|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
THE SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPJuly 24, 2011Russ CochranSURREY, ENGLAND STEVE TODD: Congratulations, I'm sure it's feeling pretty special now, and pretty fantastic victory for yourself out there. Just talk us through the day. RUSS COCHRAN: Well, first of all, kind of mind-set that I had to kind of help me through, you know I had not finished tournaments very well this year, or to this point, and felt like I should have had a couple victories already. And it's very disappointing, starting to wear on me a little bit and all of the sudden kind of last night, I said, you know, I went off of you know a guy like Tom Watson, and I played with him only a few times, but you know, Tom gets his shot and he hits it and he goes after it and he plays at a good pace. He tries to pick the right shot, and goes right after it. Basically today, I kind of had that attitude that I really didn't care whether I won or lost, but I was confident in my game that you know, if I played well, that I would fare well. I think it relaxed me to the point where if I could come out aggressively -- and I knew what I had a good putter on top of that after hitting the ball well, I felt like I wanted to get as many under par as I could. I think that was the big thing for me. But I will say this, too: It's such a wonderful feeling coming over here, that I get, personally, and I have -- I started at Sunningdale, I went to Carnoustie last year. I came over here and I've actually mentioned it to my boys on more than one occasion, that if I felt like that I was going to play and do some damage in a major and win a major, it probably would be here. I enjoy the type of golf it is. I am more single-minded over here, and I just love the golf over here. STEVE TODD: Tied third last year would indicate that, as well. RUSS COCHRAN: Yeah, I had a good ball-striking tournament at Sunningdale and didn't play very well. I played a good, solid tournament last year. And this year, it's a difficult golf course, but I seem to be able to put my finger on the greens the last couple of days, and I think that made the difference. STEVE TODD: In terms of your career, try and sum up what this victory means, Senior Open Championship, Gary Player, Tom Watson, have all won this trophy. What does it mean to you to win? RUSS COCHRAN: I'll say this, and I kind of mentioned, alluded to it yesterday; it's not going to change my career or anything like that at 52 years old. But, it's so gratifying and so satisfying, and to be able to share it with my family, like my whole family came over last year, and I had two boys this year. You know, it's just been -- it's been a blessing, and to be honest, it's just -- you know, it's just fun and it kind of reconfirms that I am playing the best golf that -- some of the best golf I've ever played in my life and I enjoy it. But win or lose, I enjoy that competition, and it just makes you want to get there more often. STEVE TODD: And I understand you had your eldest son on the bag, if you can tell us his name and what it meant. RUSS COCHRAN: Here's the way the story works. I started my career off on the Champions Tour with my second son. He was deferring law school. He had to go to law school and so my oldest son started carrying for me. Now they worked out some kind of deal where my oldest son didn't caddie for me this week but my second son came back. I had not won with him, and he caught a little bit of heat because I had won a couple of times with my oldest son. So it's my No. 2 son is named Reed. He, you know, doesn't really have a golf background but he's beautiful on the golf course, leaves a lot of things up to me. He's very solid and a rock out there, and you know, and a lot of fun, too. So I think that's kind of a bonus of it all for me as a dad, and at 52 years old, to have your son on the bag. STEVE TODD: If you can talk about the round today, dream start, birdieing 1 and 2 and you pulled away when Calc dropped a couple of shots on 9. Just talk about the round today. RUSS COCHRAN: I started off, you know, I hit a good 3-wood on 1 and I kind of was a so-so iron shot into the first hole. And it made me mad a little bit because I didn't go towards the flag a bit more but I stepped up and said I'm going to stay with this putt -- it was a fast putt, broke about 2 1/2 feet on the last roll and made that. Made a 12-and-a-half footer for birdie on 2. Early on I felt like I was in good control of that putter and that was good are. The key to the round, I have to say, because when I got the ball in the fairway, for the most part, I was staking all my short irons but the key to the round is I had a great sand save on No. 3, I just barely missed it left and it rolled down in the bunker, chipped it up to about two feet, bunker shot two feet. On No. 5, I hit a shot that I thought was perfect. A little gust of wind got it, kicked it in the bunker and I hit it out to maybe eight feet and made that for par. So that allowed me to kind of jump right back in, ended up birdieing 6, and got on a stretch again from there. So a lot happening early. I don't know if you guys looked at the score cards, but I played the front side brilliantly all week pretty much, and the back side, even though it's tougher, I struggled a bit on it. It was -- the 14th hole, it kind of got me. 13 and 14, you know, those holes were tough on me, and so coming on the front side, I knew, hey, I'm going to make as many as I can, while I've got it under control, and you see, see where everyone else is and kind of make my decision on how to play the back. Q. When Calc was struggling on 9 -- talk about your birdie on 7 and when did you know about the three-shot swing there? RUSS COCHRAN: I didn't look at it, because I had best case scenario out there, actually, today. Because what it was, I had my putter. I was -- it felt like I was pretty, you know, on with my irons. And I was hitting a 3-wood pretty good in the fairway. So you know, I birdied 6, made a good kind of 2-putt from the fringe, and then 7, I stepped up and hit a great hybrid off the tee and hit an 8-iron in to about maybe eight feet. So, good, solid iron shot into the wind there. I think I was 143 yards or something and just kept it below the wind and hit it in there eight feet. It was a good birdie for me. Q. And at what point did you realise that -- RUSS COCHRAN: You're probably going to laugh. I seemed like I was making a lot of birdies on the front side. I didn't really care what anybody else was doing. I felt like I was in a good groove. This golf course is such is a golf course that you don't -- you don't get into, even though there are a lot of swings out there, you never look ahead, because you're always trying to hit that fairway that's in front of you, because if you hit it the heather, you're looking at automatic bogey, for the most part. So you're not -- I wasn't peeking around, and, hey, what are the scores like, who is doing what. I knew, you know, what was I, maybe 6-under after 10 or something. I knew anybody wasn't going to be anymore than that. I knew, hey, if someone played well and got hot, I was going to be up one or two maybe, I don't know. Q. Just going back to your son, we all know how important caddies are, but was there a moment where he gave you a decision to make -- was there a moment where he made a decisive contribution? RUSS COCHRAN: It's not so much that. I mean, he certainly was in on the decision making, and you know, what do you like here, do you think it's playing fast, do you like this club and stuff. But there's a funny story with Reed. When he first caddied for me, like I say, he comes from a baseball background, and I kind of got, maybe, let's say, in the Top-10 or fifth place or something, and I asked him, you know, I didn't ask him much before that. And I said, "Reed, what's the wind doing?" And he looked at me and he said, "Dad, you've played the Tour or 20 or 21 years. Take your time, figure it out, choose your club and hit it." It's more of a -- that kind of a father/son thing that he relaxed me out there. He made me smile and that type of stuff. He was great to be with, and he must have had a feeling, because like I said, Ryan has been caddying for me, my oldest son, and they approached me and they said, "Dad, you know, we wish you the best over there, but Ryan's not caddying for you, I am." So he muscled Ryan out and came in there. Q. Who is out for next tournament? RUSS COCHRAN: He has to go back to law school pretty soon. So he's on the sideline. Q. You are the first left-hander to win since Bob Charles -- RUSS COCHRAN: I know Bob. What a gentleman. I can tell you for sure, he's a nicer guy than I am. He's a great fellow. And you know, I think there's a little left-handed fraternity out there. I was the only guy out on Tour for about eight years and answered a lot of questions. There are more and more lefties out there than you think. But I'll tell you, it doesn't -- in today's golf it really doesn't matter that much anymore. Phil has closed that gap so much and equipment has changed so much, there's no difference. Q. How do you plan to celebrate? RUSS COCHRAN: I am not in the category of Darren Clarke, I assure you. But maybe my kids will be a little bit closer to Darren than myself. But I'll have a good time. We fly out tomorrow. It's grueling to stride to get your feet underneath you for the Senior Open, U.S. Senior Open. So I'll just kind of chill and make a lot of phone calls. I know they are celebrating at home. You know, I just have a great sense of pride in the way I played and you know very is happy. Q. Talking about the Senior Open last year -- RUSS COCHRAN: You know, I had not won enough. Actually I went back-to-back last year. We had the week off in between, but I think in Korea, we had a week off and I won the next tournament in Carolina. So I'm certainly the kind of guy that carries those good feelings, and I think it has to do personally with your scoring. The more I'm finding out about winning, you know, it has more to do with getting that ball up-and-down. It has to do with putting the ball in the fairway, and then you know, just rolling the heck out of it. So you know, I don't know that the U.S. Senior Open will lend itself to that. I'm not too sure. I played Inverness several times. I played the PGA there. I thought it was very tough. I'm not sure what changes they have made. But all I can say is I'm going to try to go there and do the research on getting my legs underneath me and my sleep patterns right and throw it in there and go from there. Q. Did you have an injury -- RUSS COCHRAN: I have a bad wrist, I guess I just came off of two months without playing. I battled it my whole year, and when I came over here before, I came over, for instance, played The Scottish Open and the British Open. I kind of blew -- not blew it out, but I hurt my wrist. So I had to withdraw. I played in Muirfield; was the only one I played. I wasn't exempt all the time. It was hard to get exempt for that tournament. It kind of became one of those things that I remember when I hurt my wrist in the Scottish Open, I missed the British Open and the next two or three events after that. It became with my style of play, you know, it just wasn't a smart thing for me to do to come over here. Plus, we were playing in tournaments that I played well in, I think it was on the regular tour, and you know, you've got four kids, you start looking at some of those paychecks, '91 was my best year. I finished 10th on the Money List. When I tell people that, they say, what was that, 4 million, I think it was maybe 650,000 or something. Q. Which wrist? RUSS COCHRAN: My right wrist. Q. And do you know what year that was? RUSS COCHRAN: I know for sure it would be '92, because you know, I had a big year in '91, so, yeah, it would be the next year. STEVE TODD: Also you get the exemption of this to go to The Open Championship. RUSS COCHRAN: Where do they play next year? STEVE TODD: Royal Lytham and St. Annes. Q. Inaudible. RUSS COCHRAN: It's good. It took me two or three days. I was a little bit disappointed. I'm not in very good shape right now because I have had some time off. I'm a little disappointed in my fitness, and took me probably three, four days to get my sleeping patterns pretty good. Came over last Friday. Didn't really feel good until about Wednesday. And you know, I got better as the week went on so I think that was kind of evident I didn't and just me settling in, and feeling just better and sleeping better and stuff like that. Q. Inaudible. RUSS COCHRAN: You know what, I don't have time to do that, but I'm just happy that I had a game plan, and said, look, I'm going to go out and I'm going to play hard and I'm going to -- if I get it going a little bit I'm just going to keep going. I'm not going to stop. I'm not going to look up, and then, you know, when the smoke clears a little bit, I'll see what happens. So it worked for me this time. Q. What did you hit on 3? RUSS COCHRAN: On 3 was just about two and a half feet. I hit a good bunker shot. It was a tough bunker shot. Now, there again, I was settled enough to -- the thing that -- the tendency would be to go at that pretty aggressively to make sure you get it out, and then use the back -- there was a back tier. And you know, I got in there and I said, you know, don't be a pansy, let's go ahead and hit this shot like you're supposed to hit it. I was smooth with it and just barely got it over the lip and rolled down there. For me, I showed pretty good patience in sticking with that and not getting in there and goosing it a little bit and looking at eight or ten feet. STEVE TODD: Thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|