U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 2, 1996

Hale Irwin

HALE IRWIN: Twice. I played yesterday. Slipped in.

HALE IRWIN: Last time I played was in 1973, and I remember nothing. (LAUGHTER) Well, no, that is a semi-lie. Only thing I remember playing what I thought was 17, but it was really 16, hitting a third shot to the green and hitting a tree root under my ball and making a 5-iron out of my 9-iron, that is all I remember. Nothing -- I thought, well, once I get here some of the holes will start looking familiar. Not a one. So it is essentially a brand new golf course. I think for many of us, for those that played here in '89 whenever it was, probably are better suited to make the comparisons, but I could only compare yesterday to today. That is as far as I can go with it. It is going to be a difficult course, I think, because it's - because of its narrow fairways. Trees are going to certainly be a factor. We don't have the rough that Oakland Hills had, for instance, but the old greens, the back to front slopes will make for a premium on putting. I think keeping the ball under the hole, if you can, will be most advantageous, getting above the pin with the speed - at least the speed of the greens this morning - will make it a pretty good test of golf to get make a 2-putt from anywhere.

HALE IRWIN: There is always other factors, but the simple point of the matter is, this is the first of a four-week stretch for me. I am playing all the tournaments in July, and I just needed some time to sort of recoup and do some other things that were called for, and the design side of it, I had to do some things there. I have been busy. I haven't been sitting floating around the pool, if that is what you mean - no. I have been busy. And as far as rest goes, I didn't get a lot of that. But I did get a break from golf. That is what I needed. I was getting a little stale and I feel much better about my game right now. More anxious to get on top of it again.

HALE IRWIN: Essentially, if I may paraphrase, how has my first year been and expectations or otherwise. I think one of the surprising things, frankly, has been the caliber of play on the Senior Tour. I don't say that lightly. I truly mean that. I think the number of good players and how well they can play has surprised me. But I think, too, how I have played has been -- I have played pretty good myself. The commitment, as you referred to the commitment last summer was really driven by the Ryder Cup. And early in the year, early in 1995, there was, I was listed on the Ryder Cup point list and I thought, well, if could I make some points and make that team, that is what I want to do, but as June 3rd came around and I had not really accumulated that many points, I had to make a decision, do I want to start out and try and make the Senior Tour, set that up for 1996, or do I want to try and stay on the regular Tour and try and make that team. And it boiled down to: do I want to have a one-week period of time dictate six months, and I frankly said, no, I don't. As much as it would be wonderful to make that 6th Ryder Cup team, it was not an overriding priority. To continue playing on the regular Tour and at some level, that was the greater question to me was: Did I still want to maintain that intense level that is required to play the regular Tour or do I want to come to the Senior Tour and start a whole new -- I didn't know what it was, so it was an unknown quantity. And I sort of jumped into it pretty quickly with this event being my, what, third event last year, and quickly right into the next major which was the Ford Seniors Championship, so I was kind of into it real quickly. Would I do it differently? Probably not. Would I -- do I want to play more on the regular Tour? No. Do I enjoy playing there when I do? Yes. I had a fun wonderful time at Oakland Hills. That might sound strange getting killed by the golf course, but I did enjoy that. I guess to put - to try to put a simple answer to a kind of a difficult question - is that I have -- I don't feel like I have -- like I made any mistakes in what I did. But there will always be that question in the back of my mind, can I still, could I still have played on the regular Tour and had been a successful -- I don't know, I don't know, the best in the world are over there and when you are not competing and you feel competitive and you are not competing against the best, then you always have that question as --

HALE IRWIN: No. No. If I won another Heritage, would it make any difference in my career? If I won a Major, yeah, it may have, but I think the short-term future is the regular Tour because -- I mean, the Senior Tour because there is no real long-term future on the Senior Tour. Long-term is maybe ten years, so I think the answer to your question is that I have enjoyed what I have done. Certainly there are questions that will always crop up as to, well, did you really need to do it then. Could you avoid it. Why didn't you start in 1996 - da-da-da. Tom Kite said as long as he is competitive he will play the regular Tour. Tom, you have got a ways to go and you will face the same question that many of us have faced, when do you do it.

HALE IRWIN: I am not going to get into handicap. Every time I think I am going to play well, I always end up shooting myself in the foot or sawing the branch off behind me, so I won't do that. I like the golf course. I have been playing well. I feel energetic about my game right now. But is this a golf course for me? Well, I don't know. I think anybody that hits the ball in the fairway a lot and keeps, you know, manages themselves around this golf course is going to have a good chance. The fact that this is - - I don't want to say relatively short - there are some shorter shots and there are some layups off the tee - layups, meaning 2-iron or fairway wood, that will kind of keep a lot of guys in the game because you are taking the driver out of their hands more so than, say, Congressional last year, where driving was a major part of the game. I think that is why Tom played so well, is that he can drive the ball very, very well and very long. Now, a guy like Weiskopf, is he handicapped in the sense that he doesn't have that asset at his disposal this week like he did last year? Yes, he is handicapped. Would you take a player who might not be as long or as good a driver as Weiskopf and put him a little more up into the favorites? Yeah, you might do that because driving is important here, but keeping it between the tree line is even more important and what you do that with is entirely up to the player. I can see a number of places out there, a number meaning anywhere from, you know, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 times where a driver may not be hit. In other words, this golf course, you don't have to play with a driver all the time. And at Congressional, you had to play a driver a lot of times. So I think that brings more players into the field.

HALE IRWIN: No. I wish somewhere along the line I would have had an instructor, a teacher or somebody; I think it would have helped me earlier in my career. But I didn't, but I think it has helped me in the long-term because I have been pretty much self-taught. I haven't tried to fashion my game as to anybody because when I grew up there wasn't anybody to fashion a game after that I knew of. When you are raised on sand greens, not too many great golfers come off of sand greens. I will tell you that. So, no, I have just tried to observe in my earlier years on the Tour, I just spent a lot of time watching the other players; not emulating anybody, but just trying to take the best of Nicklaus or Palmer or Player or Travino, whomever it may be, and take the best of what they did and see if I can do the same or change it in some capacity and it has been a learning curve ever since.

HALE IRWIN: Well, there is a closing ceremony and opening ceremony. And the opening they said, you know, we would rather you be out doing your thing than maybe being stuck in doing the wining and entertaining bit because they didn't have an exact schedule of what I might be doing, but they did know that I would be playing and I had said, you know, this is a great event that is opposite the Burnet, a very good event, and they understood that. So that is is why I am playing.

HALE IRWIN: I am so tight with the dollar that I am always in shock. You know, I have won more in six months this year than I have won in every given year on any Tour. So to not be appreciative of the situation is pretty -- I am thankful for what has happened. I really and truly am and to have this -- to step back and say, boy, that is -- I am stepping back all the time saying isn't that something. I just think it is a wonderful place to continue playing for significant prize money. And I think you probably don't realize how good you have it until you do step back and that is part of the two-week process that I was off. I think it is -- sometimes you have to get off, reappraise yourself, reevaluate where you are; where you are going; what you want to do. It is not always driven about dollars. It is not always dollars. It is other considerations. It is family. It is, you know, other interests you may have. It just may be for your own personal benefit, you need to take some time. And there are other things in life besides golf. I have been -- it has been very good to me and I hope to pay some back, but there are other things too. The third part of your question is --

HALE IRWIN: Oh, no. There again, that is the tree and the saw thing, no. Not at all. Just a little example maybe is last year at the 3 Tour Challenge, the seniors won. Granted, we played a little bit more forward, but not so much that it made that big a difference. The senior players can still play. And you take the best of the senior players or even maybe the group under those, whoever those people are, and you -- they will play to a standard up here. They will play up to that standard. It is easy to fall down to another standard, but those players have the ability to play up to another standard. And that is what was so much fun, I think about playing the U.S. Open three weeks ago, was that it is a different golf course. It was a different intensity level. Everything was different. It was really a lot of fun to get back to doing that. And Tom and Jack and I played together the first two rounds. It was a lot of fun. It was a different format than what we are accustomed too, but I found it great fun.

HALE IRWIN: Competition at any level is great fun. The player that I was in 1970 or in the '70s, there was a period of time from, say, 1974 through 1979 where I felt I played about as well as anybody for five years than anybody in the world. Now, am I playing as well now as I was then? No. Am I hitting the ball as well? Yes. But they are just -- there are other things that have kind have become more important or have increased in importance or fallen out of importance and your life changes. You find that level that make you more comfortable as you get a little older. As you may well know. (LAUGHTER) So, the intensity level I had then is far less or greater than what I have now, but I still try to do as well as I can.

HALE IRWIN: Absolutely. There is no doubt. But can I take the same level of gratification of winning a senior event over a regular Tour event? I don't know. That is apples and oranges. It is hard to say, but yes, there is great gratification in playing as well as you can any time and you are just thankful that you still can. I mean, go ask Charles Coody. Ask Dale Douglass, ask Steve Jones, I mean, we are seeing some comebacks, and that is what golf can do. Are you forever grateful? Absolutely.

HALE IRWIN: Well, some of us in this room can tell what happens between the age of 45 and 50, a lot. To me, the difference between your mid-40s and turning 50, is really 40 to 50, there is a big change in your body and how things happen in your life. And those guys are starting to approach that timeframe which little aches and pains will set in and your kids are starting to leave home. I don't know. When I refer to Tom Kite who is saying as long as he can compete, he won't play on the Senior Tour. Tom, you better sit on that a while because you have got a long time; you have got three years in which to start decaying. Fellow, look in the mirror, you have already started. I think you have kind of got to watch what you say there because it could come back to haunt you. Lanny, he is going to be a good player, both -- Tom Gil Morgan is going to be great. He is coming on this fall. All those guys still have their talent. It is still there. Question is, can they continue having that talent because those guys aren't going to come out, they are going to come out together, so is one person going to dominate out of that group? Probably not. They are going to share the wealth again and sometimes that maybe discouraging. I mean, let us talk to David Graham who had such a fabulous career and how now is coming back and didn't play for a while. If you don't continue that playing and come back and try to expect the same kind of performance, you have just made your task that much more difficult. I know from when I was 45 to when I turned 50, boy, a lot of things really changed. Had I not won the U.S. Open in 1990, what would those next five years have been like? I couldn't tell you. Knock on wood, I did win it. But that was from the '86, 7, 8, 9 were pretty tough years. I didn't play well. I did finally get it back together, but had I not won and had I not gotten it together, who knows what could have happened. I might not be sitting in this chair today. I had might be out there doing something else. I might be writing golf stories.

HALE IRWIN: Let us see. That sounds like another two-part question. Anything about the regular Tour that I don't miss, get my butt beat every week. Those guys are very good players. When you are in contention there, you really are playing at the top of your game, I think. There is just more good players. The depth is greater. So you are really there when you are there. I do miss that part. That intensity, that part, I like. What was the other one, senior something, about the Senior Tour?

HALE IRWIN: Something about the Senior Tour that I liked that is not on the regular Tour. Well, there is half as many players, I like that. You only have -- you don't have to beat as many of them. You know, really other than like format, you know, we have four rounds in regular Tour, three rounds in Senior Tour. The obvious, it is still hit it, chase it and put it in the hole. You still have to do that. And we talk about all the low scoring and all that, you still have to do it. John Cook is 26 under par, no one gave him any putts. He still had to do it. J.C. Snead, 62 last week, he still had to do it. So I think there is a lot of similarities. The cast of characters may be a little different and the format is a little different, but it still basically boils down to -- it is just like in other sports, you pitch it; you hit it; you run the bases and it is blocking and tackling and it is all the basics. That is what still remains, the basics. I suppose on any given week there are things that you miss or don't miss and want and don't have, but generally speaking, there is more money on the regular Tour, but again you have got to compete, I think, at a little more intense -- a little higher level to get it too.

HALE IRWIN: Thank you.