 and I thought I have got it won and immediately went double bogey, bogey and won by 2, but my name is on the Cup, so that is all that really mattered.

HALE IRWIN: Thank you very much.

HALE IRWIN: Thank you.