U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 29, 1997

Graham Marsh

GRAHAM MARSH: Yeah, there's a lot of boxes on this score card today, aren't there? Yeah, just not the kind of start I was looking for, obviously. Poor bunker shot at the first, a bit of a nervous jab at the one on the second, certainly the 7-iron that I hit in there. The third, another 7-iron, missed the green over to the right, so not the kind of start that I wanted. But, as I said to you earlier in the week, my plan was just to be totally patient with myself. You know, it's so easy to be patient when things are going well. It's not so easy to be patient when things start to go astray, and I knew that John was always going to be close all day and had been playing well all week. He was hitting well. He got out of the blocks the way he wanted to, got beautiful shots on the first, and the lead is gone. So, now, it starts all over again. But, in the back of my mind, I knew that we would not -- this Championship would not be decided until the last three or four holes. The only way that it wasn't going to be decided in the last three or four holes was if I had to go away to the fast start or if John didn't go away to a very fast start and somebody had really made a jump on the field. But they're probably some of the best three finishing holes that you'll play around the country. They're three pretty tough golf holes, and you can get a two-shot swing or three-shot swing on those holes. In the back of my mind, I kept telling myself, keep plugging away. I guess it's all the experience that you have over a period of time when you've played in as many championships and won as many championships like I have, you just keep drawing on that experience all the time.

GRAHAM MARSH: Well, you know, I don't think that, you know, John and I are good friends, but I don't think you have to go out on the golf course to be paly. He didn't need that situation. He's trying to win, and I'm trying to win. And I think we carried that on in a perfectly professional manner, and every time he hit a good shot, it was a good shot, and you don't need to be out there throwing your arms around one another every hole. It's not his nature, and it's certainly not mine. But that doesn't mean that we don't respect one another in the same way.

GRAHAM MARSH: Okay. Well, 2 wood -- driver and a good position to the first. 2-wood into the green-side bunker. It was not a particularly good lie, but I made it into a very poor shot and put it some 45 feet away and 3-putted. Second, another good drive and poured it into the left-hand bunker, came out about 15 feet and 2-putted. Missed the green to the right with 7-iron on the third, and in the long grass chipped it up to about 15 foot again and missed. The 5th, I came back on track there. A 4-wood and a pitching wedge to about 8 feet and made it. Nice par at 7. Took the trees on down the left-hand side and clipped the trees, had to chip outside right, hit an 8-iron onto the green, holed about 15 foot for a par. 9th, I just turned it left and had a very, very ordinary lie in the fairway trap on the left, ball well above my feet and pushed it way right with an 8-iron over the right-hand bunker and came down on the other side of the green and 2-putted from off the edge of the green there for a 5. 10, caught the trees again with a 4-wood and had to lay up short, pitched it up to about 15 feet and missed that. Then an 8-iron at the next -- finished about 3 feet from the hole. 12, clipped the trees going down the left-hand side, again stayed on the fairway, it was never going to go left of that, but just clipped the trees and fell short. Hit a 4-iron that went over the back of the green, over the long grass, pitch it up short 18 feet, 2 putts. 13, 14, I just missed the green to the right and chipped it with a 6-iron to about 15 feet and -- no, about 12 feet and made the putt for 3 at 14. 15, off the right edge of the green again and 2-putted that from 16 yards. 16, two nice shots at 16, but I was just in the wrong position, right behind that huge hump and I had about a, oh, probably about a 20-foot putt, but I had about 10 foot of borrowing, so I'm trying to get it up on top and leak down the hill. It's one of those putts that I could go back and hit it 10 times, probably the best I was going to get it was 5 or 6 feet. I hit it too hard, and it went over the hill, so I 3-putted that from the edge. 17, I hit a very good drive down there. It's in a divot hole. Turned the face of a 9-iron a little bit. It was in the divot hole, in a replaced divot hole on the front edge of it. I hit a 9-iron from there, landed on the front of the green, pitched up there 8-feet short of the hole. I had made that for a 3, on top of John, who holed a beauty for a 3 there. And 18, I just hit my best drive probably for the week. Just smacked one down the middle of the fairway there. Somebody said it went about 295. I don't know where it went. It went right, straight down the middle, right where I aimed it. 8-iron in there to about 18 feet, I suppose.

GRAHAM MARSH: Well, there's always anticipation and pressure, I mean, when you're leading a golf tournament. Absolutely no doubt about that. And I just probably didn't feel any differently than what -- I wouldn't say that I was any tenser than I've been in other situations when I had been leading golf tournaments. I knew it was important, but I also knew it was going to be a very, very long day out there. And really the striking for the first -- I missed the two iron shots, but I had the feel with the driver. I was getting it down the fairway, getting into position where I wanted to be. I couldn't get the range with my irons. I guess I started to steer them into the hole. The second, I tried to hit a hard 7-iron and came over the top of it. That didn't do any -- didn't do much for my confidence. And then the inevitable happens: On the third, you leave it out hanging to the right. So I wasn't feeling any differently to what I normally feel, but I felt like my swing wasn't all that far away from it, but it was just irritating. It just sort of slipped out of that really tight groove. Now, you could probably go back and say, well, that was the pressure.

GRAHAM MARSH: You know, the funny --

GRAHAM MARSH: Yeah, the funny thing was, we all have visual things happen to us on the golf course, and for some reason or other, after I hit my drive, I just had the feeling that I was going to birdie that hole. I knew -- I'd asked my caddie on the tee where was the pin. If I just get this down the fairway, where I know I can attack that pin, I can make a birdie. And I had a vision that I was going to make a birdie on that hole. When I got down there and it was in the divot hole, that vision wasn't quite as strong. But I still had it in my mind that I could make 3 out of there. It was a -- if I just caught it correctly, and that was, you know, it was just a great shot to hit out of the divot hole and have it coming in there. It was just almost like it was made for it. And the putt was a good putt. That was a big putt.

GRAHAM MARSH: Well, you know, it's the sort of calmness that you get when you're under pressure like that. You know, maybe it's your last chance. And it's sort of a do-or-die situation. And you have that feeling. I mean, sometimes those putts are easier in that situation, and what it is when you're sort of starting out and have that little bit of tension and you know that it's probably not quite as important at that stage. It's when you get right down to the stretch, it's like that drive at 18, I hadn't been -- I hit a very good drive at 17, but this golf course doesn't allow you to get the driver out of the bag very often, particularly in the middle of the round there. You're sort of laying up, sort of getting it into position. You don't get the driver out until you get around to 16. I hit a pretty good drive at 16, a nice drive at 17. And I thought, all right, let's just get up there. I did what I did yesterday. A much better drive down 18. I absolutely cracked it down there. I thought it's now or never. It's just a feeling that you get. It's now or never.

GRAHAM MARSH: Well, you were here earlier in the week. I said even par could win the tournament, and I believed that even par was a pretty good score around here. As it turned out, that was the score. So even though those shots were going away. My attitude was still positive in the sense that, hey, this thing is not over. You know, John was -- even though he was playing well, he was still struggling. He wasn't hitting a string of birdies going for himself. He was still struggling to make a very good score. And there were a couple players that weren't way out of the lead that were doing quite nicely, but there was nobody in the lead that was doing outstanding. I thought, well, hey, you could still get down to even par. And, that was -- it's history now.

GRAHAM MARSH: 153.

GRAHAM MARSH: Not at all. No, I have no thought. I mean, when John hit it into the bunker, I honestly believed that John was going to get it up-and-down. I mean, I just thought he was going to make 4. So we were tied. Well, I was obviously in the position where, hey, there's the shot. I could see the shot. The only thing that went through my mind on the shot at 18, I hit 153, it was slightly into the breeze and uphill. I knew I couldn't get it to the hole, but I made the mistake at Pinehurst a couple of years ago, when I backed off and hit a 5-iron instead of hitting a 6-iron. I backed off and tried to hit a three-quarter shot when I was under the gun, and it cost me an opportunity to get into a playoff. I hit a hard 8, and let's keep it under the hole. I knew I could get it up there within 6 or 7 feet of the hole.

GRAHAM MARSH: No. At that stage, I've always found that when I'm under the gun and you're coming down the stretch, that the best philosophy is stand up there and pick the club that you know you can put a full swing on. Don't try to get fancy at that stage. I mean, the situation is tight enough as it is. Let's get a shot out there that you can put a full swing on.

GRAHAM MARSH: Well, for me, I had a very expressed purpose in coming to the United States and playing Senior golf, and that was to win a Major -- a Mini Major or one of the Senior Majors. You guys call it whatever you like. But, for me, that's how I relate to it. It's not the same as a Major, but it's clearly a much bigger event than the other events that we play out there. And for my money, the U.S. Senior Open is the most important Senior Open title in world golf, and it's just a wonderful feeling to have won that. So, in terms of how I feel about it, it's something that I set as a target, it was a goal, and I've now achieved one of those goals, and that's a very, very satisfying thing.

GRAHAM MARSH: Oh, I don't think that, you know. It would depend how you would define the crowd. I mean, we didn't have the majority of the gallery with us, but we had people following us all day. There were a number of people following us all day. And I think they started to gather around about the -- well, from probably, from about 11 on, at the par 3, that was pretty well ringed with people there and then as you go away again, they don't go -- they normally don't go down to 12. They were back there waiting at 13, a big crowd around 14. They were coming back to the clubhouse over here, so I think they warmed to the battle in the last five or six holes. And, when I looked at that scoreboard around about the 13th, 14th and saw that Gil Morgan was in the clubhouse at 2, I thought, hey, one of us -- there's no guarantee that we're going to win from here on in. It could have slipped by either of us at that point in time. It could have been a three-way playoff around here. As I said, those three holes are not easy golf holes.

GRAHAM MARSH: Well, I think it's a little too early to think about that one, but I'll regroup and I'll have another one. I've always been a goal-seeker right from the time I started my career. When I first went out as a professional, I had three goals: One was to win a major championship, one was to win 50 international titles, and the other was to win a million dollars. Now, that was a magical number in those years to think that you could win a million dollars in one year. I'm talking Australian dollars here, too, which is 30 percent less. I mean, it's just remarkable, isn't it, how the game has grown? I achieved two of the three goals that I set for myself. I didn't win a Major. I came very close in a couple British Opens, and then obviously I didn't play enough golf in the United States to be able to qualify for the other three Majors. And that was -- that's what I've talked about as being one of my big regrets. But coming back here and saying, well, I'm now going to play the Senior Tour on a relatively full-time basis, the goal was to get out and win a Major championship. And that's why this win is so special. I think -- you just have to look at -- I mean, I watch what some of you guys wrote. I mean, Nicklaus when he didn't play well at the U.S. Open this year, he's preparing for the U.S. Senior Open. Hale Irwin played in the U.S. Open to get mentally prepared, ready to play in the U.S. Senior Open. I mean, Gil Morgan had a couple weeks off to get his back ready so he could come out and play in the U.S. Senior Open. It's a very big title for us.

GRAHAM MARSH: That's another one I'm going to have to think about.

GRAHAM MARSH: The one at Royal Birkdale, I was leader in the clubhouse. I shot 64 the last round in 1984, I believe it was. It was the last of Tom Watson's championships, which I think was '84 -- '83, was it? And I finished two shots back, but I shot 64, and I think I was up about 10:30 in the morning. It was the best round of golf I have ever played in my life, and the leaders were falling over, and I was the leader in the clubhouse for the last 9 holes. And as I came to the 9th hole, the flags on the clubhouse, which was standing sideways, dropped and the guys got in the clubhouse were leading about 2 shots. I still believe to this day if the wind had kept blowing, I would have been the British Open champion.

GRAHAM MARSH: That was the real reason. My kids were at critical stages in school. I didn't want to pull them out of school at that stage and put them into the system over here. There was -- you know, I had a pretty comfortable situation where I was playing around the world and exempt on four Tours. As I said, in hindsight, it was a mistake. I should have come and spent more time playing in the United States. Well, because it robbed me of the opportunity. In those days, there wasn't a Sony World Ranking -- whether you like it or not, there wasn't a Sony World Ranking. I had no way in playing in the other three Majors, unless I was playing on the U.S. Tour virtually full-time. And, by not coming and playing here, I really limited myself to one Major a year, which was the British Open.

GRAHAM MARSH: You know, not until the last hole. Not until the very last hole, until my shot in at the last hole. The shots really are not that dissimilar. Par 4, the second shot being uphill. You drive uphill, and down here you drive down the hill. There you drive up the hill. It's uphill all the way, and the green is sort of perched in up there, and I just made the mistake of going -- trying to hit all the way back to the hole on that occasion instead of taking the 6-iron and just making a full, hard swing at it and tried to be cute with a 5-iron and missed it to the right and didn't get it up-and-down. I never thought about it until the shot at the last hole. I made up my mind I wasn't going right back to that 7-iron -- or a 7-iron, I should say.

GRAHAM MARSH: Well, because there's a huge time change, and there's a huge distance between here and my city of Perth. If I want to go back to Perth, it takes me 36 hours from here. You do that a couple times in the course of a year, you suddenly realize that you start doing that every two or three weeks, you finish up ga-ga. And the Japanese Tour is a little easier, because it's only 10 hours away. There's a one-hour time change. We all know what time changes do to our systems. I couldn't have competed in this country on a part-time basis. The players are far too good.

GRAHAM MARSH: Well, I have been in a situation where I've infringed the rules. I don't know that it's cost me a tournament. I remember the Hale Irwin incident. Tom's incident was clearly unfortunate. I had his card, and I saw him lean over and hit it and look -- from the angle that I was, and I was right off the edge of the green right by the gates going out. It looked like he may have sort of hit it and dragged it back in. And I turned around, and the USGA officials were standing hole-high right there, and there were two of them. It was kind of a situation, when those things happen and you're playing well, and it's the type of championship, I personally didn't want to get -- I didn't want to get into a situation with Tom: Well, how many did you have? Tom, did you do it or didn't you do it? It wasn't my situation to do that. Because I looked at the official after it happened, and they looked at me and sort of raised their eyebrows as if there may have been an infringement. I said to one of them at the time, I said, well, you guys are right there. You're the officials in our group. If you think it's -- if you think that's the case, I think you are the guys to respond to that now. I wanted to get the monkey off my back because I wanted to get on and concentrate on my game the last three holes, three finishing holes which are extremely difficult. I just didn't want to be burdened with, you know, getting into a discussion about that at that particular point. I was happy to leave it until after the round. I felt almost certain that it would have been on television, being that we were in the second-to-last group and that Tom was very close to the lead. I thought probably the best way to decide this is let the television decide.

GRAHAM MARSH: Yeah, I played them very well. There's no question. And I think the key to it was the fact that I drove the ball pretty well each time down there. I missed the fairway -- I hit four beautiful drives at 16, and managed to get it out of the hole. I took the back of the green out of play at 16. I just didn't want to go past the hole. And today I didn't have an option because I was on the right side of the fairway coming across those bunkers, so I had to get over those bunkers. I would have liked to have hit a 4-iron, but I didn't have that option. Left it in the worst position and obviously making a bogey there. 17, again, driving was the key, hitting it into the right position. I hit one poor drive at 18, but I hit three outstanding drives down there. That's the key to that hole, driving it well and landing it on the fairway.

GRAHAM MARSH: No, he's not. I've never met Luc Longley, but clearly I do follow the Chicago Bulls just for that reason. There's another fellow called Jordan that can play a bit too.

GRAHAM MARSH: Well, it's so disappointing when you've been in second position. I would dearly love John to win this title and experience the elation that I'm experiencing now. It's hard work. You gut it out four days, and there's no such thing as an easy win in a Major championship. Even when the guys play extremely well, it's still under intense pressure. I just hope John has that opportunity to do it and to win it. Again, as a friend, I would love that for him.

GRAHAM MARSH: I have no doubt that it could host the U.S. Open. I think it would probably need -- the golf course would probably need to be looked at in terms of its length in some of the areas where there are a few holes where you could probably increase the length a little. I think some of the -- all the golf courses where the dogleg turns are the turning point of the hole. I think some of the older golf courses in my design business, we work 230 meters is the turning point which is out at 10 percent on the note, about 255 yards, so some of these golf courses, they're probably back about the 230 point. I know that some of them have been relooked at and remodeled for these championships, but if there was a chance to look at it and I'm sure -- they have another 9 or 18 out there, have they? How many holes? They have another 18. I'm sure they could find 18 holes out there that would be very, very credible golf holes to host the U.S. Open. Whether it has all the facilities and all those things, I'm unaware.