SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

June 5, 2002

Tom Kite

TOM KITE: I guess just like Julius has been saying, the golf course is spectacular. Everybody loves it and for those of us who had played it so many times, and you come back here year after year, you kind of forget how good it is and then all of a sudden, you don't have the opportunity to play Firestone and you come back and you see what they've done to the golf course. And obviously, the last couple of times that I've played they were still fighting with their greens and they've got all that situation straightened out now and the greens are in good shape and they've made some nice changes to the golf course and improvements. And really, you forget how good this golf course is and it's spectacular and a good test for us this week.

TOM KITE: You must have been bored.

TOM KITE: No question. There has been a number of reasons. In my case, obviously the equipment has a lot to do with it, lightweight drivers and lightweight shafts. The

Pro V1 golf ball, and everything everybody is using right now. The new technology obviously has a lot to do with the distance that everybody is hitting it. One of the things that I've been able to do is gain ground on the field and that's through a pretty nice exercise program that I got on a number of years ago that helped me swing the club a little bit better. So, I'm hitting the ball quite a bit further than I used to.

TOM KITE: I always played pretty well here. This was a good golf course for me. I think the best I ever did, I finished second to Bill Rogers when he won here in '81, but this was always a good golf course for me because not only do you have to have some length, you have to drive the ball straight. There's no room off of any of these tees for much error. A lot of slope to the fairways, which makes it very difficult to keep the ball in the fairway on a lot of those holes, similar to Olympic in San Francisco. It's such a difficult golf course, that is to keep it in the fairway. So you really have to drive the ball very straight and of course having it go long and straight is a nice combination.

TOM KITE: Good start to the year. It hasn't been anything spectacular the last month and a half or so, but a really good start to the year, winning twice while we were out on the west coast in Hawaii and in California, and so I was really pleased with the way the year started out. Like I said, the last month, month and a half has not been quite as spectacular as I would like for it to be. A few disappointments. I didn't play well at Augusta, having an opportunity to go back there, and that was very disappointing. I was really looking forward to going back to there. Then I played at Colonial on the regular tour and didn't play well there. I missed the cut for the first time in 30 tournaments at Colonial. Those two weeks were very disappointing not to play a little bit better because I think my game -- I know my game is better than that. It just didn't show up those particular weeks. Hopefully, everything is coming together. I'm hitting the ball much better again.

TOM KITE: We're playing some holes differently than the normal setup for the golf course. No. 6, No. 3 -- well, 3 we're playing up, 6 we're playing up, No. 9, we're playing up. Those three holes in particular are playing significantly shorter than what I remember, but it's because we're playing the front tees. Other than that, the golf course is playing similar to what I remember. Obviously, we talked about how I'm hitting the ball further and so I'm hitting a little less club into a few of those greens that I remember. There were times in the '70s and early '80s that I can remember hitting a lot of club into some of these greens and it's been a little shorter than that.

TOM KITE: I'm close to the 280 range right now. I don't know what it is right now on the stat, but close to the 280 number. I never averaged anywhere close to that on the regular tour, anywhere from probably 250 to 270 was the most that I did.

TOM KITE: Tom was very long now.

TOM KITE: He may not have picked up any distance, but he hasn't lost any. There is the other side of the story. I mean in my particular case, I guess it's one of those things they talk about the come back player of the year. If you didn't play bad in the first place, you wouldn't have a comeback. If you didn't play short, you wouldn't gain distance. Tom was long and he maintained his length through some of the equipment and exercise program, he maintained his length. In my particular case, I was much shorter. I've done some things in my swing and exercise program that allowed me to get longer, so I'm one of the exceptions to that rule, I think.

TOM KITE: Monster long, I'm not. Don't even go there. Monster long is having 210 to the front of the green on the 16th hole, which I heard Tiger Woods did. That's monster long. It's nice to feel like I've got an advantage when you get on the golf course like this. If I can drive the ball straight, it should be a fun week for me.

TOM KITE: No question. Even this week, there are some holes that I can remember hitting a lot of club into some of those greens, and we're playing the same tees on some of those holes and it seems like I'm hitting less club into those.

TOM KITE: 13 was one of those holes that I used to drive it. If I was lucky, I could get it on that upslope by the big tree. So far I've been able to on the drives that I hit there get it a little further down the line, better hitting 6- or 7-iron into that green than a 3 or 4. That's a tough green.

TOM KITE: Sure. We were a generation ahead of all the fitness. When I was growing up, it was considered bad for your golf to exercise. As great a teacher as Harvey Penick was, one of his things was, let's don't do any exercise program, let's don't get in the gym. He discouraged me from doing that, but that was the general thought that everybody had back then. They didn't want to build up any muscles because you would lose the flexibility. The flexibility was considered more important than the strength. Gary Player was considered a -- I almost hate to say revolutionary because he was considered almost freakish. Why would you do that? He was way ahead of his time, in going to that extreme to work out, but most people considered that to be foolish for your golf. We see that he's still competing, where people that are younger than he is are struggling to stay healthy. So he was way ahead. Now, everybody does it. If you don't do it, you really have no chance to compete now because, as Tom alluded to back there, Tiger and all these other guys, they are in great shape, and if you're not spending some time in the gym working on your strength, flexibility, and speed, then you're not giving yourself a chance at all.

TOM KITE: Yes, I've gone back and I've played three tournaments on the regular tour and I'll play the U.S. Open next week and probably one other one before the year is over.

TOM KITE: Man, and it's expensive to cross that Verrazano Bridge and then turn around and come right back. I was going to go over there Wednesday or Thursday afternoon after the pro-am. I was going to go over. We left immediately after I finished the pro-am, zipped it out. Golly, we got across the Verrazano Bridge and got into a parking lot and moved about a quarter of the mile in 20 minutes, and it became increasingly apparent that we were not going to get over there in time to play all the holes, and so we whipped a U and came back the bridge. $6 over, and $7 coming back, if you want to know. Why? Why is it more expensive to come back across the bridge than it is to go over? I don't know. So I didn't get over there. I was disappointed. I look forward to seeing it next week.

TOM KITE: The things that have helped me a lot is training to go faster. A lot of drills that the basketball players use to train their muscles to go very quickly, to train their bodies to go quick; not so much -- I mean there is strength in the exercises, but really training yourself to go fast. That's the thing that helped me a lot.

TOM KITE: I don't know. I obviously didn't play as well. '81 was a very good year for me. '89 was a wonderful year. And '90, '92, '93, were good years. Those were probably the best years that I played. I was fortunate I had a nice run there through the '80s. It's interesting. Tom was just in here just a second ago. Lanny and Tom and I are basically the same age. Tom is four months or three months older than Lanny and I are. And even though we came out as contemporaries, the way we reached our primes and the best golf we ever played never really coincided with one another. Lanny was the best golfer when we came out, of the three of us. He had a great run from '72 or '71 when he came on tour through '78, '79, '80. Tom didn't really become a very good player or didn't start hitting his prime until '76, '77, and ran all the way through the mid '80s. I didn't really start having a chance to win golf tournaments until '80, '81, and mine ran through the '80s and into the '90s. So it's interesting the way the three of us came out the same time, but we haven't had that many opportunities to go head-to-head because of the way we hit our prime.

TOM KITE: I like to play good any time I can. It doesn't really matter, but certainly the money has escalated. I would like to be hitting my prime right now. With the money they're paying on the regular tour, I would love to hit my prime right now and have a go at it. That would be fun.