FORD SENIOR PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

July 15, 2000

Tom Kite

TOM KITE: The golf course, as you know, just by looking at the scores played a heck of a lot more difficult today. The wind kicked up, and you know, I welcome that. I was really looking forward to playing this golf course under a little bit more difficult conditions, and you know, in relationship to the field, I think I improved my position significantly and I was pleased with that. So, hopefully the wind will kick up a little bit tomorrow and again make the golf course play a little bit more challenging than it did the first part of the week. Obviously, very pleased with how I played. You know, to go around and make that many birdies on a day that it was playing this difficult is very pleasing. It was a pretty solid round. Only a couple of little errant shots, and only one cost me. But all in all, a very good day.

TOM KITE: I birdied the 3rd hole. Hit 4-wood on my second shot on 3, just off the right edge of the green, and chipped up about four feet and made that. Birdied the short par 4, No. 6. Hit a pitching wedge about a foot and a half and birdied that. Then birdied No. 9. That hole was playing significantly more difficult than it had earlier in the week. I hit 9-iron the first two days and today I hit 5-iron. Tells you just how much longer that hole played. But hit it in there about probably 18 feet to the right of the pin and made that putt. Good snaking putt there. That really felt good, because I had hit some nice putts on 7 and 8 that looked like they were going in for birdies and just missed,and so it was nice to get that birdie on 9 to turn at 3-under. 12th hole, par 3, golly, hit a beautiful little 6-iron in there just about 12 feet left of the pin, a little right breaker, and knocked that putt in. That was -- you know, getting birdie on that hole was very fortunate. Kind of almost like stealing. Then I birdied No. 14. I hit a 6-iron in there. That hole was playing very tough, and I tried to turn it in left and went just a little bit right. Made about a 25-footer coming down the hill. Bogeyed No. 15. Went brain-dead on my tee shot there. Very indecisive on the club selection. Mike and I didn't really communicate very well there on that hole, and I just laid the sod over a 5-iron, just fat-hit it; hit it just about as fat as number you'd ever want to see. Left it short of the green, chipped past about eight or nine feet and just left it hanging on the edge there. Hit a pretty good putt that didn't go. And then came back with a nice birdie on 17. Hit a good drive and 3-iron that landed in the hill and stayed just up on top. The pin was right at the very front. Had a very difficult putt. I had probably a 30-footer that -- 25-footer, that probably broke 15 feet, but I was able to 2-putt there. Made a nice, solid par on 18.

TOM KITE: Pretty good? That was real good golf, believe me.

TOM KITE: It was nice. You know, I love to get in that situation with whoever it is. Dana was playing very, very well, hitting a lot of good shots, and I was doing the same thing. It's fun to get in that type of situation where, you know, it's punch, counter-punch, and I can do this, you can do it better, you can do it, I can do it better than you and all this stuff. It goes back and forth. You know, Dana is such a great guy. He's great to play with. You know, it was just a good, fun day of some wonderful golf. I mean, 67 on this golf course, under these conditions is something we were both very proud of.

TOM KITE: You've got to play mental games to try to win this thing. You know, whatever you have to do to -- you know, all of us have to play those things. You know, convince ourselves that we're the best player in the field and try to go out and prove it. You know, but a lot of what we do overnight and early tomorrow morning will be shadowboxing compared to what's going to have to happen out on the golf course. Whoever wins is going to have to go out and shoot a very, very good score tomorrow, and you know, I feel very good about my position. I love the way I'm playing right now. I'm hitting the ball very solidly. Just couldn't be happier.

TOM KITE: In Dana's case, you've got to admire what he's done out here. He was always a good player, but he never chose to come out on the PGA TOUR. And when he'd go as the club pro, he'd always play well. And finally he had his fill of, you know, selling golf balls and decided he wanted to try and hit some. So you've got to really admire what he's done. And certainly, there have been a lot of players before me that have done things very similar to what I've done this year, or even some that have done significantly better in their first year. But there will be some more that will be coming on quickly, the next few years. There's an awful lot of good players coming out; so got to try to get your licks in while you can.

TOM KITE: That's what I've been waiting for for the last couple of years, it really is. I used to pride myself on playing tournaments and rounds like the way I've been playing the last couple of months, you know, where I'm hitting a lot of fairways, hitting a lot of greens, not making mistakes. If you miss a green, get it up-and-down. You know play some nice bunker shots. Make a few putts every now and then. But when you're playing like that, you don't really have to make every putt. You know, I certainly don't feel like I've run the table on the greens yet, even though I've made some very nice putts. But there were quite a few putts today that I -- you know, I'm sitting there, my eyes were getting big and I'm starting to walk, and, you know, I put the walk of death on them and they graze the edge. Yeah, it's heck of a lot more fun to play like this than the way I did the last couple of years. It's nice to be back.

TOM KITE: I'd say yes to all of those except distractions at home. The greatest thing that I had going while I was playing poorly was the support team that I had back home. Other than the fact that, yeah, I guess there were some distractions at home, but those were distractions that I choose to have, you know, to go watch Stephanie in a gymnastics meet or David at a golf tournament or Paul at a play or do some stuff with Christy. Those are distractions that I love or look forward to. Those are more releases than they are distractions. Other than that, I'd say all those things that you named, plus probably a couple others were contributing to it. I'd have difficulty in putting it all in one cause as to why I played so poorly, but when everything kind of keeps building, you get in that vicious cycle where you just can't get out. Finally, it was just let's step back, let's start over. Let's really get on a systematic program of what we're trying to do to really get my game back. And it wasn't, you know, jump to this and then jump to that. This is what I've been doing, going back and forth. You know, just any bite behind the ropes I'd listen to, no matter what they said. Now, I've gotten rid of all that. Working with Dave Phillips, I feel like I know exactly what I want to do with my golf swing, and now it's just a question of do I do it. And some swings out there, I do exactly what he tells me to do, and what we're trying to do with my golf swing. Other times, I'm not quite as successful. But still, the thing that I'm trying to do never changes, and so that ultimately will bring a lot of consistency.

TOM KITE: Well, you know, I never really had a slump until the very end of my career. You know, I had a little mini-slump in 1991. I won early in '91 and then didn't win the rest of that year, and then, you know, Stockton was the captain of the Ryder Cup team. I really wanted to make that team and I finished 11th in the standings for the Ryder Cup and he didn't choose me, and that hurt a lot. And then I came right back after that and had a very good year in '92, as you know, and probably 1992-93 was probably the best golf that I ever played for a year-and-a-half stretch, until I hurt my back there in '93. But I never really had much of a slump until the 1998-99 season. They were years I didn't play quite as well as others. Even in '97, I finished in the Top-10 in all of the major championships that year. I didn't win, but 1998 and 1999 were pathetic. It was horrific golf, and I'm glad to be past that.

TOM KITE: Again, it was kind of like I just alluded to. I was moving out of that slump and I had a direction that I was going, and I was committed to making the improvements in my game. And I just -- I felt in my mind that if I just kept working on it that eventually it would get there. Now it didn't get there as quickly as I hoped it would. You know, you'd love to go work with a new teacher and win the first week, but it doesn't always work that way. But, you know, I felt confident that what I was on was the right track, and that it would get there sooner or later. And really, that's one of the things that I hadn't done in the years prior to that. You know, when I tried something, if it didn't work almost immediately, I'd jump to something else. If I didn't see results in the first couple of weeks, I was jumping ship and going over here and a couple weeks later, I'm trying something else; and a couple weeks later I'm trying something else. And golly, you feel like a rat in a maze; you make so many right turns so many left turns, you can't even get back to where you were.