	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY KITCHENAID

May 26, 2011

Kirk Hanefeld

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY

Q. I just want to get your feeling on -- that looked like a pretty solid round. Just a couple little blips in there.
KIRK HANEFELD: A couple mistakes coming in. I had it 4-under through 10. Really kind of played mistake free. Didn't really know what to expect, I haven't played in an event for quite awhile.
So I was really pleased. I had some opportunities along the way. I made an ugly bogey on No. 6. I just didn't hit a good tee shot with a 5-iron in and didn't get it up-and-down from the bunker.
Then I missed a putt from a foot and a half on number 8. Just out of the blue, I just got up to hit it and it just kind of squirted to the right and all of a sudden I made bogey there.
So four birdies, two bogeys, I really played solid. I would have felt pretty good if I shot 3-under as opposed to 2-under. But I'll take it.

Q. With the conditions like today and you had the stops and starts, how do you rate what you did out there?
KIRK HANEFELD: Well that's always hard to try to kind of keep your mindset kind of the hole day, it's been a long day, we were here since about 8 o'clock this morning or whatever. That's hard, along with the golf course being very, very difficult and very difficult to walk. That's probably even, it's harder to walk than it is to play, if that makes any sense. Its just physically demanding.
And it's going to be along four days trudging through the mud.

Q. Did you find that when you looked up at the scorecard on No. 16 and number 7, that the scores are as high as they were?
KIRK HANEFELD: Well, I would say probably that would be right. Just those little holes and fortunately we're playing it up, if we were playing it back it would basically be par-5s. But it's a heck of a golf course, it's in great shape, all things considered. Very, very hard. It's going to be a long tournament.

Q. What's your history on Valhalla?
KIRK HANEFELD: I never been here before.

Q. This is your first?
KIRK HANEFELD: Yeah.

Q. Okay. Now you played all the courses up in, is that your home course up there?
KIRK HANEFELD: Well I'm still trying to play Champions Tour. I have status out there and it's getting more and more difficult. I played 16 events last year, which is good. My status was a little better last year than it is this year. But the season gets off to a pretty slow start. I kind of consider this week almost the beginning of the real season, it's the meat of the season from this point forward. So I expect to play in my share of events the rest of the summer and see what happens.

Q. Sometimes they say when you have a day like this that if you can get over this day the next day it makes it a lot easier for you down the road.
KIRK HANEFELD: Yeah, tomorrow's going to be an interesting day, too, because I don't know how many holes we'll be able to get in tomorrow because we got the scheduled last time and that will be even later than this.
So I don't expect to play until maybe five or six o'clock tomorrow afternoon. Which is going to make that a long day too. It all depends I guess on how many holes these guys get in today and how they situate everybody. But I would love to be able to finish tomorrow, but I don't have any reason to believe that that's going to happen.

Q. What's the last 72 hole event you played in?
KIRK HANEFELD: The last 72? That was the PLAYERS Championship in, where the hell was it last year? Baltimore. Did we play Baltimore? That was back in September.

Q. September?
KIRK HANEFELD: So I'm physically out of shape and I feel it. I don't know if anybody's quite in shape to walk this golf course, as wet as it is. It's a slug out there.

Q. Well, very good.
KIRK HANEFELD: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297