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SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY KITCHENAIDMay 23, 2012Fred FunkBENTON HARBOR, MICHIGAN KELLY ELBIN: Fred Funk, joining us at the 73rd Senior PGA Championship presented by KitchenAid. This will be Fred's fourth Senior PGA Championship. Best finish was a tie for fifth in 2009. Fred, you got to feel good about your game. Most recent winner on the Champions Tour a few weeks ago. Comments on your game and what you've seen from the golf course. FRED FUNK: The game is really coming around. I actually kind of got a long story with that, but I'll try to keep it short. But I went through quite a few injuries and last year the big one was my thumb and was in a cast, got in a lot of bad habits when I came back and I was trying to, I got a medical on the Regular Tour and I was trying to play as much as I could early and I ended up playing at Mayacoba, made the cut there, went down to Honda and obviously a really hard golf course. And I was hitting the ball‑‑ I wasn't feeling really good that week for whatever reason and my game was terrible. The course ate me alive. Which I knew it would, the way I was playing. I went home and I saw my guy that works with my son, a guy named Travis Fulton who works for the PGA TOUR Academy. He's my son's teacher. And I started working with him and I said, listen, either we do something to get out of these bad habits or I'm just not going to play. That's how bad I felt. I knew I would still try to play, but I was just really exasperated with my game. So we worked on really trying to stay centered and what felt like, the drills were felt like a stack and tilt, which I can't stand Stack and Tilt, but that's what I had to feel like I was doing. I knew about five, four weeks into it that I was doing the right things. I started seeing a lot of improvement in my ball striking, my game was coming around, I thought I was playing pretty good. When I got to Hilton Head, I actually went out the day before and I shot a course record at Haig Point, lowest round ever in the history of that place. Which shocked me it was only 68. But they told me when I got done that it was the best ever shot there. And I said, oh, cool. And I go out and shoot 81 the first day at Hilton Head and that course was made for me. But I was hitting the ball poorly and still very conscious of what I was working on. Tried to free it up a little bit the next day and I shot 72 with three, 3‑putts and a 4‑putt, and knew that I was ‑‑ it validated what I was doing. Then I went to New Orleans and played really solid there and ball striking was really getting better and I found something in my putting. I knew, no matter what, that I was working on the right thing. So that and that alone allowed me to or gave me the belief that I was, the process was working. I was working in the right direction. So I went to Houston and I just really wanted to get into the mix again because I feel like when I'm playing well that I should be in the mix and I really enjoy it and I haven't been in the mix in a while. And I played real solid all week and then to have that turn into a victory was something really special and the way I did it coming down the stretch against Tom, all those finishing holes were really exciting and it was just a great victory for me to have that and just, more than anything, validated what I'm working on and now I know that I'm working on the right things, I'm still really conscious about it, but I got to keep working on the short game is really important, obviously and keep that hopefully pretty solid. And so I'm excited about having that working in my favor and working in the right direction. And then we're coming into the meat of our season out here only the Champions Tour. And you wanted me to talk about this golf course? KELLY ELBIN: Yeah. Yeah. FRED FUNK: I thought maybe we could reverse the order and play the greens as tees and the tees as greens and it would be easier to putt. Just play in reverse. But the golf course layout is spectacular. The greens I think are a little too busy, but they are what they are. I think it's going to be a great championship, obviously, but ‑‑ I'm a big fan of Jack and I love Jack's golf courses, but I'm not a big fan of the modern era greens that they're designing now days between a lot of the big architects. And I know that is not a politically correct answer and I'm probably going to get hammered for it, but I just ‑‑ to me, when you're out in the middle of the fairway and you're hitting a shot in and it creates a lot of, I wouldn't say anxiety, but discomfort, or just not a feeling of knowing the ball's going to end up in a right area because you have certain humps and bumps and it's really not as specific an area that you're hit to go to get a nice flat putt. You're hoping you're going to get a nice bounce one way or the other and you're going to minimize the amount of breaks you're going to have on your putt. It's just, you just don't have a specific yardage, I don't think, where a lot of these holes are feeder pins where you can hit a spot and it will feed to a hole. You can hit the wrong side of the bounce and feed to the hole or it could feed away or even off the green. I have a problem with that concept, but we're all going to go out there and play the golf course. KELLY ELBIN: Jack said yesterday that you have to be very precise on this course. Sounds like that's where you're going. FRED FUNK: You do have to be precise, but the greens, to what point? I mean, we're not here long enough to know exactly where to hit it on a lot of these greens. When you see some of the greens, I don't think anyone can be precise enough to hit it in the certain spots on these greens. You're just going to get a weird kick here and there and then it's very difficult around the greens. When you miss the greens it's tough to get up‑and‑down. So it's very, very very difficult golf course. You got some, you got quite a bit of room off the tees, which is a trademark of Jack, but you don't get in those fairway bunkers, that's for sure. Obviously you have some water hazards out there and other issues, but that's fine off the tee. It's fantastic there. But I just think that some of the greens just cause a lot of, a little bit of guessing I think out there on your iron shots. If you're really on your game, I'm not sure you're going to get ‑‑ and I could be wrong, but I'm not sure it rewards the precise shot every time. You think you hit the shot you wanted and you may not get rewarded for it . And to me that's the biggest question I ask is, as a player or if I was an architect is, all right, this shot is asking me to do a certain shot, it's asking me to hit this certain shot a certain way, if I happen to hit that trajectory I want, the distance I want, and don't get rewarded for it and actually end up in a really crappy spot, then I think there's something wrong with the design of that particular shot. So anyway, the game's hard enough, so it's, you're asking the best in the world to be extremely accurate here. But it's going to be, you're going to end up in a lot of really awkward positions and you're going to have to make a lot of five and six, seven, eight footers, 10‑footers for pars when you get in trouble. And we'll see who does the best with that by the end of the week. It's in great condition. I hear we're getting a lot of wind tomorrow. I hear up to 25 mile an hour winds out of the opposite direction. I don't think anybody's seen that wind yet. It's been a north wind all week. So all the practice rounds are almost futile. We're out there and we're driving it in different spots and the wind flips and you just never know what, how that hole is going to play. So, anyway, that's my two cents on that. I don't know where you guys are going to go with those. (Laughter.) I'm in a lot of trouble here, I think. I shouldn't have said anything. Can I start over? (Laughter.) Can I get a mulligan? KELLY ELBIN: Open it up for further questions. Q. I think that if you read some of Jack's comments he probably agrees that he was in a, what did he call it? Rolling elephant period, when he did the greens, so I don't think you're in as much trouble as you think. FRED FUNK: Oh, good. (Laughter.) Q. That being said, is this championship now have more luck involved in winning it because of what you said than a normal event? FRED FUNK: I don't know how to answer that. I was thinking that. And I actually said that yesterday to a couple guys. But I don't know how it's really going to play out in the four days. But I actually mentioned that I don't know whether it's going to identify the guy that's playing the best this week. You're going to find a guy that's scoring the best, obviously, but the guy that's controlling his irons may not get as rewarded as much as some other guy, if you get a couple lucky bounces here and there. Overall, you still got to be hitting your irons somewhere close to where the pin is going to be and have as short of putts as possible, because the greens do have so much movement. I'm reading putts yesterday for my amateurs and I'm going, it breaks left, right, left, right and then up and then it goes back down and then it breaks left again and then right. I think it's straight overall though. (Laughter.) So it just, you're trying to read these things and they have six breaks to them and a lot of humpty bumpity, but the shorter that little putt that you're going to have, the shorter it is, the better odds you're going to have of reading it and trying to guess on your speeds because some of these slopes are obviously pretty severe, so if you got to play a lot of break and you're going back down or back up, you're really guessing on the feel too to lag it in there. It's a hard course to even lag. Because there's just no flat spots. If they had some flat spots and you could feed it up‑‑ I only saw a couple greens that had true plateaus and terraces where you can really hit it there and say, okay, I got a really good shot at hitting it in there. And you can do that on some of the holes, but a lot of them have movement everywhere and you just, you never have a flat spot. So that's my only gripe. I don't mind a lot of movement to the greens or even terraces, but give us some flat areas where you can have the officials go out there and say, okay, we have five or six or four really good pin placements right here. You can see them. They're definitive. Defined. The 6th hole here has a green I looked at yesterday and I said, I know where this pin is. They had four distinct pin placements. You can see where they were going to put them. I looked at some others and said, I have no idea where they're going to put them. They can put them anywhere, but none of them were good. They were just less, not as bad as the other spot on some of the greens. But we'll see what happens. It's a great championship, it's an honor to be here, I'm, I feel really blessed to have the opportunity to even be on the Champions Tour, the fact that we have it and to have a championship like this and have the meaning and notoriety that we're getting, and to have you here is a big deal. Q. Thank you, Fred. (Laughter.) FRED FUNK: Give me a good quote now, will you. I gave you one. But it's great to come here. I just got to see how‑‑ we're all going to try to see how it all plays out. I think we're all a little overwhelmed with what we're seeing on some of the holes. Q. To follow‑up too, obviously as things kind of play themselves out, this can get in your head pretty fast. How do you deal with that, because this is going to be more of a head game than maybe most places. FRED FUNK: Yeah, I think the biggest thing with that is to go out and I ‑‑ my wife is saying this to me ‑‑ and I had already thought about it, she said, stop bitching about the greens and stop complaining and just fall in love with what you got. And Nicklaus when he was the captain, and I read it before, but when's he was the captain of the President's Cups teams he thought the Majors were the easiest ones to win for him because half the field was beat before they even teed off because they either thought the course was too hard or the rougher too high or something and the atmosphere was too tough. So if you are going to go down the mental road of, this is just a joke and you're going to get all PO'd about some bad bounces you're going to get, then you're going to lose. So I'm going to learn to just really work hard to go out there and hit my shots and see what I got and just plod along. And I have no idea what the scores are going to be. Sometimes you can predict what kind of score it's going to be. I don't know whether it's going to be 16, 20‑under or even par. No idea what it's going to be on this golf course. I would be curious how they set up some of the holes and that's going to be a big factor too. Number 4 and number 7 are really scary holes, with ‑‑ 7 doesn't matter where the pin is and 4, depending upon where the pin is and what wind direction. Couple holes out here you can really make some big, big numbers. You got to get by those. Then there's some definitely birdie holes out there. You got to get those too. And like I said, esthetically it's gorgeous. It's such a diverse piece of land. You have the wooded part, the wetlands part and the dunes holes out there are really cool. Q. I've been keeping track of Devon Quigley's progress and Dana writes this journal every night and he talks about how supportive you and your wife have been through this whole ordeal. Can you talk about that friendship and maybe the perspective you get from the situation? FRED FUNK: Well, that's unbelievable how Dana and his family are handling this whole situation. And he's been very uplifting to all of us that are following that tragedy that's happened. And we're all hoping and praying that Devon is going to come out of this in some functional way. And who knows. But we have gotten really close, my wife actually did a blog the other day, which was pretty amazing what she wrote, but what's more amazing was Dana's, since day one, has written a blog every single day. And it's very powerful stuff. I just love the spirit he has, the spirit ‑‑ I can't even think of the word‑‑ the spiritual factor it. I'll keep it a simple word. Spirituality. I was trying to find the word. And it just really uplifting the way he's handled it. We met a guy in Houston that was in a coma for four and a half months from a car accident and he came up to us on the 11th hole in a practice round ‑‑ and Sharon was caddieing for Dana that week, which was kind of neat as well. And he told us the story and that was just like, wow, that was amazing. And now he's walking around, he's fully functional, nobody gave him a chance as well. So I think the medical world doesn't really know that much of brain injuries and how diverse. Some people never get any better and other people come completely out of it. I think they really don't know. So we're all hoping and praying that Devon comes out of it. But it's great to see how Dana has handled this and his family and the support that he's getting from the whole, not only the golf community, but everybody. I don't know how many people are getting that blog now. But a few thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand, I don't know how many people. It's very neat. KELLY ELBIN: Fred, does being close to Dana and this situation change perspective for you on some things in life? FRED FUNK: Well, yeah. Golf, that's all it is, it's just golf. It's not life. And I think if any of us who has a son or daughter and you put yourself in that situation, how would you handle it. I don't know whether I could handle it. It would be very difficult if my son was in that situation. And his escape is coming out here and playing golf. And yet staying close. And you know that's what Devon would want, because he was out here all the time with him. So it's, yeah, you realize, hey, it's just ‑‑ at this point for me, we all still want to win and everything, it's just, in the big picture, it doesn't really mean anything. That's kind of what you get out of it. Q. Generally speaking, how did you feel about your putting game when you're in Houston? FRED FUNK: I found something in New Orleans and all I did, I used to putt with clubs on the ground. I just put clubs down and like a track line and putt to the hole.  And I stumbled on to my setup position that was different. My eyes were too far inside and I didn't realize it because I was working on something else consciously with my putting. I was trying to get my hands up and keep from getting in a good position and get the putter a little further away from me and create space. And I found that I was just too mechanical. And now I got the club in there and all of a sudden I moved in a little closer and I go, that's it, I got it. And it was as simple as that. And I putted really the best I putted all year at New Orleans and then, I think I made 18 birdies that week in four days. And I started minimizing my bogeys finally. And then at Houston it just ‑‑ I didn't putt great at Houston, but I putted really good. Solid, I should say. And it just felt good to have a chance on the greens. That's the biggest thing is just to go out there and feel like I got a chance of making this thing. And that relaxes you a little bit instead of just guessing and hoping. So I know my mechanics are good now on my full swing and my misses are smaller, I'm hitting more good shots than bad shots now. So the whole game, it just gets ‑‑ as you tighten everything up, you just help yourself in all ways. Your misses are better, good shots are better, you're giving yourself more opportunities, and then you start making some of those opportunities and you're not scrambling for making those par putts all the time. And then all of a sudden your scores start coming down by two, three, four shots. And now you feel like you got a chance. That relaxes you. And then you look forward to playing. And I look forward to practicing. I haven't worked this hard since I was a kid, the last six months, trying to get my game back. The six months off with my thumb were a long time and when I came back it still hurt like hell and I had to figure out how to get through that. And it's hard to play with injuries. When you're young it's hard to play with injuries and when you're old everything hurts anyway and then you just got to kind of minimize the effects of what it does to your game. And I got a question here? Did Tom Watson pull out? KELLY ELBIN: He withdrew last Saturday. FRED FUNK: Is he hurt? Because he hasn't played at all. KELLY ELBIN: Pinched nerve in his wrist. FRED FUNK: Wrist. Wow. Okay. I haven't seen him all year, I just wondered what was going on with Tom. KELLY ELBIN: He was here for a press conference yesterday, but he withdrew. FRED FUNK: Okay. What did Jack say yesterday? Any other things that Jack said? (Laughter.) Did he say anything about 10? Q. I think he's aware. FRED FUNK: Some of the guys played‑‑ it's pretty funny to hear some of the stories. Some of the guys their first hole they saw, they got carted out to 10 and they go and see 10 and say, "Holy shit, is this what we got rest of the day?" It was like, man, they don't know what to expect from that point. But anyway, it's, it's neat what they have done with this area with this‑‑ is this a public golf course? KELLY ELBIN: Yes. FRED FUNK: Daily fee? Okay. KELLY ELBIN: Yeah. You mentioned about your health. Injuries that have plagued you. How are you right now? FRED FUNK: I'm as good as I've been or better than I've been in over four years. So really good right now. I'm feeling really good. It's just everything, mentally, physically, I'm really excited about playing golf again and not scared to go back out. I was scared to go back out and play. I knew, like at Honda, you saw me on the range and asked, why are you here? I'm like, well, I want to get some rounds in. Why this course? Well, I got to get some rounds in. And that course just, if you're not on your game, at Honda, it's just going to eat you alive. Every bad shot's a penalty shot. It got to the point, it started turning the corner and I'm really excited about playing again. So I'm actually trying for the U.S. Open. If I make that I'll be playing eight weeks in a row. Because we got seven out of eight out here. And a lot of people are going, why are you going there. Well, I like the U.S. Open atmosphere. That's really really special. And Olympic I like, all they made it nine thousand three hundred yards or something. Q. It's not that much. FRED FUNK: Not that much longer? Q. Where are you qualifying at? FRED FUNK: Woodmont. Yeah, I'm getting a private plane out of Des Moines to get there Sunday night. Q. You qualified there before. FRED FUNK: A lot. Last two years I made it. For Bethpage and for last year. I was in already because I won the Senior Open at Pebble, so the last three I've been in. And I just want to keep it going. I know that course really well. Even though they make subtle little changes every year. And it's like my‑‑ I just played so much golf there and I love the golf course, so I feel like that's my best odds at getting through. KELLY ELBIN: That's Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Maryland. Q. With all the golf you've played over the years, is there another tournament you can remember, new courses and that sort of thing, where the greens were so confusing and you didn't really know what to expect? FRED FUNK: Korea. Another Jack course. Recent Jack course. Korea, everybody talks about this is a parallel to Korea, with the greens. I remember Whistling Straits when I first saw that. That was everything. That was the just ‑‑ what you saw visually was so intimidating off the tee, that is what Pete Dye wanted on that golf course. And then the greens were pretty tough, but they had areas. They had plateaus and distinct areas where the, where you can put the pin. And I like that philosophy a lot better than just having complete movement of the green. The green just a big mogul field. I don't like that philosophy at all. I designed my first golf course when I was ‑‑ this fall ‑‑ when I was in a cast with my thumb out in Colorado. We don't have the money to build it, we're waiting for funding from somebody. But a great piece of land. And my philosophy with the greens are just to, just the opposite. I want people to really enjoy putting and have a chance of reading the greens and rolling them in there and getting a shot‑‑ I want shots rewarded. So that's dead opposite. So I would say Korea, to answer your question, and then a little bit of Whistling Straits. And the one that sticks out the most was the 18th green at Whistling Straits was just that huge green that I though, what the heck is that? But it worked, you know, for that hole anyway. Q. You mentioned, I think it's 11 out of the next 15 you have a, you have weeks of golf on this TOUR. Including‑‑ FRED FUNK: I know it was‑‑ Q. ‑‑ four Majors. FRED FUNK: Actually all five. Q. All five? FRED FUNK: All five are in there. I don't know, I thought it was eight out of nine weeks I thought was our ‑‑ something like that. Q. 11 out of the next 15. Can you talk about that. Because you guys have been on a couple weeks, then off, on then off. FRED FUNK: It's a schedule quirk that we have. We're trying to fill up our early schedule and we're just having trouble finding tournaments. We lost have an Valencia a few years ago that backed up Newport. We only have the two in Florida. And we have Hualalai and we used to have Turtle Bay too. And we're trying to fill up that early part of our schedule, but it's been difficult to do. So when we do finally get going, which is right now, this is our first week where we're really starting to rock and roll, for our schedule, it's, everything just piles in on top of it, each other. And we have 23 events total, 24. And we got a majority of them right, half of our schedule is within that little window. It's hard on us, but ‑‑ and it's a lot of travel. We're going all over the place. Back and forth, back and forth. Especially when we got to hop over to the British Senior. And everybody's excited about Turnberry. That's, that will be nice with that one. KELLY ELBIN: You've been a PGA of America member a long time and came close in the PGA Championship. What would it mean to you personally to win this championship? FRED FUNK: Oh, it would be great. I was really ecstatic when I finally got my name on a USGA trophy, I would love to get my name on a PGA of America trophy, especially with my background being a club pro for so long, golf coach and assistant pro, at Maryland for almost eight years. So my background is with the PGA of America. I went through all the business schools. And back then it was just two, and it was ‑‑ I felt really happy when I became a PGA member. Because I remember how hard it was to do that. And I remember passing my PAT test. That was a big deal. I was like, God you got to pass this thing the first time or everybody will laugh me out of here. But it's not that easy to do. So anyway, it would be a big deal to be, have my name on a, especially the size of that trophy. I want to see if I can actually pick the thing up. (Laughter.) KELLY ELBIN: Something tells me you can. FRED FUNK: I did pick up the Stanley Cup one time. I was at a Tampa Bay Lightning game and the trophy is huge and I picked it up and it wasn't even that heavy. I thought it was a facade. I thought it was a fake trophy. KELLY ELBIN: Fred Funk, thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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