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SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY KITCHENAIDMay 25, 2013Rod SpittleST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Q. I was wondering, a lot of stuff has been happening to a lot of people on the back nine, not all of it has been good. But you seem to obviously make a little bit of a move here and I just wonder what it was like for you coming in today. ROD SPITTLE: Well, I wish I had a brilliant answer for you, first of all, but my strategy from the, from day one from Thursday has been exactly the same and will not change for tomorrow. And that's just to drive it in the fairway and hit it on the greens. And I just had it in position to make a couple of putts on the back nine, which is always nice. But again, you, I'm sure you, as everybody else has told you, it's such a, it's such a brutal golf course if you get it in the wrong place. I mean I just tried to keep it real simple and I never, after the rough start I had on Thursday afternoon, kind of the first nine holes, everything has been pretty solid and again, like I said, I made three birdies on the back nine, just had it in good spots and the greens are so smooth, especially after the rain, it slowed down just a little bit, so it was pretty good to make putts. Q. How far was the bomb on the last hole? ROD SPITTLE: I don't know. You have to tell me. I would say 30 feet, maybe 35 feet. I just told Jimmy, I wasn't chasing the pin, it was kind of a little bit tucked on that right side, and I had a good yardage. I guess we had about 168 pin or so with a breeze behind us. So I just hate smooth 8‑iron left of the pin like that. And I was just trying to make four and again I wish I had a more glamorous answer for you, but it's nice that it went in. Q. How sweet was it to end the round on a shot like that? ROD SPITTLE: Oh, it was great. I really didn't pay much attention to the score. I made the two on 16, that was huge. And then because again I hit a good shot in and made it from about, I don't know, 10 or 12 feet, I guess. And then on 18, I was just trying to hit it a little bit pin high left of the, a little bit left of the pin, I should say. And so again it's just a great way to finish a round. Q. You've been asked before, but your story is somewhat fascinating. To be an amateur player until you're 50 and then come out here and you have all your championships on the table the last round of the 2011 ‑‑ ROD SPITTLE: Yeah, that's pretty much it. It was 2010. I won the last tournament ‑‑ again, my, the quick version, again, not to bore you guys, but again, our game, my dream was always to play again. And after finishing college and again I played at Ohio State of course with John Cook and Joey Sindelar who are great guys and great gentlemen. And I just thought I could always play. I won like two Canadian Amateurs when I was in school and I just chose not to chase the life‑style of traveling and being away from my family, like John and Joey did. So that's again my hat continues to go off to them because of that. So we, again, we turned pro at 49. Our kids were grown. They're now, we have three kids, they're 34, our daughter is 34, we had two boys, 32 and 29, two grand daughters. And it just seemed to make sense. We put a five year plan together. Truly, as you probably have heard and, again, I knew, obviously, not playing the Regular Tour, our game plan was to work our way on to the Champions Tour, which is what I did for a couple years playing the Monday qualifiers and basically learned how to play again at this level. And fortunately as we were kind of winding down and I was beginning to did you see off my resume, I won the last tournament of the year in 2010 in San Antonio and that brought us, that changed everything. That changed everything. So it is ‑‑ my job now is just to keep this job as long as I can. So it's been ‑‑ we have been very blessed. Q. Were you seriously half step away from going back and selling insurance? ROD SPITTLE: Yeah, closer than you probably want to know. Closer than we probably both want to know. And again, it wasn't that ‑‑ because we had truly, we said five years, and I was getting ready to go back to TOUR school that fall. Because that was the fall of 2010. And I absolutely, up until that time, I had played pretty well and we had made a little bit of money. I think, I forget where we finished on the Money List, but I played enough and probably played 18 or 20 or 30 tournaments by then and, but again, it's just so ‑‑ and you know all this ‑‑ it's just not playing the Regular Tour, to come and play full‑time is kind of challenging. And that was more so than coming out to play golf, really. Q. You've been somewhat of an ironman these last couple years out on the Champions Tour. And having won, how invaluable do you think that experience is going to be for you tomorrow? ROD SPITTLE: Well, it's huge. Again, my ‑‑ it's very nice that you noticed that I played all ‑‑ as I tell people, we waited a long time to play, so I'll play out here, I'll play the Champions Tour, I'll play the Ladies Tour, I'll play whatever TOUR, the web.com, you know. So again, so again, to play 25 times is okay. It's only half the year, really, when you get right down to it. So we're ‑‑ and like I said, we have waited a long time to do this. And so we our perspective obviously is just a little bit different than somebody whose played for 30 years. So the win, everybody wants to play as well as they can, no matter what level that might be. And the win was huge. I mean it changed everything. Again, even as I told all my buddies and my kids, I still, I played golf for 40 years and made a three and a half foot in 2010 to win a golf tournament, to win a professional golf tournament. So I still get goose bumps and that's just what's so great about the sport that we play. And I kind of postponed my stuff a little bit later than John and Joey and as I told everybody, they won their tournaments at 25, I won mine at 55. That's all. So trust me, I'm having as much fun as you guys are. And I know where we are, I mean it just gives us a chance to play, as I've always told people, with guys who I've watched play forever. And they are the best guys. And they are Hall of Fame guys. And they're great gentlemen. And to come and have the chance to walk around with them, let alone play a little bit about them is truly a blessing. Q. (Inaudible.) ROD SPITTLE: The classic answer is of course tomorrow is just like every other day. Hit it in the fairway, hit it on the greens, try not to watch the scoreboard too much and you just get yourself, as everybody says standing here, get yourself in position come tomorrow afternoon about three or four o'clock and let's just see what happens. And you hope you make a few, have a brilliant strategy, I always just try make a few more birdies than bogeys. But either way, we're in a pretty neat spot. There's no doubt about it. Hopefully we get the chance ‑‑ this guy and I have been hanging out since Thursday night at 8 o'clock in the dark, in the rain when everybody else has gone home. Isn't that right? So this is a whole lot more fun now, let me tell you. Q. You said the first nine holes you made it sound like the first nine holes were a little difficult? ROD SPITTLE: What did I say? We got ‑‑ you know, it was, I mean it just goes to show what, again, it's a four round tournament. You know all this. And you've heard all this. It's a four round tournament, so we had the last tee time on Thursday afternoon and hopefully you all were inside warm and dry, because we weren't. And it got ‑‑ so we're teeing off at 2:30. So I needed a nap anyway before I got started. And it just got ‑‑ he was out here, I mean we're starting on the back nine, which is brutal, I'm into the sure, I finally made a par on 10 today, which is the first one this week. And all the conditions ‑‑ you note conditions ‑‑ they have been hard for everybody. But we caught it when the wind was howling into us and it was range sideways, and I couldn't find a fairway. And so I mean I had, what is it? 13, par‑3. I'm standing on that par‑3, I made bogey, par, double, and I was lucky to be 3‑over. Let me tell you. So it was, you know, you just kind of simmer down and get dry and I think I got, I think I made three birdies, did I make three birdies on the back nine to get back to even par, I think. I forget what par is on the back nine. I'm sorry. But I got back to even par and then we just kind have been playing ever since. It just so happened I made them all in that first hour, instead of stretching them over four days. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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