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SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY KITCHENAID

May 26, 2011

Trevor Dodds

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY

KELLY ELBIN: Trevor Dodds, ladies and gentlemen, in with a 5-under par 67 in the first round of the 72nd Senior PGA Championship presented by KitchenAid. Trevor, terrific round, 5-under par on the back nine. Sounds like the weather delay did you a lot of good.
TREVOR DODDS: Yeah, I was playing pretty decent before but then lost a little bit on 7 and 9, made bogeys. And the rain just came at a good time. I had about a 15-footer on 10 and had a little bit of time to practice my putting between and I holed it and it got me back in the game.
KELLY ELBIN: Can you talk about the birdies on, starting with 12 and then the -- or the pitch in on 12 and then the birdies after that.
TREVOR DODDS: 12, I hit it pretty good drive, but then still had 4-iron in. Missed the green just left of the mound there and I figured anything inside six feet was going to be good and when it went in it was a definite bonus.
And then 14, I hit a really good 4-iron to about eight feet and made birdie on the par-3.
Then the next par-4 I hit 3-wood, 9-iron about 12, about 15 to 18 feet from the hole and holed it.
And then 17 I hit driver, 8-iron to about six inches and got that one in.
KELLY ELBIN: Open it up for questions.

Q. Talk about how you were playing coming into this event, maybe expectations going into this round.
TREVOR DODDS: I'm not fully exempt on the Champions Tour, so I qualified for my first event I played in and I went and didn't qualify for the next three and missed those. But then we have had about six or seven weeks off where we haven't had any events we could qualify for.
So I was just home practicing and working on my game. So I wasn't in the field until Tuesday afternoon and I actually came to Valhalla about 12 days ago because I suspected I was going to be close to getting in or just out. And I came and played a practice round, so it was kind of nice not rushing to get here on Wednesday to play my first practice round, because I knew what to expect.
And so I came here yesterday and had kind of a fun day, played a nice casual round of golf and I've been hitting the ball pretty good at times at home, but it hasn't been consistent where it's really perfect every day.
But there's been a lot of good in it and I've been playing a lot of fun golf and so my expectations were to really to come here and just play golf and have fun with it and see how good I could do.
KELLY ELBIN: For the record, Trevor got in the field on Tuesday when Joey Sindelar withdrew with a back injury.

Q. Are you surprised at all by the low scores so far? Is it just a result of the tees having to be moved up because of the weather and maybe not playing so long?
TREVOR DODDS: Not only that I think it's more, even if we played it from the up tees, the ball's just not rolling anywhere, so whenever it hits it stops. So you hit more fairways. And you get away with a few shots coming into the greens where you, if you hit it a little thin or whatever, the ball stops on the green and doesn't roll through. So I think that's the biggest factor there.

Q. Did you find anything when you were practicing putting during the break? Is it something that you will carry over into tomorrow, that maybe you got on a roll, that it wasn't maybe a one day thing, that maybe you figured it out?
TREVOR DODDS: I have a tendency to get a little bit closed. I pulled a couple of putts on like 7 and 9 and I actually hit them nice, but I knew I pulled them.
So it gave me time to go on the putting green and just work on getting square. And the funny thing is I actually aimed right and then I pull it left, so I had to make myself go more left to hit it further right. So golf is such a contradiction in its own, so it's, so I kind of figured out, but who knows, only tomorrow will tell if it carries through or not.

Q. How difficult is it to be non-exempt on the Champions Tour and trying to get into the tournaments? It's a crap shoot, isn't it?
TREVOR DODDS: It's a tough row to hoe, but it's the way the system is. I can't say I like the system because I would be lying, but it's the system and you got to deal with it. And I know what it means to me, I got to, tournaments I get in, I got to play well and I got to try and win one. So that's pretty much my motivation.

Q. Have you ever gone to a tournament before where were you not in yet and perhaps it did not work out like it did this week?
TREVOR DODDS: I'm sure that having played this game as a pro for what, 25 years now I'm sure I have. But I choose not to remember.
(Laughter.) We got to have selective memory out here.
KELLY ELBIN: You only had 23 putts today by our records. Can you remember around in your life time you had only 23 putts?
TREVOR DODDS: Actually earlier this year I had a round where I had 19 putts, which was probably the most fun I ever had.
KELLY ELBIN: Where was that?
TREVOR DODDS: At the first qualifier. I just, it was amazing. If I missed a green I got it up-and-down and when I had a chance to hole a putt, I did. So it happens. You have those days. They happen.
The greens are perfect though. With all the rain they have, they have stayed fairly dry and they're fast enough, but they're not out of control. So you can hit your putts a little harder than you maybe would at a lot of Majors. I think that adds up to guys making a lot of putts. The guys in our group putted good in general.
KELLY ELBIN: What was the putts where you had 19 putts in that qualifier?
TREVOR DODDS: I don't know, somewhere in Florida.
KELLY ELBIN: You also mentioned that you live in St. Louis. Namibia is where you were born, can you talk about your history of coming to this country and how long you lived in the U.S.
TREVOR DODDS: I came -- well in 1982 I came to the United States basically went to college, I had no intention of being a pro, but I walked on the golf team and played there and by my senior year I was an All-American.
I decided, well, I better give it a shot as a pro. And I got on the TOUR right away. And my career has been up-and-down. It's been some good, some bad. But it's been quite an interesting journey. For somebody who learned to play golf on sand it's not all bad.
KELLY ELBIN: Trevor Dodds in with 67 at the Senior PGA Championship. Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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