CANON GREATER HARTFORD OPEN

June 25, 2001

Ted Kroll

TED KROLL: I think it is very nice, Bob, in order to be here. I have a lot of friends here. I did have a lot of friends and I'm meeting more friends. Pretty soon I'll be crowded.

TED KROLL: Well, it rained a little bit in the morning, that sort of stuff, but it wasn't bad. We played. Toward the late afternoon, trees were starting to buckle and everything like that. And so we had to stop -- stop playing, so we waited and waited and they said it was okay to come back. Some wanted to cancel the tournament, that round, and you can't do that because some of them were finished, so there were only a few groups left. I was playing the last round with Julius Boros . I played the last hole par and that was good enough to win. Shot 67 that round and so that was it.

TED KROLL: Oh, if you're standing on one of the greens and you just stood there without spikes, you would slide down the hill. First prize I think was $12,000 winning the tournament. Now for a tournament now, not all of them, but quite a few of them, half a million.

TED KROLL: Oh, sure. Nice to dig into that pile, wouldn't it?

TED KROLL: Yeah, loaned him a putter. I don't understand, I must be a hell of a nice guy.

TED KROLL: Well, Arnie is a good fellow, really.

TED KROLL: I played in a couple of tournaments, not too many. I played in the '41 U.S. Open. I was leading that for 25 holes or something and somebody says the score on the board -- you know, "Hey, sonny, do you know who is leading the tournament?" "I don't know. I don't care who is playing." P. "You are." I don't know what the hell I shot the last --

TED KROLL: Ruined everything.

TED KROLL: Everything. They have better maintenance than we used to have. You're not going to have any bad lies. Once in awhile, you're liable to. But it's cleaner. It's cleaner. More of the greens are steady. In other words, you don't have it flowing and all that sort of stuff.

TED KROLL: I think that you take at least a stroke, or roughly that, maybe a point. And you have more people. So playing good one week, bad the next week or something like that. Now when they get going, the greens are all the same, and they just mow all over the greens.

TED KROLL: See, when you hit a ball off a good fairway, you can stop it, shoot it right at the flag and all that sort of stuff. When we played, you shoot it at the flag, you're down there in the swamps.

TED KROLL: Oh, sure we had a lot more fun. We didn't work as hard, either. It wasn't a matter of life and death when we played because you weren't going to make that much money anyway. We didn't carry a briefcase with us because we didn't need it. Now they need a briefcase with them and all the contracts and everything like that, how much stock they have left. I don't have much stock left, either. (Laughter.)

TED KROLL: Well, I think the people made it. The golf course wasn't that difficult. The layout wasn't that difficult. But the people wanted you to come back. And it was good to see Lee Trevino is here, Sam Snead, Arnie. All of them.

TED KROLL: You've got to have something going for you. You can't be straight and narrow. You've got to wide it -- wider -- it's good. Of course, only thing is don't lie too much, because when they get you next time you'll forget what lie you did and they have got you covered.

TED KROLL: Well, I have some good ones. I was going to tell you a good one -- I'm talking about a woman. (Laughter.) Well, Sam beat me in a couple tournaments and he says, "Ted, can't you win anymore." And now Sam and I are playing each other in a PGA and as we are playing the 14th hole, I'm all up on sand. I had a 4-wood and I put it a couple feet off the green and Sam hit a 1-iron and I think he put it on the green but he -- oh, longer than that. So, I went up and I putted about from here to here and I made it -- Sam putted from about here to here. I was going to give him the putt and -- but he was on the side hill and so he missed it. Well, what happened, somebody caught him on his backstroke and now there's no way that they can make this -- sorry, Sammy couldn't help it. Look here, you son of a gun. So, now we are going and we're going off the edge of the green and I dug a little one and he says, "What's so funny?" And I says, "Sam, that's the first time in your life you ever lost a little." That's a true story -- inaudible -- pine tree in Florida and we're playing the 50th -- Sam Snead he was on TOUR and that sort of stuff, and so I told that story at dinner time with a woman there and Sam went up and he told the same thing -- he says: "And that dirty rat cost me the PGA." (Laughter.)

TED KROLL: Oh, yeah, I won the match. It was match play, yeah.

TED KROLL: I don't know, because I think the interest is so deep that -- well, that's what they think about golf. Yeah, I hit a good shot -- how close was it, well about that close. There's no question about it, I thought I made it, but I didn't. I was close. We'll see. What happens is that I get to play with the fellas and all that sort of stuff, and you're trying to compare how you did against him. If he was a better player than you; you want to watch him. If he's a worse player than you look the other way. Like Sam Snead says, he couldn't watch Hogan too much because Hogan was so fast, you know, swinging fast, flatter swing. He was a fast swinger. And Sam said he can't watch the man play. His swing is so slow that I think he falls asleep while he's swinging. That's the sort of stuff I told them that yesterday. I says, "First time I played with you was somewhere in Florida. You just came out of the Amateur." So, we're playing and I says -- Gee, how plays I -- I didn't say so lazy. But he says because I'm so lazy. But I tell you something, he could play. He could play, I tell you that. But he took it back slow, start slow, and slow running it through, and the ball is on the fairway and he takes an iron shot slow, slow and a little bit over there -- on the green. I says, hell, if you do that with a putter -- (Laughter.) But I enjoy coming here, because it's the people that make the tournament. That's what makes the tournament. You just look around. How many spectators -- spectators in the country right here. That's because you people support it. You get support from the people. You're going to have something that's good, you may have a couple of people that aren't that good, but the majority of them, and that's what counts.

TED KROLL: I think of the good shots I hit, and I remember the bad shots that cost me the Open, the PGA and all that sort of stuff. I was always thinking about how good it was, I mean, how close the shot went. Playing Sam Snead, I mean, it, was because it was fun.

TED KROLL: The bad ones I remember, too. There's quite a few bad ones, I'll tell you that. It's nice to be with you, but I've got to go. Have fun and enjoy.