FORD SENIOR PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

July 13, 2000

Bob Murphy

BOB MURPHY: I hit driver and 7-iron about 10 feet and I hit it too easy. Missed it.

BOB MURPHY: Yeah, good start. I'm sort of back in the mode -- since I've been doing television again, I'm back in the mode of thinking about playing well on the first round of a tournament. I slipped out of that last year and started doing my same old bad habit. You know, I talked about it three or four years ago when I was winning a lot that I concentrated, really, to try to shoot a good round in the first round. And then when I started doing television again, that's exactly what I was thinking about: How guys seem to be satisfied with a 70,71, and yet, somebody is shooting 65, 66; so you need to be there, too, doing it. I played very steadily today. I'm putting wonderfully. I don't remember putting any better in my whole career than I did at the U.S. Senior Open, even though I did not -- I finished about 20th. I drove the ball poorly and put myself in the rough and really paid for it. But, putted really well. Today was no exception. I started right out, you know, hitting the ball close and making some putts. Let's see, 1st hole, I put it -- I hit driver and 7-iron about 12 feet and missed it. Next hole, I hit driver and 8-iron about a foot and a half and made it. Next hole, I hit driver, 3-wood down in front of the green and chipped it by about two feet. Made birdie. Next hole, two putts for par. Next hole, I did something I can't recall, and Jim Albus said the same thing. I drove it, where somebody's ball impacts in the fairway and the fairways have been a little wet and it leaves a big pock mark, and my ball is right in the bottom of one of those things. On that hole, I didn't know what it was going to do. So I just aimed out to the right and I hit a 7-iron and it just ballooned straight up the corner of the green over there, went up on the green and then dribbled back down; so I made par, which was lucky. Next hole, I hit a wedge about two feet, made birdie. Next hole, I hit a wedge about eight feet and made birdie. No. 8, I was very fortunate. I pulled it and put it down the bunker and hit a wonderful bunker shot, and got it about 10 feet from the hole from where I was, which was about as good as I could expect, and I made that for par. That was a big swing there. Bogeyed No. 10. Was in between clubs, and picked the wrong one and hit it about half-fat and put in the bunker and made bogey. No. 11, two putts for par. 12, I hit a wonderful 6-iron at 12, about 12 feet, I guess, and made that for birdie. 13, the par 5, I knocked it on the far right-hand side of the green. Two putts for birdie. I was about 40 feet. Next hole, two putts for par. 16, actually I was off the green. Two putts for par. 17, I hit it in there about eight, nine feet and made birdie. I hit L-wedge. No. 18, I hit a pull off the tee and I really thought I hit it in the water, but it landed right at the corner of the water and it was really hot. I busted it. I hit it as hard as I could hit it, and the dog-gone thing squirted straight ahead so I had a shot. And that was lucky; that's what seems to happen in rounds when you're shooting low and under par. But a good round. I think -- matter of fact, No. 18 green was getting very ground and very hot. I put my hand on the surface itself, and it's getting quite warm. I think they are leaving them dry right now, with the idea that rain is on the way. But the golf course is going to get firmer, and it's going to get faster, and these scores won't be as easy as they were today. Who made 2 at 14? Fleisher? Well, see that's what happens when you're going right along. What did he hit in the hole in 4-iron? That's good.

BOB MURPHY: I think that those guys you just named have got to play better, yes. And he showed that at the U.S. Senior Open. I will tell you, I shot 67 at the Open on Sunday and I thought that was a pretty good round of golf. And I think Hale and John Jacobs are the only two that beat me that day. But Hale shot 65-65, back-to-back weekend 65's at a U.S. Senior Open. Now, the greens were soft. It was very different for an Open. They were soft, but they were quick, and there was plenty of rough there. So, yeah, when he has his game on, then he's the guy to beat. But he's also the guy to beat on a better, tougher, golf course like this one will be if it gets firmer and faster. Then he's the guy to beat, because he plays so straight off the tee, and you know, does everything else well. Fleisher, obviously, he's shown us that he has all the tickets to the station, goodness sakes. He drives it well and putts well. His chipping and whatnot around the greens has greatly improved from what I remember on the regular tour, and I think that part of his game, he worked on it a lot about before he came out here, has really helped him.

BOB MURPHY: I don't think that I felt any different. I mean, those guys, Nicklaus and Arnie and right on down the line, they beat me for a long time, and I beat them sometimes, yes. But when we came out here and they were playing, and playing well, then they beat me again. So I think that's probably the position that Bruce finds himself in. Although, I think that Bruce has beaten Hale any number of times winning tournaments, but he didn't do it in a major. So, you know, coming down the line, he didn't hit all the shots. I mean, I was watching. I was right there, watching everything happen. And any number of times, it could have gone the other way, but it didn't, because Bruce didn't convert a putt or he drove it in the rough. As a matter of fact, on 14, when he put it in the rough and he had to chip out and he almost holed it from the fairway, that could have been the swing right there. That was such a big swing for Hale, because Hale hit a terrible shot way to the right. He's got 60 feet across those hills and mound and then down to the hole. Could have taken him 3 very easily to get up-and-down, but it didn't happen, and he was all right after that. So I think that Fleisher, he doesn't like to blow his own horn, we know that. But I think his record, in my opinion, it speaks for himself. And yet, you have to really play some golf to beat a man shooting 65-65 on the weekend. That's all you need to look at is those two scores. Just incredible golf.

BOB MURPHY: Yeah, well, if he shoots a 74, he would have had a different attitude. As a matter of fact, he wouldn't have you wouldn't have been talking to him, and he wouldn't have been talking to you, either. It would have been long-distance. But he shot 4-under and he probably can tell you that he left three or four shots out there. So he feels good about his position. I mean, that's exactly the same way I feel. I had a good round, yes, and not leading, but it's good to get off to a good start, it really is. So that's fine. I've played reasonably well since -- you know, I played the first three weeks in Florida and I didn't play very well. My knee was bothering me and I finally blew the knee out and finally had an operation on my knee; and then I had five weeks of television to do in a row; and then the knee rehabilitated and I played well every week since. I haven't done it all, but I've played well.

BOB MURPHY: Yeah, the meniscus. That would have been, what, the first week in March, first of March? So that was good to get that out of the way.

BOB MURPHY: Arthroscopic, yeah. It was so bad, trying to play for about three months there. I could not even squat down to line up a putt, because the old knee was just so swollen it wouldn't even go. There was something wrong; we knew that. But I didn't have an MRI done until it finally popped, and Dr. Jobe says it has to come out.

BOB MURPHY: A little different. I'm in a little different position on NBC than I was at ESPN. I was the color analyst, if you will; so that's the same job that Johnny Miller has, and you sort of are able to sit and absorb the whole golf course and what's going on. Whereas, at NBC, I'm responsible for like four holes a day. And that's a little different -- a little different job. I'm had a feeling of being out of sync when I first started, but Tommy Roy. The producer at NBC had to get used to my style, if you will. I'm not a statistics man, I don't spit out all that of that kind of stuff. I like to talk about the emotions and what a guy goes through to try to play well, and I try to explain to people at home how hard the game is, to tell you the truth. I think it comes out all the time if you watch that this is a very, very difficult game to play. Yes, we shoot wonderful numbers on Thursdays, but Sundays are always a different thing. The emotions I love. And I love working for NBC because Tommy Roy shows a lot of pictures of faces and a lot of reactions, and that tells you a lot. As a matter of fact, I had a sequence on a hole where a guy hit a shot and knocked it close to the hole and the camera went to his face and I didn't say anything. And then they said: We're going to 16, and so I said: "On to 16." When we went to commercial break, Johnny Miller says: "That was a lot of quiet there, why wasn't someone talking?" I said Johnny, "I didn't think I had to say anything. I mean, you saw what was on the man's face, and how much he appreciated that shot. That tells you a lot." That's what you see when you watch golf. You don't hear somebody rambling in your ear all the time. No, I've enjoyed it and it's a good break for me to not be playing golf all the time. I suffered that a bit, up-against-the-wall-stuff last year; and I resigned from the policy board because that was bothering me, and I feel better about that, not having all those responsibilities, and can go play golf and make some putts.

BOB MURPHY: No.

BOB MURPHY: Well, I will not be heartbroken, because I'm going to play golf, see.

BOB MURPHY: It happened actually when I first started playing the SENIOR TOUR. I talked at length, as did Jim Colbert, about coming out of television and back on to the ground and playing golf and doing television. Not only do you realize, but you talk about how many mistakes a guy makes in the course of a golf tournament; yet when you tune in on Sunday afternoon, there he is. You don't have any idea the road he's traveled, and there he is on Sunday afternoon, but he's hit seven of the worst shots you ever saw, got it up-and-down on the 12 bunkers and he's done a lot of stuff to get there. And so I realized that it's okay to make mistakes. And, you know, I looked up patience in an Irish dictionary; wasn't in there. Well, I'm trying to be a lot more patient with myself when I make mistakes, and television has shown me that's exactly what happens. The best players are very patient. So I try to bring that with me when I go out, and sort of give yourself a lesson type of feel. You know, I give guys putting lessons all the time and sometime I'm putting poorly and I say to myself: "Now, all right, if you were giving me a lesson, what would you tell me"? That's the kind of thing you're doing is just trying to keep your brain. It's mind games, isn't it? Fleisher has worked with a sports psychologist and whatnot, as I have with Debra Graham, and it really helps. It's an affirmation of the fact that if you're thinking well, you're probably going to play well, and you will recover from a lot of mistakes you make, by continuing to think about where you need to go. Now that you're in the junk over here, what you've got to do next.

BOB MURPHY: I do the Presidents Cup next.

BOB MURPHY: Yeah, I'm going to -- I'm planning on playing about 11 or 12 tournaments between here and the end of the year. I'm going to see you a lot of times.