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THE TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY COCA-COLA

November 4, 2004

Jerry Kelly

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

TODD BUDNICK: We thank Jerry Kelly for stopping in after his 3-under 67 in the first round of the TOUR Championship. Jerry, there seems to be a common pattern in the first round leaders so far today, Jay Haas, Darren, yourself, all looking for that first victory of the season, and it would be a great place to get it, wouldn't it?

JERRY KELLY: Yeah. I mean, we're kind of cutting it close now, aren't we? That's what we're all out here to do. I was telling the guys earlier, you know, you're out here to win, and I've gone the last two years without a win, and this year was really tough on me, and I really didn't feel like I had a good year.

Then you make it to the TOUR Championship and you step out here and you've got to say, "Okay, you had a great year. You didn't win, you didn't really do everything you wanted to do, but accept it a little bit and enjoy the fact that you're here." That's what I've done. I've taken a lot of the pressure off and kind of enjoyed it.

TODD BUDNICK: You played well out there today with four birdies and no mistakes until No. 16. Talk a little bit about the round today.

JERRY KELLY: I hit the ball great. There was a lot of mud on the fairway shots and a lot of wind, and I hit 17 greens with both those factors. So I struck the ball extremely well. 16 I just hit a bad drive, got myself in a bad position and couldn't get up-and-down from about 20 yards off the green. Other than that, I hit every other green and I had one in under regulation, so that's basically 18 greens.

So it was a pretty calm day. It wasn't like I was draining a whole lot. I did make a long number on No. 8. That was nice after missing consecutive short ones, so it was nice to get kind of a luck shot in there.

Q. Correct me if I'm wrong here, you've been mixing up some things in your bag recently, correct, or have made some changes?

JERRY KELLY: I put the new Titleist driver in two weeks ago, new Cleveland irons two weeks ago, new sand wedge last week, new ball this week. You could say I've pretty much changed everything in the bag. Putter is always changing. You don't even need to talk about that one.

Q. Why?

JERRY KELLY: Because it's always changing. I'm fairly inconsistent in my setup, but one of the things that really makes it stand out, I'm very aware of how the ball comes off the club. Different grasses I have to change putters, loft, no loft, poa annua, different from Bermuda, rye, I seem to need a different putter or every surface. When that stops happening --

Q. Why all the changes now; driver, ball, irons?

JERRY KELLY: I'm prepared for next year. I've gotten tired of coming out for next year with new irons and hoping they work that first tournament, so I put them in the last four weeks here so I know in this off season that's the stuff that's going to work for me. I've got a chance at having surgery on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday, and I don't need to be wondering if the clubs or me is not correct when I come back from that.

So get the club situation done, settled this year.

Q. Ball?

JERRY KELLY: Ball, I just switched to that new Pro V1. It's got a dash in there, but they changed the X ball and they changed the V1 , and I went with the V1 change.

Q. The V1 hyphen?

JERRY KELLY: Yeah, thanks.

Q. What's it do differently?

JERRY KELLY: Goes farther than the regular Pro V1, no question. It doesn't scuff up like the X ball, and I don't think it has any distance problems. Sometimes the X would jump a little bit on some easy shots, but this ball has been fantastic.

Q. Spin rate about the same on the hyphen?

JERRY KELLY: Yeah.

Q. Wasn't that one of the differences?

JERRY KELLY: It feels really good. I like it. I haven't been on any machines or anything.

Q. Were you an X guy before?

JERRY KELLY: I was an X, but if it got below 60 degrees I switched because I can't compress the X and I can't spin it well enough to spin it in the wind, so spin rate must be up.

Q. Does that concern you, Jerry, that you're talking about changing balls and finding a ball that works for you? Does it concern you that the commissioner was in here yesterday spending about 20 minutes out of a 10-minute press conference talking about the possibility of changing the ball and maybe bringing the ball back in some way?

JERRY KELLY: Bring it back, absolutely. I'd love it. The playing field, the balls right now seem to go farther for a higher swing speed proportionally than they do for a lower swing speed. There are plenty of guys who switched from the V1 to the X with the same swing speed and not get much more out of it, where all of a sudden you hit that 118 to 124 range, and the ball just absolutely goes out of -- it's just a home run.

So proportionally things I don't think are correct there. I've always loved the idea of everybody that's playing a standardized shaft, let's play a standardized iron, play everything the same, see who's the best athlete. I'd love to do that, but it'll never happen.

Q. What if there was a ball for professional golf and everybody else could use a regular ball. Do you think that's the right idea?

JERRY KELLY: Sure, why not? I mean, I don't know what the ball companies' stance is on all this. I can pretty much guess. You know, I mean, you could even -- scary thought, you could switch it from week to week. Let's get a Cayman ball and go play Marion next year. That would be great to do. Anything to bring back some of the courses that really mean something to this game because it's out of control.

Q. How about Bobby Jones' hickory you can use at Marion, too?

JERRY KELLY: I could get splinters. That would be fun.

Q. You've used a wooden stick before, haven't you?

JERRY KELLY: Yeah.

Q. What kind of surgery; how serious, how long you going to be out?

JERRY KELLY: AC joint, don't know, working with a new therapist this week, seems to have made a dent in it a little bit. I don't know. It's been ten months of kind of pure hell. I don't know.

It's if I want to struggle some more. It's not affecting me as much hitting shots as it is in between shots and the rest of my life, sitting at a dinner table, driving a car, trying to sleep. It doesn't work too good. When I'm on adrenaline and pumped up out there, it's not going to bother me. I got a cortisone shot, it bothered me so bad at New Orleans, and I felt better for about a month, and it's come back. I don't know what I have to do, but I've already seen one doctor, I'm going to see two more and I've got this guy working on me. We'll see what happens.

Q. Will they take something out or repair something?

JERRY KELLY: Either scope it and just shave some other, some of the collar bone off. One guy wants to take a centimeter off the collar bone, another guy wants to take the entire AC joint out. My best course of action is hopefully this therapist, who's one of the best in the country, can get me feeling to where I can try and heal it myself.

I've been told to get some other things cut in the past, and I've never done it, and they don't bother me to this day. I believe that I can heal it at some point, just as long as there's not too much deterioration in there already. The next step is taking some more pictures on Monday and determining that.

Q. The left side?

JERRY KELLY: Yeah.

Q. So you haven't officially determined whether you're going to have surgery or not?

JERRY KELLY: No. I'd specially determined it. I cleaned my slate, I had two months off, and then I met this guy Jim Weathers this week, and he's got me feeling better than I have in ten months. So there's a good chance that I will employ him rather than a surgeon.

Q. What's the matter with the AC joint?

JERRY KELLY: Well, receivers in football and hockey players get it all the time. It's from taking too many checks against the board, jamming that AC joint. It's all deteriorated, scar tissue, degenerative -- it's strictly from just hammering the boards as many times as I did.

Q. You don't feel an impingement say right in here where it tugs at you a little bit?

JERRY KELLY: I did in New Orleans, and the worst point is actually right about there when it starts coming up. I have to make sure that I'm coming through at the same time. If my arm goes away for a minute it's not good.

Q. When is the last time you played? Is it something that just took this long to affect you?

JERRY KELLY: I almost pulled out of New Orleans.

Q. I'm talking about you came from --

JERRY KELLY: I'll tell you, in the past I had had problems raising my arms above my shoulders, probably for this exact reason, but I went and got a different workout routine, I got a total gym, which is kind of using your body and stretching as well as strengthening, and it really seemed to do the trick in my shoulders.

I started a different workout routine at the beginning of this year, and he had me doing dumbbell overhead presses, and just like that, once I did anything over my head, I was history.

Q. You stopped playing hockey as a what in college; freshman, sophomore?

JERRY KELLY: No, I didn't play in college. I came back and played some summer leagues. That was about it.

Q. Don't most golf trainers advise against the overhead shoulder press? Isn't that a no-no for golf?

JERRY KELLY: I mean, I've got a guy who's trying to make me better, and from what he prescribed, it was something probably in the best, but it gets aggravated so bad this year.

TODD BUDNICK: We'll go through the card real quick. Birdie on 2.

JERRY KELLY: I hit a 6-iron up there about six feet behind the hole.

8, I hit it just in the right rough and had some mud on the ball, and it flew and mud flew and went to the right side of the green. I think I made about a 65-footer up and over the hill. It was fun. I haven't had one of those in a while.

11, I hit a 6-iron again about five feet left of the hole.

15, just knocked driver, 3-iron on the green about 15 feet and missed the eagle putt.

Q. What will you do for two months if you don't have surgery?

JERRY KELLY: Rehab either way. I'll bring this guy that I just met in and have him develop a program to have me strengthen that area somehow. There's got to be some muscles around it to strengthen it. The question is is the joint deteriorated enough that the muscles will not work properly around it. They're always going to be affected because it's deteriorated. That's the way you determine it.

Q. Is there a point during the next two months that you have to make the call?

JERRY KELLY: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. That's it. I would say after Friday of next week, if I haven't had surgery, I won't have surgery.

Q. When do you expect to start next year?

JERRY KELLY: Sony. I will not sacrifice the Sony for surgery.

Q. Just to clarify, what age were you when you played hockey last?

JERRY KELLY: Senior in high school. I went to college for it but they dumped the program right when I got there.

Q. Purely coincidence?

JERRY KELLY: I'll tell you, I know my parents were involved in that (laughter). It was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Q. You'd be unemployed right now.

JERRY KELLY: I wouldn't still be playing right now. I would have had four shoulder surgeries by now and a couple more knee surgeries.

TODD BUDNICK: Thank you for your time, Jerry.

End of FastScripts.

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