SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

June 7, 2002

Walter Hall

WALTER HALL: Well, obviously I played awfully well today. I played great for two days. This is a wonderful golf course, magnificent facility here. You can tell by the scores the course defends itself quite well.

WALTER HALL: Obviously, parred 1, got up and down on 1 for par. The second hole I had a good tee shot. I went at the green with a 3-wood, didn't quite catch it and hit it in the bunker. I had a relatively easy bunker shot, blasted it out about five feet and made that for birdie. And then I had a birdie on, I guess, No. 6. Hit a really good tee shot there, hit a 9-iron to 15 feet, 12, 15 feet left of the hole and made that putt. Then I struggled on 8 and 9, hit it into the short cut on 8 in a divot and I didn't hit a very good shot. I hit it short of the green, hit it fat out of the divot, but I made about a 10-footer, sort of side hill for par, which is really the key putt on the round. That's what kept the round going. Then on 9, a similar tee shot in the short cut, caught a flyer out of the short cut and it went through the green and rolled right up against the high cut and had to hit an explosion shot out of the rough. If it had gotten up into the rough I think it would have been a little easier. It rolled right up against the high cut. Unfortunately, I don't have that Tiger Woods ability to hit that shot and ended up making a bogey. Then I had a good birdie putt at 10 from about 10 feet, hit a good putt there, but missed it. 11, I hit another good tee shot and hit a pitching wedge about five feet left of the pin and made that. I had several opportunities coming in to make another birdie or two. I had a good iron shot on 14. Hit it about eight feet behind the hole, missed that putt. Then the Par 3, 15, I hit it about 18 feet just dead pin high right and missed that putt. And then 16 was probably the putt that I really should have made. I hit it about probably seven or eight feet behind the hole, and the ball just lost its speed and broke just across the left edge of the hole. I got it up and down from 17, from just off the right of the green. Made another good 8-, 9-footer for par. And 18 was just a good tee shot in the short cut on the right and hit an 8-iron pin high left and two-putted from about 18 feet. I hit the ball awfully well the last two days. For me, when I drive the ball in the fairway, I have a tendency to play much better, just as anybody would out here, obviously. This golf course is not very forgiving when you drive it in the rough. The rough is very thick, very high, very sticky, and you have a tough time getting the ball from those lies to the green because it's a difficult, it's a pretty long shot usually.

WALTER HALL: If you look at my stats in the five years I've been on the Senior Tour, driving accuracy might be my weakest stat. I'm a decent iron player, I'm a pretty good putter, but driving accuracy has always been my bug-a-boo, you might say. I've gotten new drivers this year with Adams, and I've got a new driver in the bag this week. It's the same head I've been playing with the last couple of months, it just has a different shaft in it and so far this week it has really worked well. My driving stats or accuracy is not too good. My distance is fine, but my accuracy sometimes, let's say, has a lot to be desired.

WALTER HALL: Usually when I miss a fairway, I get short and quick. I've got a pretty fast swing. It's a short swing, sort of like Dana Quigley. We don't get it all the way back. And when I jerk it back too fast, I sort of get out of sync and I'll end up bailing out right. My timing gets off and since I'm playing a fade, I try to get above and under it and it doesn't work, and I end up bailing it right. When I get my tempo down, try to take it back a little slower, it seems to obviously work better. Today I drove the ball pretty good today.

WALTER HALL: I'm not sure that I have. I don't think I have. Today is a great example of a perfect weather day to play almost, yet the scores are not low. You would think usually on a Senior Tour, Tom Kite, Tom Watson, Fleisher, somebody like that would go low, when I say "low," shoot 65, 66 or 67. This course will not allow it. The rough it may have been whatever, three and a half inches the first week, but it's probably four or five now. And with the rain they've had, I don't know if they've topped it off, and it's pretty tough out there in that rough. You can get some decent lies, you really can, but then you can get some lies sort of like yesterday coming down the stretch, I missed two fairways coming down the stretch and I had to chip it out. I couldn't even play it toward the green. So you could get some good lies, and there are some lies you have to take your medicine and get back in the fairway and hope you can get it up and down from 100 yards or something.

WALTER HALL: I have never played a U.S. Open, but the Senior Open, yes, I can definitely agree. It's just as tough to me. It's a very uniform rough. You know when you hit it in there, chances are you might have a real thick, tough lie. Hopefully you can get it far enough off the tee that you're not trying to hit a 4 or 5-iron out of that rough because it won't work. If you can get it down there where you can hit 8 or 9-iron, and maybe a wedge on some of the short holes, you have a chance to getting the club head through the hole to get it up. But it is very, very difficult, for me.

WALTER HALL: Well, I'm just glad I'll get the opportunity to. I just hope I'm still in the hunt and hopefully we'll see what happens. It's fair for everybody. Everybody tees it up the same place, same time, and we'll just see what happens. I know there are a lot of good players running for this title, and we're only halfway through. There is a lot of golf yet to be played. So you still have to have patience and hopefully will perform well.

WALTER HALL: I don't know right offhand. I count short rough as fairways just about, for me, so I would say I hit 10 or 11. I know I missed the 1st hole, and I actually missed the 4th hole, even though I drove it right down the middle of the fairway. That fairway pitches off to the left, I drove it into the rough there. And then on 8 and 9, I hit it in the short rough. And 18, I hit it in the short rough. Other than that, I think I hit every fairway. Excuse me. 16, it trickled off right in the edge of the short rough also. But that's almost a fairway hit for me.

WALTER HALL: But that's probably true fairways. The short rough is not bad.

WALTER HALL: Back in the '70s, I think there were a couple of things wrong with Walter Hall. One, I wasn't very mature. I didn't have the patience that I have now, I think. And probably as much as anything, I used to hit all low hooks back then. I revamped my swing, thanks to a friend of mine named, Jimmy Wittenberg, and probably in the mid '80s, I changed my game from a hard right-to-left player, to a left-to-right player, and I think the fade seems to listen a little more than those hooks, for some reason. I tried three times, I guess it was, back in the early '70s and, I just didn't have the game. That's the facts of life. And I got married in '71, and we agreed to try it for two or three years, which I did. We gave it a shot. It didn't work out for Walter Hall. So I got a real job for 20 years. And as I got into my mid 40s and I was playing pretty good amateur golf, I actually wondered if, when I turned 50, I would even have a chance to qualify for the Senior Tour. So I called a friend of mine named Vinny Giles, who manages professional golfers, and I asked him could I possibly make it and what could I do or should I do to get there. And he guided me along the way, and I turned pro again when I was 46 and played the Asian Tour for a couple years, played the Hooters Tour for about a year and a half, and when I turned 50 I was raring to go and my game was in good shape. And I've been very fortunate for five years to be exempt on the Senior Tour, and play with the legends and the guys I've watched play all my life. I can't tell you how many rounds of golf I've sat in front of a TV and watched right here on this golf course. It's a true honor to be able to play this golf course. There is so much history to this golf course, and you can tell that it defends itself very well.

WALTER HALL: They did okay last year, in basketball, didn't they.

WALTER HALL: I was a sales manager for a major appliance distributor, a company called Brown, Rogers, Dicks & Company. It was a family-owned distributorship, and I had guys that covered North Carolina, South Carolina and half of Virginia. The headquarters was in Salem, North Carolina, so it was just -- it worked out well. They let me go, with their blessing and wished me well. And the guy that I used to work for is still probably my very best friend.

WALTER HALL: I lived in Clemmons for about 20 years. I actually live across the river at a place called Bermuda Run Country Club.

WALTER HALL: I used to live as the crow flies for 22 years about a mile from Tanglewood.