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MONTREAL CHAMPIONSHIP

July 2, 2010

Russ Cochran

MONTREAL, QUEBEC

PHIL STAMBAUGH: 32, 33, 65, 7-under to start the MontrÃ©al Championship, Russ, our Rookie of the Year on the Champions Tour last year. Great way to start the day.
RUSS COCHRAN: Very happy with my putting today and I was going to say, I used to caddie for Tom, so -- (laughter) -- but anyway, the one comment I was going to say -- I putted great today but the one comment I was going to say was that the physios in the tournament's fitness center are unbelievable, the fans out there. I was the second group off and I went down to the range early to get a little work in and the stands were full probably at 9:30 or something, 9:00. It was a good atmosphere out there.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: Want to talk us through your round if you could.
RUSS COCHRAN: I started on 10. It's playing fairly short out there, just made a par. Bogey at 11. Wasn't real happy there, made the comment to Blaine McCallister , my playing partner, I didn't seem to -- the course didn't catch my eye real good. I felt like the fairways are generous and I felt like I was just kind of standing up there swinging.
So made it a point on the 12th hole to made sure I stuck to my target and hit a good drive and a pitching wedge to four or five inches for birdie. That kind of settled me down and got me going a little bit.
Birdied the 14th, the par 5. I hit another wedge in there pretty close and made the putt. Actually that hole was -- that hole I 2-putted from -- I'm sorry, driver and 3-wood and 2-putted from the left quadrant, about maybe a 60 -footer or something.
Then came to 16 and made a nice 14- -foot putt there after hitting a sand wedge in.
18, I hit a driver and a 9-iron in there, I think it was to probably 12, 14 feet.
And then went over to 1. The drive, I got kind of lucky, I didn't know whether the wind was into me or right-to-left and went ahead and hit the driver -- the wind was into me, and I carried it up into the neck and hit a sand wedge in there to about maybe four feet.
So you know, after hitting it a little left there. Then I parred until I got to No. 5. I hit a driver and a, I guess laid up with a 3-iron and hit a wedge in there to maybe six, seven feet. Made birdie.
Then we go to the other one, the par 5,7, I hit a driver and a hybrid in the bunker and then hit a bunker shot to three feet.
Then 8, I hit a pitching wedge in there to say 15 feet.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: Routine par at 9?
RUSS COCHRAN: Made par.

Q. I talk about the crowd, especially for a first-year tournament, does it almost have the feel of a big TOUR event? There were some big numbers out there today?
RUSS COCHRAN: Absolutely. Our crowds aren't huge on the Champions Tour. I remember last year, we played at the U.S. Open at Crooked Stick in Indianapolis, and the same kind of thing. They had the stands behind the range there, and you show up in the morning and they would be there and when you leave in the afternoon, they would be there, too. That's kind of what it looks like here.
I played actually with one of the tournament directors -- but what a great guy, and he said he was expecting -- people were enthusiastic and they were expecting good crowds, if we got a good break in the weather and obviously we got that. People are on pretty much every hole out there and I saw some big crowds following us and I'm sure they were checking the Hall of Famers out and some of the future Hall of Famers.

Q. What do you think of the golf course?
RUSS COCHRAN: The golf course, I like it, obviously didn't see -- I'm in there on one of the holes, I made a 20-footer for par, I forgot to throw that in there, too.
I tell you, the fairways are probably a little too generous. That's going to push the scores way down. But you know, the golf course is in perfect shape. Generally speaking, I would say that our TOUR staff does a good job when we come to an event that they play it pretty much straight up, and if the event goes -- they will tweak a hole here, change a par 5 to a par 4, tighten the fairways up a little bit. You get used to the pin placements and stuff.
But what they don't want to do, I'm sure, they don't want to blow the tournament out of the water with a tricked-up setup to where people come in and they say, you know, they didn't do the setup right or they tricked the golf course up or the pin placements were poor or whatever. Then, you know, when we talk among ourselves, the people that played in the tournament, you go back, and oh, you don't want to go back there, they had a tricked up hole.
So they played it pretty straightforward. Probably the scores are going to be low because of that, this first year especially, and I think from here on, they will start maybe just massaging the course around a little bit to where it plays tougher.

Q. Looking at the scores -- what do you think it will take to win tournament on Sunday?
RUSS COCHRAN: I don't have any idea but you look at the number of under par scores -- it may not be any lower anywhere else, but you know, there will be a significant number of people, instead of, let's say, half a dozen people that go real low. There should be quite a few people in the mix because the greens are decent-sized. The course is in magnificent shape. That's the big thing, too. Any time you get a golf course in real good shape, people find a way to shoot low.

Q. (Inaudible.)
RUSS COCHRAN: You know, I didn't know what they were doing up there. Didn't see them a lot on the front side, which was our last nine holes. We saw them a little bit. He was hitting it pretty good. But you know, the thing is, there are golf courses that you play out there and you know, that keep you off-balance, and then there are golf courses that you feel like you can get in a good flow on, and those are usually the ones where you can save par; or if you miss an iron shot, you can miss it in the middle of the green versus miss it short-side where you can only make a par. Only did that one time, on 6 today. I think that less people get in the flow of the game, then it depends on making putts and probably -- but I think that has a bigger impact on scoring.

Q. Do you think as a tournament, the leaders --
RUSS COCHRAN: And there were some good numbers, I'm sure, today.

Q. What do you remember about Tom Wargo?
RUSS COCHRAN: Well, Tom's a fun guy. And he's always been a good guy. The one thing I do remember about Tom is how much he loved to play golf. I remember he would come down -- inaudible -- about 35,000, we ran a tournament there. But you could call Tom, he was from southern Illinois, 2 1/2 hours away, but if you had six people together, you could call Tom and say, "Tom, it's going to cost you $100 to get in and you can only win 200, but do you want to come in."
"Yeah, I'll be there. Who's there? Count me in." He would go anywhere any time to play. He has a good, hearty personality. He had a good time after the round.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: Do you remember the name of the tournament.
RUSS COCHRAN: It was called the Irving Golf Championship (ph). He was one of the guys that could contend to win, and, you know, as kids -- he was fair and played well and people liked him.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: Continued good luck.

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