KEMPER OPEN

June 5, 1998

Fred Funk

FRED FUNK: Well, it was -- first of all, it is really good to be here two days in a row. That's unbelievable. Actually, I played a lot more solid today than I did yesterday. Yesterday I had the great front nine, but I had a couple really lucky shots. Today I played real solid on the front nine, which was my back nine today. I could have shot five under again, I shot three under. But starting the round today, I was a little uptight when I started. But once I got to the tee, I was feeling pretty good and I was just wanting to make sure I stayed patient out there and not get ahead of myself. I've been doing a good job of that. Today was just a good, patient round of golf. It could have been -- I would have been ecstatic with 66. I am ecstatic with 66 before it started. But yesterday should have been the 66 and today was the 64. So it's a push. I'm not complaining one way or the other. One thing I was thinking, though, coming down the front nine, which was my back again, I had a semibirdie putt on four and almost made it. But five and six I had real good birdie chances and I missed them. I was just really trying -- I was conscious of staying patient, but I wanted to separate myself from the field a little bit. Even though it's only Friday, I don't think you can ever have enough birdies in the bank. I like to make a lot of deposits early and keep them going because you never know. Like I said yesterday, there's so many shots that are potentially going in the water here, in trouble, and you don't have to hit it -- you don't have to hit it that far off-line or you don't have to miss a shot too bad. You can get a bad marginal lie in the fairway. If it happens to be on a shot where you have to carry some water, like on 10, on 12, there are a number of holes out there, you're in trouble. Actually -- I actually had a conscious thought last night. Ten is giving me fits. I knew we were going to have the upfront pin today. Justin drew a really bad lie yesterday on that hole. I was just hoping that I wasn't going to draw a real bad lie with that pin. I had a good tee shot, good lie. That kind of relaxed me right out of the gate. It was a conscious thought, though. Funny how I was thinking that last night. But, again, it was fun to play with the group I had. We all have similar games. And Justin played great. He started off a double bogey on ten, but then he brought it back really quick. And then he had the hole-in-one, which was electric out there with so many people. It was phenomenal. It was actually a shot -- I was telling Justin, I said this is kind of weird. It's weird for me, Justin, but when you hit that, I thought it was in the hole, I didn't even see the ball yet. It just sounded so crisp, I knew it was on-line. Then when I looked up and saw where it was going to land, I said that's probably going to go in. Sure enough, it was just a pure shot. But anyway, good day overall. And I'm hoping to just keep playing with the same patience and intensity that I've had the last two days. Really the last few weeks. And that I post a good number tomorrow, get in a good position for Sunday, then let's see what happens. Yeah, anybody?

FRED FUNK: On 16?

FRED FUNK: Well, 13, I got a bad break there, I thought. I was trying to lay up, and I landed just an 8-iron exactly where I wanted it. It just looked like it hit concrete, rolled all the way around and then I had a really tricky shot there. That was big. That was a neat little shot there. I kind of felt like Tim Conway in Dorf on Golf --

FRED FUNK: That Dorf on Golf tape, if you've ever seen it, Tim Conway with no legs sitting there. I was down there, that was a tricky little shot. And fortunately the hole allows you to run it up. That's the only shot I really had. 16, I drove it in almost the exact same spot as I did yesterday. I had to go underneath that tree a little bit and still being in the rough, I'm not a real good rough player. Especially with my Cavity-back irons. I just played it back. I knew I had to keep it down. I ended up short of the green fine, but I just didn't want to be in that big bunker over there on the left. I just swung really hard at it and it came out perfect. I was really, really surprised it came out as good as it did. I was ecstatic, even though I had about a 40-footer. Yeah?

FRED FUNK: I don't know what the overall scores were. Did they have a course record today? Did somebody shoot 63?

FRED FUNK: That's pretty good there. He tied the record. It's unusual to see all hole-in-ones. Usually if you have one in a tournament, that's a lot. But to have three in one day, then yesterday's double eagle, it's just kind of a course that's -- actually, it's a kind of course that sets up for dramatics. You've got six, that's a hole, if you drive down the left side, anybody can reach it. And Ted Tryba almost hit it in for a double eagle yesterday, and then Woody Austin did. Some of the holes kind of funnel -- yeah, just the way the course sets up. It's kind of a dramatic course. It's a golf course that will give you a lot of shots at birdies. But there's also a potential for a lot of disaster here and there, with the meandering creek on the back nine and some of the big elevations. Yeah?

FRED FUNK: I said with the cameras down below, usually I get a pretty good following that starts out, and by the 4th or 5th hole, everybody leaves because I'm already about three over. They say the hell with me, they go to watch somebody else. But here I've been playing good enough and getting great local support. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun for me to give them something to root for and somebody to follow. So, you know, I think just about everybody roots for the local guys. I've always rooted for Donnie Hammond when he was on tour before I got on tour, and Fredrick, really any of the club pros that got in. Then I was a club pro and got in. It's that way around the tour. All the local guys are followed at each tour stop and it's a big deal. I actually got two local spots now, here and down at TPC Sawgrass. This one is really special to me. It's meant a lot to me.

FRED FUNK: Yeah, out of all the wins, that would be -- that would be a big one. I've often said, I said I'd love to come down 18 even with a chance to win. It would be a really, really neat feeling with all the people just standing around that hole, the ampitheater that it is. I don't know if I had a putt I had to make, whether I could draw it back with that many people rooting for me and me wanting it as bad as I would want it.

FRED FUNK: I started putting better a few weeks ago when I went to this other putter. I completely changed my setup with it. It was a putter that allowed me to get a little bit more upright, working off my toe, getting more pendulum. The putter is real heavy, it's almost as heavy as the big ones that they have. It's the same head as the big ones. They took a little weight out of it. But I've adjusted real well with the difference, physically, I guess the dynamics of that putter. They used to have pretty heavy putters, but they weren't anything like this one. And that started to change my attitude a little bit. Then I started hitting the ball a little bit better each week. And I'm still not hitting it -- I did hit it good today, but I'm not hitting it quite as good as I want to all the time because my whole game is my setup. I'm setting up good, hitting it good. I'm having trouble getting the ball too far forward in my stance. I had a shot like I did on 8 today, I had a perfect 6-iron in and I just hit a perfect 7-iron on 7, and I let that ball creep up on me on 8. And I just hit it thin and out to the right. It's kind of just a fan shot. I don't get anything on it. I can't get down and trap it. And that's my miss. That's my normal miss, is to hit that kind of shot. It left me with a really tough putt. But fortunately, I two-putted from there. The way I've been hitting, I should have put that one in there where the pin was. That was a little disappointing. I have to always fight that. I've always fought that in my game.

FRED FUNK: My right eye is a little worse today. My left is about the same as yesterday. I went and saw the doctor yesterday on the way home, he said it's all normal, it's going to come and go, come and go for a while until it heals. Like he said, he says you've got to be patient with it, and it should be good. He said everything looks good. He looked into them, everything looked the way -- according to him, everything looked the way it should look.

FRED FUNK: This weekend, yeah.

FRED FUNK: Yeah, I did play really good there. The first three rounds I lit it up there and struggled on Sunday there.

FRED FUNK: Yes, I think I led wire to wire there, and then Sunday I birdied the first hole and the 18th hole and had four bogeys in the middle, which is really unusual. Usually, all my other tournaments I've led going into Sunday, I played really good on Sunday. That particular day I didn't. Just right in the middle of the round, I lost any kind of feel at all with my putter. And I three-putted a bunch of greens there. Then on 18, I hit the shot -- it is kind of a reminder of that, now that you mention it.

FRED FUNK: No, it doesn't take any pressure off me. I'm honestly still adjusting to it. From what Dr. Whitten said, I'm going to be adjusting for a while. I'm actually pretty surprised how well I have adjusted to it. But I just hope it keeps up.

FRED FUNK: No, I've been putting like that for three weeks. Even the 75s that I had, I putted good. That was -- those were just weird rounds. I made a couple big numbers and struggled a little bit.

FRED FUNK: Well, I think, you know, everybody says you kind of feed off the guy playing in your group. And I think he played real solid yesterday, and I played really good, and Scott played real solid yesterday too. And then we were all playing good today. Other than Justin's first double, he just had an unfortunate double there. But Justin is amazing. He can -- he can turn around so quick. And when he does get in trouble, he gets up-and-down. Two up-and-downs he made yesterday in the day on 7 were phenomenal. I don't know where he got those up-and-downs from. It amazed me. Then on 8 he's in trouble, and he gets the grade easy up-and-down there. Then on 9, all of a sudden it turns into a good round again. So you do feed off of that I think. But I think everybody is playing good. Everybody is going along, everybody is hitting good shots, everybody seems to be putting for birdies a lot. It's certainly a lot easier than when one or two guys are really struggling and you're down there. You're hoping you're not one of them, but you're down there waiting for everybody to chip, get the people out of the way or something like that. So it's a lot easier when everybody is in play and hitting the shots. It would be the same way as anybody playing tournament golf or out there playing a fun round. If everybody is playing good, it's fun.

FRED FUNK: I birdied 12 from about -- that's two days in a row in that hole, about five feet, six feet. Then I hit a 6-iron in there.

FRED FUNK: 15 I made about a good 20 feet. I hit a 7-iron in there. 2 I tried to go for the green in 2, believe it or not, and hit a really big drive, and then I hit it in the rough there about 20 feet above the hole and made that. That was a really good putt. That was -- that was one where actually I was conscious of what Justin was doing. I wanted this to be really nice to knock this one in and keep that gap a little bit. I was kind of feeling match play there for a little bit with Justin and (inaudible). Then on 3, 3 I had about a 25-footer and curled it in. Hit a 3-iron in.

FRED FUNK: 7, I forgot about that. 7 I hit about 12 feet, 15 feet with a 7-iron.

FRED FUNK: I was getting excited. They're up and I wanted to really give them something -- my caddie says let's turn this thing into a rodeo, Buddy, let's give them something to cheer about and keep knocking them in. And that's what I wanted to do. I get excited when I start seeing putts going in. It's fun to see putts go in. There's so many weeks out here when you don't see putts going in and you get frustrated. So it's fun.

FRED FUNK: Hope to see you again, two more times.