SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

June 3, 2003

Jim Ahern

JIM AHERN: Well, I am happy to be here, No. 1. And then after last night I walked the golf course, I mean, just what a great golf course. I think what the PGA has done by moving the event each year to another golf course has just been fabulous. But this golf course here is one of the very best I have played.

JIM AHERN: No. I just played it today. First time I saw it was last night walking in.

JIM AHERN: No. 1, this golf course is very demanding. It's a very difficult golf course. It's long. You have got to drive it in the fairway. If you are in the rough, the rough is brutal. The rain is simply going to make it play longer. It's a long golf course anyway. Only two par 5s, out there. The only advantage that the rain has is that it may keep some balls from going into the rough, which anything you can do to avoid being in that rough is good news. I am just so impressed with the golf course, I really am. It's a true test. Everybody should be really happy about us being here playing.

JIM AHERN: I will tell you what, there's a lot of those holes out here if you hit a 4-wood you have got another one, you have got another one left into the green. There are several holes there where you don't need to drive it to get it in the fairway, but you are still left with a pretty full shot in there. I don't know how much roll they were getting back then, but I will tell you just the one time I played here today, if you play a lot of those holes, if you play a 5-wood or 4-wood off the tee you have just got too long a shot in there and then the grass around the green is brutal. So you have just -- the premium really is on driving and greens and fairways are going to be big time this week. Then the greens once you are on the greens they are very demanding very undulating, if they dry out and get quick, I mean, it's going to be a true test. I shot 20-under last week, nobody will scare 20-under here this week. Even par is going to be a real good score here.

JIM AHERN: Well this is my fourth year out here, and my career out here -- I had high expectations but I hadn't played competitively in so long you know, I really didn't know how I would be able to compete out here. To do what I have done is just been fabulous. It's taken a lot of hard work and I have gotten better. I have gotten more comfortable after I won the first time up in Canada. I felt like I was accepted out here. And I played well. It's taken me four years to win again. I have had some chances and haven't been able to do it. Winning a second time has -- I didn't get as excited as I was when I won the first time, but the -- the satisfaction and the feeling that you get from winning, at least for me, is just -- there just aren't words to explain it because you know, I am not a Hale Irwin a Bruce Fleisher who win five, six tournaments a year. I won two events, and I go -- I have gone through a lot of downs too, I have had a lot of bad tournaments and if you lack at my record this year, up until Columbus, last the week before, I mean, I was playing awful. I mean just awful. But I have got it turned around and I am playing great now and my confidence has gone from down here to sky high. As far as other people, I think James Mason, here's a guy I know, I had never heard of James Mason and you know, to go through that qualifying route, to just get in a tournament is an unbelievable accomplishment and then to win from being a Monday-qualifier is just fabulous. And James has done well. He really has. He's played well. He belongs out here. He's not a fluke. He's a really a good player. So those of us who were not big names on the regular Tour, I think we're a very interesting story, the Dana Quigleys and Allen Doyles, those guys have just done spectacular. They are superstars out here on this Tour now. It is a tough deal to break into being exempt out here and playing but it can be done. I have proved it and James proved that, but boy, you have got to really play and have things go your way that week: