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SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY KITCHENAIDMay 22, 2014Brad FaxonBENTON HARBOR, MICHIGAN KELLY ELBIN: With seven birdies today at Harbor Shores Brad Faxon has a two‑shot lead midway through the opening round of the 75th Senior PGA Championship Presented By KitchenAid. Brad, you needed just 27 putts. BRAD FAXON: You sound like Jim Nantz. KELLY ELBIN: Not bad? 27 putts for your 67. Nice playing out there. BRAD FAXON: Yeah, it was a great day. Obviously, I think if you shoot under par on this course, given the conditions, it was cool, it was a little windy, and I hit a lot of fairways today, which I think is important to be able to get the ball on the greens, number one. You can look silly on these greens here, but I made a couple big putts early on the second hole. The second hole is, I'm guessing, 35 feet up a big slope and back down and then the third hole was just as long with more slope. So you kind of just laugh a little bit. Because you're happy to get those close a lot of times. When they go in, it's a bonus. So that kind of got me off to a good start. But I felt good the whole round. I hit a one real bad iron shot on number 7, my second shot, after a very good drive, on probably the hardest hole I think on the course‑‑ well, maybe the 4th hole‑‑ but bad iron there, lucky to find it in the sand dune over there and made a five. But came back with a nice birdie on 9. I made three in a row there on 9, 10 and 11. So it was around where I just kept it in play and made some putts. KELLY ELBIN: How long were those birdie putts from 9 through 16 you made five birdies in there. BRAD FAXON: Right. On 9, you know, I couldn't reach the green today, I laid it up a perfect yardage with my wedge and hit it in there probably about five or six feet. Six feet. 10, didn't hit a good drive, had to lay up and hit a 9‑iron and used Jack Nicklaus's little slope there, by mistake, mind you, pulled the tee shot, the iron shot and it went down there about 12 or 13 feet and made that one. Then 11, hit the best shot of the day with a 9‑iron, almost holed it. Must have been a foot and a half or two feet past the hole. 12, I drove it in the fairway bunker and just hit it long over the green. The greens are much slower green speeds than what we normally see if you just did a Stimpmeter reading on these greens. They're in perfect conditions, but I think, because of all the slopes that we see, I don't think they wanted to get too carried away with speed. So you have to remind yourself to hit some of these putts. On 12, I didn't. But I came back with one of those nice kind of crazy putts again on 13 that had 30 feet with three or four feet of break that kind of went in the side door. So that was fun. 16 was a good pin on 16 on the front there. So the bunker and water were in play. I hit a great 8‑iron in there from 157 and made a 12‑footer there. So that was nice. Bunkered my tee shot on 17, the par three and hit a bad bunker shot, but then made a beautiful up‑and‑down on 18. The sand here is very thick and I kind of fatted the one on 17 and then switched to a gap wedge on 18 out of the bunker to get up‑and‑down from probably 30 yards, really. A good up‑and‑down. Good finish. Solid play. KELLY ELBIN: Open it up for questions. Q. Even for someone who has the reputation that you do as a great putter, can you talk about the difficulty that these greens present even for somebody of your putting ability? BRAD FAXON: Well, yeah, they're going to present problems for everybody. It's not just to putt, it's to hit an iron into‑‑ you can get some caroms off the slopes here that can go in the wrong direction or in the right direction. So I would say course knowledge is important here. But getting a feel for these greens, I started off my practice round or my practice putting on the putting green really hitting some long putts, because I know everybody's going to have some of those. I tried to hit a lot of them up slope, down slope, and really felt like I got off to a good start‑‑ I kept leaving them short on the practice putting green. So I said I got to remind myself to hit the ball harder on these greens and it helped. KELLY ELBIN: Brad had 27 putts by our count. Questions? Q. Can you just elaborate on the fast start. Saw the putts on 2 and 3. It's got to feel like a bonus, especially or I'm sorry on 2 or 3, rather, the approach shot in looked like you hit it up there and it kind of sucked back. BRAD FAXON: Right. Q. But then to make that putt on the comeback had to be huge? BRAD FAXON: I think you were out there on 2. I hit a 6‑iron to the second hole and that's, I think, the toughest hole location on the course, that front, that right side there by the bunker, it's a really narrow area to hit to. So I was happy with my iron shot, even though it ended up 35 feet away. That went in. I spun my sand wedge shot back down that hill on number 3 and I was kind of, when you get up there and there's three balls in the group all pretty close you're going, I hope mine's closest, you know, so I don't have to show them the line. Mine was furthest away and I showed them the line and they couldn't make theirs. So that's kind of making fun of it, but those two putts, it's like I wish you could walk off a green missing those putts with the same mindset you did when you make them. What did Jack Nicklaus used to say? The first tee shot's always the most important tee shot. Well, what if you hit a bad one? Are you going to walk in? And then, what if you miss your first putt? Are you going to cave in? So that psychology of the first few putts is pretty important, but you can't let your whole mindset change if you miss one. But if you make one, you got to use that. So you got to trick yourself. So I tricked myself and I wasn't smart enough to figure it out, I guess. Q. Before this week how would you assess your play on the Champions Tour leading into this? BRAD FAXON: You know that. (Laughter.) I knew somebody would ask. Q. Your words though. BRAD FAXON: Not great. There was really nothing to predict this round, really. Other than I've played some pretty good nines, you know. I've had a couple tournaments lately where I made more birdies than I usually do. But I'm excited about playing. My wife came in yesterday and we were talking about, just play golf and not worry about too much stuff. And it happened. It happened. So I'm excited. I felt like I had good control of my swing today. Hit a lot of good shots. I know it's a long way to go, there's still three more days. I'm staying with Jay Haas and Jeff Sluman and Bob Tway and it was cool to see both Haas and Tway's name on the leaderboard early. So I'm sure we'll have a conversation about that at some point later on. Q. Does this event have a different feel than a Regular Tour stop? Does this sort of feel like a Major? BRAD FAXON: Without a doubt. There's a lot of reasons why. I know enough about the game to know this is the oldest senior tournament that we have. I think the pride that the PGA of America puts into this and I kind of like the story here, about what KitchenAid's done with the whole area of Saint Joe's and Benton Harbor. I think that means a lot. You see a lot more people here than we see in all our tournaments. PGA of America probably runs the biggest two of the biggest tournaments in the world with the PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup. So they know how to run events. I grew up in Rhode Island playing golf and my whole family was a golfing family. The PGA professional to me was a big deal.  I grew up with a guy named Fred Bruno who was a pro at Rhode Island Country Club and he was second or third generation Italian guy that worked hard and taught all the kids there that worked there in the shop or the caddies what it was like to try and make an honest living. He was the third golf professional in an 80 year history of the club. Now there's one guy there, so we have only had four pros in a hundred years. So that's a big deal to me. I played with Barry today and he's, we played here and he, we talked about our relationships with Titleist. I grew up with the Titleist neighborhood where the club pro was a revered person. So it was in my blood. What else can I say? It is way bigger than any other tournament we play. Q. There was definitely a lot more guys pounding balls after the round than at a normal stop. So it seems like everybody takes this very seriously? BRAD FAXON: We don't play many four round tournaments, we don't play many tournaments with cuts, we don't have any facility that has a practice area like this. This is world class. Q. What's your memories of this area? I assume you played the Western Am here? BRAD FAXON: I did. Q. Talk about that. BRAD FAXON: I played at least twice. Maybe three times. Willie Wood asked me today if I could remember the family that I stayed with and I don't remember them. I can't remember yesterday, really. But I wish I did. I know Point O'Woods, a bunch of players have gone back over there. Willie is staying with the same family, the son of the guy he used to stay with this week. The people that went over to Point O Woods said it's just the coolest course still. And I remember ‑‑ talk about greens, those greens were 12,000 square feet. That tournament was a marathon. We played 72 holes stroke play and then you played match play. I did pretty well. I made it to the sweet 16 a couple times. I remember that being ‑‑ if we had Major junior tournaments or Major amateur tournaments, you would have had the U.S. Amateur and that one, the Northeast Amateur, Sunnehanna, those would have been the biggest ones. Q. Do you remember playing any of your contemporaries over there? BRAD FAXON: Yeah, I got smoked in the semi‑finals by Rick Fehr when he won and just couldn't believe anybody could play as good as he did. Then I lost to a guy named Ron Commans, who was a USC guy, the year before that, so, yeah, I remember. You guys have obviously had lunch. (Laughter.) KELLY ELBIN: Let's make this the last question, okay. (Laughter.) Q. You've played the PGA TOUR for years and years, but is there an adjustment when you play a 72 hole tournament as opposed to 54 week in and week out on the Champions Tour? BRAD FAXON: Yeah, you got to ask the guy, the Titleist guy for an extra dozen, because we only get three. (Laughter.) Yeah, four rounds takes a lot longer. I always tell people that, I don't know, whether it's an amateur thinking of turning professional and trying to play and get a PGA TOUR card or a guy that's 48 and thinks he can come out and beat Freddie Couples when he turns 50, that four round tournaments, that's a long time. When you go out and you play Thursday morning and you get a good round off, I mean, it takes a long time. There's no sport like it. It takes 72 hours. Baseball game's over in three hours. So that's the hard part. You got to hit shots, obviously, but spending time thinking about being in the lead, but it's a lot better than shooting 80 the first round. KELLY ELBIN: Brad Faxon, it's lunch time, you're in with 67. Thank you. BRAD FAXON: All right. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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