|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
MONTREAL CHAMPIONSHIPJune 21, 2012Jay HaasSAINTE-JULIE, QUEBEC DAVE SENKO: Dave, thanks for joining us. This is your third trip to Montréal, two top‑ten finishes, and you come in coming off a victory with Morgan Pressel earlier this week at the CVS Caremark Charity Classic. Get us started, talk about playing here in Canada. You've played here several times and maybe a little about where your game is right now. JAY HAAS: Well, I think for everyone, we are looking forward to playing a new course here. I rode around yesterday, didn't play in the Pro‑Am, just wanted to get a look at it. And it looks very, very nice. You know, we really enjoy playing the last couple of years at Fountainbleau, but looking forward to this new venue here and understand it has history, saw the wall down there with some of the past champions here and some real great champions have played events here. So, looking forward to getting out there and playing this afternoon in the Pro‑Am. It will be my first official look at the course, but again, looks very nice. State of my game is pretty good. Won a few weeks ago in Des Moines and played a couple of weeks ago at the tradition tournament in Birmingham, Alabama. Played okay there. Like Dave said, I won a little two‑day thing with Morgan Pressel Monday and Tuesday in Providence, Rhode Island. I feel confident. But each week is a new week, just never know what to expect. Hopefully it will be a good one for me. Like I said, I like the way the course looks. It reminds me of courses that I kind of grew up playing on, not a lot of elevation change, but looks like you have to be a quality ball‑striker here, and fairly tight golf course, a good many bunkers. So driving I think will be very important here. Q. Playing in Canada, does it feel like another country? JAY HAAS: Well, I don't know if you know Yogi Berra, but we have Yogi‑isms, and it feels like another country. I think when we played the Canadian Open so many years in Toronto, it didn't feel like we have travelled so far to get to that event, if that makes any sense. Here, you know, with the French background, most people will open up a conversation in French, and so it kind of hits me, that yes, we are in another country here, which is a great thing. We all love to travel I think, and to see different part of the world, and it's nice to be able to see a new golf course here. We are staying in a different part of the Montréal area. So you know, we are very fortunate to have a Champions Tour, period, and to be able to come here and be welcomed by the people of this area, is very special. I think the players, the uniqueness of the travel and not knowing the golf course and everything, but the people here have been just fantastic the last couple of years, and I don't expect any different this year. Q. How are the crowds? JAY HAAS: Very, very good. I guess at Fontainebleau, I guess I'm saying it somewhat correctly, you had that little loop there on 16, 17 and 18, very exciting finish, and the crowds really came out for that. I think that we are very appreciative of the people that do come out. We are kind of entertainers at heart I suppose, and we like to play to a packed house more than just a few people. So you know, it looks like this is a fairly easy golf course to walk for the spectators. It's pretty compact. So it should be friendly for the spectators to come out to watch us. I think it's supposed to be a good weekend. We are getting ready to get out of this little hot spell here that we are having. I think that we love to see the fairways lined with spectators, and applause for a good shot, it means a lot to us. We are looking forward to that. Q. At the airport when you flew in yesterday‑‑ JAY HAAS: Yeah, it was very nice. In fact, we went to a restaurant that night and saw Brad Bryant, and he had flown into the main airport, and it took him from the time he got off the plane into customs and to the hotel, 2 1/2 hours. We landed there and we were out in about 18 minutes. It was very special. We looked like rock stars coming off the plane. It was very nice. That's the way to travel I think for sure. Q. (Inaudible.) JAY HAAS: No, they stopped at the end of the runway and said we have to stop here and wait for someone to come on, and they just, you know, through some kind of conversation they had, they said no problem, just taxi on in, you're good to go. Hopefully I'm not getting the customs guy in trouble by saying that (chuckling). Q. (How proud are you of your son, Bill's, success on the PGA TOUR)? JAY HAAS: Yeah, I kind of hesitate to say it's a dream come true, because I've never dreamt something like that could possibly happen. I know how hard it is to become a professional golfer and to be successful on the PGA TOUR as a professional golfer. Just not that many people‑‑ it's a numbers game. Not that many people play that game get to a certain level. So to have someone in my family do it is an unbelievable thrill. Any parent that sees their kids do something well, I don't care if it's a six‑year‑old in the ballet or bringing home a 100, A‑plus on a paper; it's just a pride you feel when your kids do something well. So for Bill to have done it, at the grandest stage, on the grandest stage, is pretty amazing and kind of pinch myself. Last year when he won THE TOUR Championship and the FedExCup, we were there, my wife and I, we were there, and it was kind of surreal, you know, just couldn't quite get our heads around it. You know, pretty incredible. We are very proud of him. We have four other children, and they all do some pretty neat things. Q. How many were on the plane with you? JAY HAAS: There were seven of us on the plane. We were in Providence, Rhode Island, and yeah, we all shared the plane. It was a good deal. Then we had‑‑ someone I think that lives in the nearby area, had brought all our luggage up, because we certainly could not have gotten seven golf bags and suitcases and all that. They drove the luggage up and we got to bring this plane up there. So that was a nice perk. Q. (What do you expect scoring to be)? JAY HAAS: To me, it defines itself very well off the tee from what I saw. Like I said, I didn't play it, but I rode around yesterday and just looked at‑‑ I wanted to be somewhat familiar with it when I went out there today to play the Pro‑Am. With the bunkering and the tree line and everything, it pretty much tells you where to go and where not to go. To me, I play a lot with my eyes, as most people do out here. But to me, that makes it just self‑explanatory; hey, don't go left, don't go right, here is your shot and where you're supposed to go. The greens don't look like they have a tremendous amount of undulation to them but I didn't get on the greens yesterday, I just rode by them. As the speed gets up, and they look like they have some pretty good speed to them, those small undulations are kind of accentuated just because of the speed of the greens. I would expect the scores to be fairly low here just because there's quite a few 400‑yard and 380‑yard par 4s that if you get the guys driving the ball straight, a guy like Fred Funk, he's probably not going to miss any fairways; there's a lot of players who drive the ball straight out here, and if you give them opportunities in the fairway with short to mid‑irons, they are going to take advantage of it, and you know, I would think the guys are going to have to go pretty low here to win the tournament. Q. Tomorrow morning‑‑ everybody‑‑ JAY HAAS: Not necessarily. I think that's up to the individual player to get out there and see it. If I had played 30 rounds of golf here in the past and none of them have played anything, then I would take that as just my benefit, you know, that I am more familiar; that I am more of a home game. In this situation, none of the players, as I'm sure there's some Canadian players that have played here and know a little bit about the golf course, but I don't know that they want to share that much. We are all friends and everything, but that's an advantage that you like to keep to yourself, if there is such a thing. There's comments that goes on amongst the players; boy, the greens are quick today, something like that. After the fact, you say what did you hit there, did you hit 3‑wood off the tee, and you see what they are doing. There's a couple of guys I'm sure that have played two rounds here, played yesterday and today, and so they will have that benefit of that knowledge that they gained with the extra round. But if they do have any extra knowledge, they usually keep that to themselves, at least I am (smiling). Q. Playing with Mark O'Meara tomorrow ‑‑ JAY HAAS: Oh, yeah, I know them very well, sure. They are good guys, very easy to play with, very personable guys, complimentary, good shot, things like that. There's not anybody out here that I have a hard time playing with, but those guys are very, very easy to be with. 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
|