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ADMINISTAFF SMALL BUSINESS CLASSICOctober 21, 2010Kenny PerryTHE WOODLANDS, TEXAS PHIL STAMBAUGH: We'd like to welcome Kenny Perry to the media center. Kenny, a 14-time winner on the PGA Tour, and you're making your debut on the Champions Tour this week, you and Steve Lowrey. I looked it up. You have not been to Houston since 2001. Talk about this day and debuting on the Champions Tour and talk about The Woodlands. KENNY PERRY: It's hard to believe I'm 50. Still feel like a young man. So I'm excited. I mean, it's been a neat two days since I've been here. I've had all the guys coming up and welcoming me to this tour. Hale Irwin, Mark O'Meara. The who's who of golf. All the guys I looked up to my whole career and who made me the player that I am, and they're all here playing. Their advice to me was, You're really going to like this. It's going to be fun. It's going to be totally different from the PGA TOUR. I can kind of sense that from all the guys. They're very relaxed, very laid back, and they're all out having a good time. I've been out on the tour for 25 years now. It's a welcome relief. I kind of got burned out. I blew everything I had at the '08 Ryder Cup. From then on, I just kind of lost a little focus. Had a good year in '09, but this year has been a mediocre year. I've struggled. I didn't have any focus or goals set. I was just kind of plodding along. This has just kind of rejuvenated me a, little bit. I've had a smile on my face, and I've really looked forward to coming to Houston. This course, it's tough, difficult. There's a lot of water, a lot of risk/reward holes, and it's playing identical to when I played back here in the late '80s. It's in great shape. It's the best shape I've ever seen. Greens are perfect. Fairways are full. You know, I was hoping the tees would be a little closer on the par-5s. I was expecting to hit mid-iron, and I'm not hitting that. Everybody's going to say, It's a lot shorter. It's not. It's a little shorter. But it's been a welcome relief. I've thoroughly enjoyed the last few days. I know I am playing with Tom Kite and John Cook tomorrow. I am looking forward to hanging out with those boys for four and a half hours. I'm just anxious to get started. I want to continue to push hard. Do I want to be the best player that I can be or do I want to just slack off a little bit and enjoy what I've done and not try to press so hard? Just be some questions I'll have to kind of answer in the off-season. We'll just see. I've got a new grandbaby coming, my first, in February. So my life is changing there. I'm really excited about that. So a lot of things have happened, a lot of things have changed. My focus has changed. I was thinking I was wanting to win 20 times on the PGA Tour, but it just seems like I went flat this year for some reason. Finally in all of the years I competed and felt like winning, needed to win, I always felt like I needed to win. I didn't feel like I needed to win this year for some reason. I don't know why. I guess it was just a letdown. Just kind of an off year. Just going to try and rekindle the fire a little bit and see where we're at next year. PHIL STAMBAUGH: Talk a little bit about your game and getting ready for this week. I know you haven't really played a tournament since August. KENNY PERRY: Last tournament was the Barclays, and I withdraw from the next week. I was in Boston, but I decided not to go just. Just had flat hit a wall. Just mentally, physically. I was hurting. I was having back issues, knew issues, elbow. I went and saw Dr. Andrews on, my right elbow. Just a few little aches and pains that just kind of bothered me a little bit. So I haven't played any competitive golf. I've been off six, seven weeks now, and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I mean, it's the first time in my career that I've actually had multiple weeks off and I didn't think about golf and didn't want to hit balls. I've always been a ball beater. I always hit lots of balls on the range, even the weeks I wasn't playing. Just enjoyed it. Sandy and I, my wife, just had a great time hanging out with the kids. Two of 'em live close. My youngest is in Dallas, so she came home a few weeks and we went and visited her some. Just kind of been taking it easy. Q. (No microphone.) KENNY PERRY: The one instance that just destroyed it all happened at Kapalua. Everybody's heard about my PING crazy putter. Thins thing has been magic for me the last three years. A gentlemen at my club in Vero Beach gave it to me, and I hit a putt five minutes before my tee time at Kapalua. I'm on the tee and hitting my last 30-footer. I'm going to walk over and tee off. I hit this putt, and I look down and the PING putter was 360 on the shaft. What had happened, PING put the ball bearing down in the shaft, and the shaft goes over the -- the putter shaft had (indiscernible) from the inside out. It snapped over the ball bearing, and the head fell off my putter. I looked at my son who was caddying for me, and I said, Justin, it's going to be a bad year. It all started right there. I went into a funk putting this year. I putted poorly all year. I reshafted that putter four times and sent it back to PING, kept sending it back, and it never got the right offset, never got the right look. It never looked the same again. So going from multiple putters every week, and then the groove issue threw me a little bit. I used the one set of iron for the past five years. It was an old R7 set. I've used TaylorMade now since 1991. This set I started with in about '97 or '98. I'm sorry, it's 2007 I started with that set. I just love this set of clubs. I had to change everything in my bag. I had to change putter, wedges, irons. Only club that's in my bag right now that was similar to my good years is the 3-wood. So it threw me for a little bit of a loop. A little bit of adjustment trying to figure what I can use and what I can't use and get comfortable. I never got comfortable with anything. I didn't drive the ball very well this year; I didn't hit my irons very well. So it was definitely a new learning curve for me. Actually playing blades again, and I'm very excited. I went back to the little blades here since I've been off. That's what I've been practicing with. I went to a putter, TaylorMade sent me a couple nice putters. I got a putter I feel like I'm putting pretty good with it, so hopefully my game will settle back down and I'll start seeing quality golf shots again and start getting some confidence back. PHIL STAMBAUGH: Questions. Q. (Question regarding Corey Pavin's remarks on his Ryder Cup experience.) KENNY PERRY: The Ryder Cup to me was over the top because it was at Valhalla. You know, it was at place where I lost the 1996 PGA Championships to Mark Brooks in a playoff. Being from Kentucky, it was a place that people kind of remember that I lost. So I actually got - I call a mulligan in life - to where I had a chance to do something at the Ryder Cup. It felt like I was winning the tournament on every hole. Felt like you're coming down the stretch, at the last hole, and you needed to make birdie or par to win. It was the nerves, the tension. I had never been so nervous for three days my life, but I played the greatest golf of my life. I mean, I hit it unbelievable those three days. But did I prepare pretty hard. I went in a week early. Being from that area, I was able to get down there a week before. I charted the golf course and really worked hard. The week of the Ryder Cup I was really enjoying the fans. I kind of went out into the crowd and signed a lot of autographs, because I had all of Kentucky there pulling for me. It was just a magical moment for me. I'll never forget Henrik Stenson, we were playing singles on Sunday, and I think the birdied five of the first six holes. I was making putts all over the place. It was just phenomenal. I made about a 20-footer for par on about the 6th hole or whatever, and he got up on the tee and he goes, You're going to make it hard on me today, aren't you? I just laughed. We cracked up. He's a great guy. We had a great match. I was able to win 3-2. My dad walked up on the green on 16. Here he is in his bib overalls. He's quite a character. He gave me a big old hug. That was priceless for me. When you're playing for your country and playing for 11 other members of the team, it's totally different than any individual. To me, it was by far greater than any of my 14 victories. I might say that different if I had won the Masters, you know. (Laughing.) But in my stage where I am right now, that's what I feel. So it's the same, in my opinion, gearing up. I just felt more pressure at the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cups because you're competing with your brothers that week to me. It's your family, and you don't want to let them down. I think that's a different anticipation and a different feeling that you're feeling that week. Q. (No microphone.) KENNY PERRY: Definitely. Definitely. He did a great job. I mean, to only lose by half a point over there in that crazy weather, they had their hands full over there. Then the malfunctions of their clothing, they had their hands full that week. So, yeah, he's a great competitor. He will be just fine. He's going to play great no matter what. If they'd of won or lost, he's going to come in here the same. Q. (No microphone.) KENNY PERRY: Definitely. Yeah, I guess. It feels weird. They called me rookie all week. That's been kind of funny. Q. (No microphone.) KENNY PERRY: I have a big bark, let's put it that way. I don't have not much bite most of the time. I like to talk and chat and razz the guys a little bit. I like to have fun. So that was more for aggravation, I guess, than anything. (Laughter.) Q. (No microphone.) KENNY PERRY: Well, I mean, to me, those golf courses are beautiful the way they're landscaped and designed and the way they sit in front of you and the way they flow with the earth and terrain. It's not moving millions of pounds of dirt and building all these -- all the new courses seem to be like I call 'em like optically challenging with your railroad ties and water carries. The old courses really flow beautifully? They use the landscape and the trees. The greens, the contouring of the greens are beautiful. They allow to you play multiple shots. Seems like the new TPC courses are all out of the air. You just got to play high and in the air. You really can't curve it much and you can't really run it along the ground. If it gets real windy, they're very difficult and demanding to play, like the TPC at Jacksonville. You know, the old course, I hadn't played Oak Hills in a long time, but I had played it when I was on the tour. I don't remember a lot about it. I just remember the 18th was a par-3. Beautiful finishing hole. You don't find many par-3 finishing holes. I remember Watson I think birdied it win one year. To me, they're just fun to play. I just understand them for whatever reason. Colonial, you know, they say it's a shot-makers golf course. I only play one way. I'm right to left. I'm a hooker. For whatever reason, I was able to fit all the doglegs -- my hook, even on the left to right holes, I was able to make everything fit in those fairways and make it work. The holes that horseshoe, that 3, 4, and 5, are just very tough, demanding golf holes. The 5th hole with the (indiscernible) right there on your right, and it's a hard dogleg left to right. I was hitting it over the water and the trees and hitting my hook and I was able to make it work. It just shows that when you're on and you're confident in your golf shots, you can play anywhere in the world. But I do love Muirfield. I've had magic there for whatever reason. It's a thinking man's kind of golf course. Makes you hit quadrants. You have to really kind of pay attention. Here, too, with where you set up your tee shots and get at these greens and pins a little bit, it's not your -- our tour has kind of gone more to distance, the PGA Tour. It's all about power and length. You know, they carry it 350. Doesn't really matter. They can gouge it out of that rough and get it up there and get it on the green. Well, I can't do that anymore. I used to play that kind of golf. Now I've been out there long enough those bunkers I used to carry I can't carry anymore. Now I'm trying to fit it around all these bunkers, and it's made the golf a lot tougher for me. They moved all the tee boxes back. Q. (Question regarding losing Oak Hills.) KENNY PERRY: I hate losing 'em. We shouldn't lose 'em. They need to figure out a way to keep 'em. I know a lot of 'em are land locked and they can't lengthen them 'em or anything. Equipment has changed the game a lot. The golf ball goes a long way and the drivers go a long ways now. With that trampoline effect, it really shoots 'em out there. So I don't know what we're going to do. I don't know what the answer to that question is, but we can't lose the great old traditional golf courses. We got to figure out a way to play on 'em. I wish we could continue to play 'em out here, because I'm going to spend most of my time probably out here. So I look forward to going back to those courses. Q. (Question regarding events he is planning to play on the regular tour next year.) KENNY PERRY: Well, Colonial, Memorial for sure. Those are probably the only two right now I've got on my slate to go play. I love the John Deere; I love the Milwaukee. We don't play Milwaukee anymore, so I may go back to the John Deere. What I'm going to do, look at the PGA schedule and get the Champions Tour schedule out and just kind of -- you know, like I said, I'm not sure if I'm going to play 20 out here and only a few over there or am I going to play 10 over there and 15 over here. I don't know yet. I'm just going to kind of sit back this off-season and kind of try to figure out a game plan I guess you would say. PHIL STAMBAUGH: Anything else for Kenny? Kenny, good luck. KENNY PERRY: Thank you very much. End of FastScripts |
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