WACHOVIA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 6, 2003

Jay Haas

Bill Haas

BILL HAAS: I'm glad I can be a part of that, if not just this once, I think I can maybe get out here in two years and he might still be out there. We might get plenty more chances. But I'm looking forward to it and the last time he played -- inaudible -- I should do okay this week.

Q. (Inaudible.)

BILL HAAS: Golf is an individual game and college makes it a team sport, but you still play for yourself and try to win the tournament individually, and hopefully your teammates will pick up and do well themselves.

Q. (Inaudible.)

BILL HAAS: I like it. It's long and difficult. I hit the ball a decent ways, but I think most important thing is you've got to hit good iron shots to the right part of the greens, and if you make some putts, then you can score pretty good. But scores, I don't think they will be 22-under,21-under like they were last week or like they have been at some events. I'm looking forward to it.

Q. (Inaudible.)

JAY HAAS: Well, I guess I haven't thought too far down the road. People will ask me what I'll do next year, and I guess my goal this year, one of my first goals, probably the easiest or the least of my goals was to make Top-125 and remain exempt so I would have an option to play both tours next year.

Now, in three, four, five months, depending how I finish this year out, depending what my position is will dictate a little bit of what I do next year. Now, the year after that, I don't know. I think Bill, he's going to graduate in four years and I think Jay and I would like to see him do that. And then after that, you know, who knows what we'll do. But there's a chance for me to play in certain events, if I hold my World Ranking -- I don't know. It's just a long way away, but, yeah, I get an unbelievable charge out of seeing him out here today, hitting good drives and just listening to people ooh and ahh, hit the long one and stuff. As a parent, I think we can all relate to that, when our kids do something really good.

To compete against him and watch him mature and everything, that would be great. I guess we should have had him a little earlier so I wouldn't have been so old when he's out here playing.

Who is to say what will happen? It's kind of the long answer for you there. But just going to keep playing as long as I can on this tour.

Q. How proud of you are the way he's played this year on TOUR?

BILL HAAS: I'm so proud of him. I tell him that all the time. You know, he missed a cut but the next week he's in the last group. He only missed one cut this year, two cuts. He missed a cut but then the next week he finishes fifth. I'm so proud of that. I look up to that and hopefully I can do something like he's doing.

Q. Could you comment on your days playing here at the Kemper and how the golf course has changed since then?

JAY HAAS: I hope it's changed for about the better for me. If you saw my record here, MC, MC, MC for last three years they had it here -- the course has changed quite a bit from a greens standpoint. They really put a lot of movement in the greens now. The layout is generally the same, 6,7,8,9, they have altered those holes, but otherwise the holes are pretty much like they were, quite a bit more length. And the course didn't suit me a whole lot back until the late 70s. It was too long for me I think. It's probably a little too long now, it wouldn't be right up my alley, but I've been playing well and scoring well so that kind of carries through no matter where I'm playing hopefully. Hopefully quite a bit different, and it is.

It's totally different around the greens. You have to really be careful what side of the pin you're on. When the pin is in a certain place you can be 40 feet and be better off than you would being eight feet. So in that regard, it's a big difference.

Q. A lot of guys your age in the 40-something crowd have played well this season, can you comment on that?

JAY HAAS: Well, I think that in this sport, we have no one to tell us that we're through. You don't have a manager or an owner or a coach or whatever saying, you know, we don't want you anymore, you can't play, you're not in our plans and all that. So we don't know when to quit. And the way the money is now, a golfer can kind of hang around and make a decent living and maybe get a hot streak. With fifth place, I made 180,000 two weeks ago at Houston. Up until about two years ago, 180,000 was my biggest check I had ever made in my career. My first couple wins were 40,000 and 54,000. So if I finish 100th on the Money List or an old guy finishes 100th, he still is making money, he can support his family, he can still go play and do all that; but 25 years ago, you couldn't do that. You couldn't make enough money to do both. You could not do one or the other. I think that's a big part of it.

And the guys that are playing well, myself excluded, I would say, Nick Price, Scott Hoch, Mark O'Meara, Freddie Couples, these are great, great players, and so it's no surprise to me that guys like that play well at any time.

Q. Just your thoughts on the course and how wet it is and how much of a factor do you think that will be this week?

JAY HAAS: Hopefully it will dry out. From raining two inches last night, I think it's dried out quite a bit. The greens are beautiful right now and might get a little firmer. They are going to drain the water out of the greens and hopefully it won't rain too much, but it's certainly made it a lot longer for a player like me. I don't carry the ball that far, and I was way behind Bill today and a couple other guy in that group. It doesn't really play to my strengths, but the ball is going to hit and stick in the fairways, so in that sense it might make it just a little bit easier but I would like to see it playing a lot faster than it is right now.

Q. How much does the technology play into some of you and the older guys?

JAY HAAS: It's helped me and helped everyone. It's not like I'm the only one has a metal head that hits it a long way and a golf ball that goes straight and long and all that. That's been a big part of the older guys, too. We are generally hitting the same club or even less to the hole than we did 20 years ago. You go to courses, like a Riviera, that we've played, a tournament that's been there as long as I can remember, and usually I'm hitting less club than I've ever hit before. And that doesn't make any sense, 49 years old, should be getting longer and longer for me. But that has always been a big issue with the older guys trying to keep up.

Q. Can you share one or two things you've learned over the years from your dad that have helped you progress?

JAY HAAS: I'm anxious to hear this.

BILL HAAS: I think maybe his demeanor or, his attitude, his take on how to go about playing the game, if you're talking golf-related. I've learned plenty off the golf course, but on the golf course, I think everybody tells me what a great guy he is. Everybody tells me how he's a great guy to play with. They all look up to him and like him as a person. I think that's very important out here. You know, you hear players about players that are great players, but, man, what a blank. I think that's important; if you're going to live this life and play out here on this tour, you've got to be well liked and you've got to be received well at every tournament every week and that's the part I've learned most.

Q. Talk about some of your memories about playing back then; were you scared, nervous?

JAY HAAS: I think other than this course beat me to death, I remember walking out here one Thursday morning. I think Jerry McGee maybe won that year, I don't know which year that was, maybe my first or second year. And Andy Beam, Stadler maybe, they were like 10-under,11-under, 9-under, 8-under, something like this that. It was unbelievable. I looked at the scoreboard and said, "Well, they must not have taken down the Pro-Am score from yesterday." And they said, "No, he's 10-under today." And I just couldn't even fathom shooting 3-under, much less 10-under. I just remember the course and being big and long and tough and way more than I could handle at that stage.

Then I moved here and joined the club and learned more about it, learned where to attack and how to play the course a little bit, but then they changed the course on me so I didn't have that great of an advantage.

But that's my vision of that course, being just brutally tough and the ball not going as far as it does now and not being able to reach doglegs and hitting long irons and woods into these par 4s, I was overmatched.

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