FORD SENIOR PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

June 27, 1999

Graham Marsh

GRAHAM MARSH: Well, I watched the best golf played all week and I probably let him play the best golf all week. What can I say? When you start and you shoot 68, I did pretty much what I had to do. I would have liked to have been lower. But, history will show that that was never going to occur. That's the way I played today. And yesterday for that matter. But it was an awesome display of touch, control, aggression. I mean, you name it. Hale did just about everything that he had to do over the last two days. And you know, it's wonderful to sit back and watch a guy play that well, be so much in control, and handle the situation with just great deal of composure. And he was -- it was fantastic to watch. I have no complaints. I'm proud of the way I played. There's very little else I could have done. I made some nice putts. Sure, I missed a few out there, but I made I mini-charge in the middle of the round there. And I think on the 10th hole when Hale hit a drive into the right rough and hit his second over the green with a wood off the side slope; had a very, very awkward lie, but played a beautiful shot to about 15-foot. I very nearly made the putt from about 18 foot for a birdie; I get 5, he goes 4 ; could have been a two-shot swing at that point, but as it turned out, my putt didn't go in. But his went in the hole which you would have expected the way he'd been putting all the time. And then he holes the second shot at 11. So that was, you know the end of the ball game. He just did everything -- everything right. But my plan was to still keep chasing him. When you're in that position, if you start backing off, then you've got no chance. You're just putting extra pressure on yourself. My goodness, it happened today. At 9, the par 5, now, you wouldn't give Aoki much chance of doing that, probably Hale Irwin even less chance, but you never know when something strange is going to happen in golf. And I just kept trying to chase and go for it as hard as I possibly could, but it was really kind of a fruitless task in the end.

GRAHAM MARSH: You can't print it.

GRAHAM MARSH: I have. I mean, I've watched a number of -- well, when you've been around as long as what we have and played around the place. I've watched that kind of thing happen. You know in all parts of the world. But it's -- it's special when it does happen. It's special when you're there to see it all happen. I don't know that sometimes people appreciate just how good that really is. We as players certainly do.

GRAHAM MARSH: Birdied 1 from just off the fringe from probably 18 feet, and had a birdie chance at the second when which I nearly made. By birdie chance at the 3rd I nearly made. I bogeyed; missed a 4-footer at the 4th for a par. I birdied the 6, 7, 8. 6, from about 30 feet. 7 from six-foot, and 8 from 12-foot. And then I made a nice birdie at 12, 13, the par 5, pitched it up about 15-foot and made that. Bogeyed 14 out of the trap on the right missed it from about eight feet there. Good par-saving putt at 15 from 15 feet. Six-foot at 16 for birdie. And two putts from 30-foot and 36-foot on 17 and 18.

GRAHAM MARSH: I think I gave him a little bit of needle making three in a row. I think it was just that little bit of a needle, just enough to say: Hey, I don't even want to think about you getting near me.

GRAHAM MARSH: That's right. And I was feeling quite confident at that stage. I just kept telling myself, like you do: Sure, just keep going. Golf is such a strange game. And I'm not wishing anything on Hale, but I was saying to myself: Well, he's shot 64 yesterday. He's out in 33 again. Maybe it's the time that he is going to slow down a little bit. But we don't know that. He slows down, he shoots even, it's a tie. You have to think like that even when you're three or four shots behind. You have to stay positive about trying to run somebody down. Look what happened in the Masters a couple of years ago.

GRAHAM MARSH: In your heart, you know it's probably over. But you don't want to believe it.