THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT

May 28, 1998

Steve Pate

STEVE PATE: Advantages of playing first.

STEVE PATE: Obviously, my morning went pretty well or I wouldn't be in here. Front side -- the front side, I putted unbelievably well, made a lot of long putts. Unfortunately, I only putted well on back, a lot of really good putts, but only made a couple, but can't really complain. I hit it, I drove it okay, hit my irons okay, basically by putter made the whole round. I got away with three pretty gruesome shots that on this golf course those kind of shots can usually lead to virtually any score, and I turned in two pars and a birdie. So that was nice not to really have any setbacks.

STEVE PATE: That was a nice way to start the day. Hit a 3-wood, 7-iron about 6 feet and made it. Getting off to a good start on this course is nice. It's hard to -- it seems like it's hard to try to make up ground out here. If you get overly aggressive, you can make a bunch of mistakes. Birdied the third hole with a 3-wood and wedge, about 10 feet, made that. Then the 4th hole is one of the horrible shots; I hooked it. I was 40 yards left of the green and had an opening through the trees and got up on the green and made a 15-footer. It was nice to keep things going. And then the very next hole, I hit it the other way. Hit it 50 yards right off the tee and almost turned that into birdie. Then eagled the 7th hole; hit two drivers on the green, made about a 40-footer. Bogeyed the 8th hole with a 7-iron left of the green and buried it in some long grass on the hillside. Chipped it up about 12, 15 feet and missed it. And then birdied 9; hit a 3-wood and a 6-iron about 20 feet and made that. Birdied --

STEVE PATE: 14 and 15. 14, hit a 3-iron and sand wedge about 15-feet short and hit a putt that looked like Shaquille O'Neal's free throws that hits the back board and goes right in. 15, one of my other horrible shots. I hit it dead right off the tee, hit a tree, had to pitch out, hit a 2-iron about 30 feet and made that. Made three normal pars coming in.

STEVE PATE: Yes. Not all the time. It's happened before. It will happen again. But other times they're going to turn bad. Enjoy the good breaks while you get them.

STEVE PATE: It's going to be close. Right now, it's playing fairly easy if you're putting the ball in the fairway, because the greens are not really that hard. I mean, they're nice; they're firm. You have to have a decent shot, but they're not brisk. I have a feeling it doesn't seem like there's a ton of moisture in them. They might dry out pretty severely by the end of the day.

STEVE PATE: It's been pretty good until the last two or three weeks. And the one I had I like, so I didn't want to break it. I picked up a new one last week. I used it two days last week and then today.

STEVE PATE: It's a Kevin Burns.

STEVE PATE: Absolutely. I don't see a better spot out here.

STEVE PATE: Same thing. I mean, basically repeat what Kirk was saying five minutes ago. Just don't try to do anything different. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out that way. But it's Thursday, and it's a lot easier to continue to do the same thing between today and tomorrow than it is if you're in this position from Saturday and Sunday.

STEVE PATE: When it first happened, no. But after about four months of rehab when I wasn't nearly as far along as I thought I should have been, the thought crossed my mind. I played a couple tournaments in the fall in Australia, and I ran into a guy down there who was doing some acupressure. In 4 or 5 minutes with him, my hand got 25 percent more strength, and he recommended acupuncture at home; I started doing that. My doctors told me it was as good as it was going to get and it wasn't good enough. I tried some other things that helped it along even further.

STEVE PATE: Strengthwise, yeah. It hurts all the time, but it works just fine. I have to do a lot of maintenance. I mean, I'm always getting something done to it two, three times a week, some kind of treatment to it. It works fine for now. I don't think it will several years down the road, but for now, it's fine.

STEVE PATE: No. I try not to. Basically, when I started the acupuncture, I went from about 1800, 2,000 milligrams of Advil a day to 0.

STEVE PATE: I haven't had it now for about three or four months. Whenever it starts hurting, I go home and see the guy and do it a couple times when I get home. It's basically for pain. I don't need it for the strength any more. The muscles don't lockup, so now it's just strictly for pain relief.

STEVE PATE: Uh-huh, yes.

STEVE PATE: Yeah. I tried it all. I had copper, I had this. I found I lost the copper one time for about a week and found out it didn't make any difference. I lost this one for a week one time and it made a big difference, so I'm still wearing this.

STEVE PATE: I don't know. It's magnetic. It's a magnetic bracelet. I don't know what the material is.

STEVE PATE: No.

STEVE PATE: Right. The two balls on the end of it.

STEVE PATE: Stretching the nerves out I lost range of motion, stretching it out and getting the muscles massaged. The muscles lockup, so range of motion. It's an hour a week.

STEVE PATE: Yeah. The therapist there.

STEVE PATE: Oh, yeah. I haven't broken a club since I've been back.

STEVE PATE: Yeah. It's a lot more fun. I got a taste of sitting home for 10 months and I didn't really care for it. I started comparing my job skills to what was available out there, and I figured I better try a lot harder.

STEVE PATE: No. Can't count that high.

STEVE PATE: No. It came from driving my car into a truck at 75 miles an hour. I was actually rather lucky just to do this. I broke my hand and wrist and a bone in my face. Other than that, I walked away from it.

STEVE PATE: Yeah, I wasn't paying attention. I ran up the back of a truck going 20 miles an hour and I was going 75. Oops.

STEVE PATE: I loved it, yeah. I like being out early and being first out theoretically is great. But when it's at seven o'clock in the morning, it's not so great for me; being first out at eight o'clock was great.

STEVE PATE: I did, yep.

STEVE PATE: I don't -- well, different. I don't hit it -- I used to be probably in the top-30 lengthwise, and I'm not any more. My numbers are basically the same, but everybody else with equipment and everybody getting bigger and stronger, I'm hitting it about the same distance, but it's not farther than everybody else. I probably haven't hit it quite as well with my irons as I did when I was playing really well. That's probably the biggest difference.

STEVE PATE: Actually this year is the best numbers I've ever had with a driver. I stole a driver out of a friend's bag last November, and it's the best I've ever driven it.

STEVE PATE: Absolutely. I'm hitting driving average distance about 270. I'm hitting almost 70 percent of the fairways.

STEVE PATE: Oh, no. I paid for the shaft, though. I changed the shaft. That's the shaft that I actually bought. I have two shafts in my bag that I bought.

STEVE PATE: Oh, yeah.

STEVE PATE: Yes, I am. I don't play with the stereo quite as often.

STEVE PATE: It is a Gary Player Black Knight driver, and the shaft is some current shaft company that caters to the club repair business, it's an Apache shaft.

STEVE PATE: No, it's mine, yeah. He let me borrow it, and I hit it well, and I asked if I could take it and I did.

STEVE PATE: It's titanium, yeah.

STEVE PATE: No, just a pal back home I play with.

STEVE PATE: He's been playing for a while. The friend I took it from owns a big chunk of the company, and he was -- I don't know, I watched him hit for six months, and he hit it pretty well, so I tried it. He had to get another one.

STEVE PATE: Yeah. I didn't really have a decent finish last year until May or June, and it makes it easier to take a week off. It makes it easier to not get too concerned when one of them goes sideways. Obviously, I'm still -- I'm not trying any harder, but it's a little more relaxing.

STEVE PATE: Oh, no, it's fourth hole, 3 par.

STEVE PATE: No, it was pin-high. It was just over in the dark forest there over on the left.

STEVE PATE: Yeah, I had a nice opener. If I had a good shot, I could get it 15 feet, and I did and I made it.

STEVE PATE: I wasn't driving in that one.

STEVE PATE: No, I played a round Saturday, and I couldn't move on Sunday.

STEVE PATE: Thursday night.

STEVE PATE: Yeah. That was at the Ryder Cup.

STEVE PATE: No. That was 1991.

STEVE PATE: That was on a family vacation.

STEVE PATE: I tripped and fell on the dock and cracked a bone on the other wrist. It was a bad year. That wasn't that bad. That was about a three-, four-week recovery. There was no rehab. I just cracked a little bone.

STEVE PATE: Yes.

STEVE PATE: Both. Every time I got on the green, I was surprised if I didn't make it. I didn't care if I was 60 feet or 6 feet. I mean, I miss playing, but they were all good putts. Everything I hit, I was surprised if I didn't make it, and I wasn't hitting it great, but I didn't have to, so I didn't really aim at very many pins, just hit it on and see what happens from there.

STEVE PATE: Go to the right, hit a tree, just had to pitch it out to where the guys I played with drove it, hit a 2-iron about 25, 30 feet and made it.

STEVE PATE: Uh-huh, yes.

STEVE PATE: Not much. But it's obviously -- it's obvious that he's playing well. It's nice to be playing with somebody else making birdies. If you get stuck with a lot of guys that are making bogeys, you think, boy, this course must be hard. It makes it a lot easier to play if somebody else you're playing with and Bobby Wadkins was playing well. He didn't shoot a good score, but he was playing well. It just didn't seem that hard.