U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 10, 1997

Brian Tennyson

BRIAN TENNYSON: Well, I wish I was in here for pure golf, but not this year anyway. I guess the reason you guys wanted me to be here is I've had what's called an interesting life. I played the PGA Tour for five years, from 1988 to 1992. Had some success, finished 29th in the money list in 1990. Had a lot of top 10s. Finished second at the Bob Hope, second at the Hardee's one year, and really through, say, like the middle of 1991, I played a lot of good golf. But I started to get tired of what I was doing. Had been on the road 8 or 9 years, worked really hard on my game and started having some problems where I wasn't playing very well. So in 1992, I had an offer from a friend of mine named John Schnatter. He started a company called Papa John's International. It has about 1200 now Papa John's restaurants. He had been after me to do some consulting work with the company and become affiliated in kind of a work capacity, and had I avoided that because I wanted to pursue my golf career. I had, previous to that, started becoming a franchisee with that company. My brother Roger and I were opening Papa John Pizza Restaurants in Akron, Ohio starting in 1991. I left the Tour in '92. In April of '92, I agreed to go to work for my friend and went to work for Papa John's International that fall of 1992 as a vice president of strategic planning, and we took the company public in June of 1993. And I was pretty involved in that and became the -- as well as the strategic planning duties, I took on the investor-relations duties, so I spent a lot of time with the people from Wall Street, wrote the speeches, did the road-show presentations and that kind of thing. After 18 months or so of that, I got in a situation there where I was out of the frying pan and into the fire, so to speak. I went from spending all my time on the road with golf and never seeing my family to spending all my time at work and not seeing my family. I left that and spent like three months hanging out deciding what I was going to do, and I chose to get back into golf a little bit. I started working on my golf game. I was lucky enough to qualify for the PGA Tour at the qualifying school at the end of 1995. So, I played last year 1996 on the PGA Tour. But then another twist came about, and my wife's had a lifelong battle with kidney disease, and beginning last spring, she started having some severe problems and went on dialysis. And that obviously took a lot of our time and attention last year. My wife went through four different surgeries last year culminating in a kidney transplant last December. My brother Roger who I'm in business with was the donor, so that's kind of a strange coincidence also. He's been a great brother and business partner, and now he donates a kidney to my wife. We did that kidney transplant in December, and it was very successful. And my brother is doing well. My wife is probably more healthy since she's ever been. She's had no rejections. She's doing very well with the kidney. Those things behind us, my brother and I have been working on a deal where our pizza company, we actually did a merger with a company called P.J. America, which is the largest franchisee of Papa John's Restaurants. We completed that merger last Thursday. I've been working really hard on this deal, and signed the agreement about a week and a half ago. Then I fly out here last minute to play the second round of the Open qualifier, decide I'm going to play the Kemper Open qualifier. I shoot 67 and make that. On Monday, shoot 137 and make the Open on Tuesday. Then I am spending all my time on Wednesday and Thursday morning trying to close this deal. I almost withdrew from the Kemper actually after I qualified. We were doing the closing on our deal on Thursday, so that was kind of a strange set of circumstances, as well.

LES UNGER: Sounds to me like you have either a combined career opportunity ahead of you or have to make a choice.

BRIAN TENNYSON: Well, the way I've set it up and the intention in selling the company was to kind of clear my life up a little bit of some of the business things. I have two other small businesses, one with another brother, a moving and equipment business, and then another one that's just a bagel delicatessen, a very small deal in Louisville. So I've got a few things going on, but I've gotten rid of the major portion of my business interests to be able to concentrate on golf again. Started working with David Leadbetter again at the beginning of this year on some mechanical changes. Since I was at home and couldn't travel, I needed to be around for my family and everything, that I might as well make some changes in my swing that I felt like needed to be made. We made some good progress there, maybe 60 or 70 percent there. I'm certainly not 100 percent. But the mechanics of my game are better now. It's my intention to focus most of my life here for the next several years on trying to become a better golfer again.

LES UNGER: Let's talk golf for a moment. You've had a chance, I assume, to practice here a bit and evaluate the course as you see it?

BRIAN TENNYSON: Yeah. I like the golf course a lot. I played in four previous Opens and some other USGA events. But as far as Opens, I think it's as fair, if not the most fair, Open place I've ever played. I thought Oak Hill was very fair, as well. This one compares very favorably with that or even better. It is long and it is hard, but you expect it to be hard for the U.S. Open. But the name of the game is to get the ball in the fairway and be patient and kind of tough it out. So I like the golf course, and I'm going to play it a little differently than most people in my approach to it I think, but I think it's a very fair course, and whoever wins is going to be a true champion here.

LES UNGER: What did you mean by that "differently"?

BRIAN TENNYSON: You know, I hear everybody talking about how long this course is and how it's the longest Open championship in history, and that may be true, but I'm only going to hit a driver four times this week. You can't play these golf courses, you can't play the U.S. Open from the rough, and I take my chances with my 3 and 4-iron from the fairway. I'm hitting 3-iron off several tees. I mean, I'm playing like the par 5s, 3-iron, 3-iron, 7-iron, things like that. I'm seeing guys hit drivers and hit woods and things. We'll see. If a guy drives it really straight, that's fine, but my game isn't good enough to do that right now.

Q. Brian, I'm just wondering, your assessment of golf, does it change from where you were in 1990, 1991 to now? I imagine a bad round doesn't affect you as it once had.

BRIAN TENNYSON: Well, I've done a lot of things -- that is true, and I've done a lot of things to make it true. My whole approach to the game is different. I mean, I lived and breathed golf for a long time, and the intensive level is very high. I let it affect my outside life. I let it dominate my mood and dominate my family life and other things, and I've chosen not to do that anymore. So I try to execute each shot the way I want to execute it and just accept it and go on from there. I've been able to do that. That's one of the things I'm happiest about. It takes the pressure off. If you execute the way you're trying to execute and it doesn't turn out, that's okay, you can live with that. You really can't control the results, but you can control how you approach it. That's all I attempt to do. It's made the game a lot more enjoyable for me.

Q. Can you give us the name and spell your wife's name, and is she here this week and how is that working with the kids and everything?

BRIAN TENNYSON: My wife's name is Jeanne, J-E-A-N-N-E. She's not here. It's actually our wedding anniversary, our 11th anniversary this Saturday. And kind of poor planning when we got married, wasn't it? But she's not going to be here.

Q. Is she healthy enough?

BRIAN TENNYSON: She's healthy enough to travel, but our kids are so involved. I have an 8-year-old and a 5-year-old or soon to be 5-year-old. They're so involved in activities that she doesn't want to take that away from them. If she travels out here, they can't do baseball and golf and things they do.

Q. Come Sunday, if you're still there, do you think she'll make the trip?

BRIAN TENNYSON: I don't know. Golf's not that important to my wife. She's made it that way on purpose. I enjoy it that way, too. Golf is important to me, and it's important to her because of that, but we don't live and breathe over this stuff anymore.

Q. If she had four surgeries last year, was that some sort of -- does that mean the transplant was the last resort and you were trying not to get to that point?

BRIAN TENNYSON: Actually, she had some other medical problems that were related to the kidney problems that kind of needed to be taken care of before she had the transplant, because they hesitate to do things all at once, and they hesitate to do other surgeries after the transplant because it really complicates things. So we did some things that had to be done first.

Q. How have you prepared for this tournament? Clearly, you have been much less involved in golf than you have been in previous years. How does the preparation, the buildup to this tournament compare to what you would have done a certain number of years ago?

BRIAN TENNYSON: It's been almost nonexistent. I've been doing this merger of my company. I haven't played or practiced much at all. It says in the bio that I haven't played a golf tournament since last November. The U.S. Open qualifying was the first thing I had done. I played in the Kemper last week, but I've been spending most of my time in the preparation to complete the merger. I've been working with David Leadbetter on the mechanics, but that's about it.

Q. Do you see any advantage to doing it that way as opposed to obsessing over the tournament and obsessing over golf for months on end?

BRIAN TENNYSON: Oh, there's certainly an advantage for me. I actually feel very calm and prepared for this. I feel like I know exactly how I want to approach the golf tournament. Whether I execute is another thing. But, I think it can be a problem because in a major, in the Open, because it gets built up so much and guys don't approach it like another golf tournament or another round of golf. The hype that everybody wants there to be to make it exciting can get somebody overexcited or overtense and make it harder to perform.

Q. I'm wondering, you said that golf is no longer as important to you in your life, but yet you wanted to come back at a certain point. What led you back into golf?

BRIAN TENNYSON: Well, when I left my job with Papa John's International, we still had our other company which was successful. I didn't need to come back to golf. But what I found, I started practicing some at home and playing some. My wife was pushing me to play golf again. She thought it was something I still wanted to do. I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to work at it as hard as I once did and like it as much. So I started to practice and see if I liked golf again. Golf is something I'll always be involved in. It's part of who I am. It always has been part of who I am. I wanted to get back into it for that reason, but on a more limited basis. I set ground rules for myself. My wife didn't, but I did. I said I will never travel or play more than 25 weeks a year, and I'll never let golf become a priority again. If the family needs me for something, if there's something important going on, a school play or something, I'll withdraw from the golf tournament and go to that. If that means I'm on the PGA Tour losing my card, well, that's too bad. I'm not going to do it.

Q. But, yet, it's your wedding anniversary this weekend and you're here?

BRIAN TENNYSON: Well, wedding anniversaries in our household are a little different than most places. We've always been at the Open or something like that. The holidays -- let's say family holidays don't take a priority that they do for most people.

Q. During the surgery and all that stuff last year, how long did you go without touching a club, or would you leave the hospital, as a stress release, go out and hit some balls?

BRIAN TENNYSON: Not at all, no. Gosh, I don't know. I went something like maybe -- I don't know -- two or three months probably without playing any golf.

Q. Not even swinging?

BRIAN TENNYSON: I don't think I did. I don't really remember. I've had lots of long stretches where I don't play golf. When I got my PGA Tour card back in 1995, there was five weeks between then and the first tournament. I didn't play golf. I went to Tucson five days before the tournament and hadn't played golf in five weeks.

LES UNGER: Are you surprised to have qualified with as little preparation as you had?

BRIAN TENNYSON: I'd say a little bit surprised, but not really shocked. I mean, I've been around golf enough that I know how to play. I've always been a very good putter. I don't need to practice my putting very much because I've always been a good putter, and -- you don't like that?

LES UNGER: Destroyed me.

BRIAN TENNYSON: It doesn't mean you putt good every day, but I feel good about putting in general, and I've worked enough on my mechanics that I felt like, well, at least I knew I had a chance. It wasn't like -- I know how to compete. I know how my mind is supposed to work. Execute my processes and try and just do the things on each individual shot that I'm supposed to do. That's all I can really control. So I wasn't wrapped up in maybe, you know, qualifying or not qualifying. I really was just approaching it from the standpoint, I'm going to go try and do things on each golf shot that I'm supposed to do. At the end of the day, that's either going to be good enough or not. I can live with that.

Q. Brian, would you have any kind of expectations for this week or are you just going to actually play one at a time?

BRIAN TENNYSON: I try not to have expectations. You know, at the same time, you have to have in the back of your mind, you have to have an idea of how good you might be able to do so you're not surprised by it if you do, because then you can get out of sorts, so to speak. I really am going to do my best to approach it, just play the golf course the way I've mapped it out that I think is best for Brian Tennyson to play. But I really kind of thought about it. I thought in general, kind of looks to me like if I played well this week, I would probably shoot about 8-over par. That's -- I figured if I play well this week, I'm going to have four or five bogeys a day, maybe a couple birdies. Now, if I play exceptionally well, I can do better than that. There's certainly potential I can do a lot worse than that, too, but that's kind of what I'm thinking.

Q. Brian, it's safe to say that you hadn't seen Shenandoah Valley before last Monday. What about Woodmont on Tuesday? Had you played there in previous qualifiers, like before or after Kemper?

BRIAN TENNYSON: Yeah, I think I've played there four times previous to this. In fact, every time I've made it to the Open through qualifying -- I was exempt one year -- the other four times, I qualified through Woodmont.

LES UNGER: Anyone else? Well, I have to say it's one of the more interesting presentations we've had. Wish you the best of luck.

BRIAN TENNYSON: A little different than some of these other ones with Tom and Tiger and Greg.

LES UNGER: Well, we spend the first half hour talking about the wins and the money, and then we get to a few interesting things like we just discussed with you.

BRIAN TENNYSON: Well, see, I took care of that. I don't have all those things.

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