SEI PENNSYLVANIA CLASSIC

September 14, 2000

Danny Briggs

DANNY BRIGGS: My impression of the golf course: We don't get an opportunity to play many golf courses that are like this. This is a more -- more of an old-fashioned, old-style type golf course, and I think that for a lot of us old-timers, it is kind of fun to play golf courses like this where it takes so much imagination on the greens to be able to putt the greens and chip the greens, because of the slopes and the severity of the slopes. But also out in the fairway, I mean, you may feel like, okay, well, now I've got an 8- or 9-iron in my hand, now it is time for me to take it right at the flag, but if you do something like that, which is what I did on 16, I pulled it a little bit left and ended up going down to the bunker and I was dead from down in the bunker because of the slope where they have the pin today on 16. I tried to hit a good bunker shot up on that hill and get it to trickle down, but that's the thing about it; it's just hard to do those type of shots. I ended up hitting what I thought was a fairly decent shot about 12, 15 feet, and I ended up missing the putt. But I was just telling you, Nelson, I hit a really good putt but it kind of went in the hole came around and came right back at me. I tried to not let it bother me. I really didn't have much expectations today as far as what I would shoot, and I just tried to keep hitting solid shots and having putts and opportunities to make birdies. And fortunately for me, patience, I just kept being patient, making pars and making pars and next thing I knew, I hit No. 18 in two, and it had about 20 feet of break where I had put it on this ridge to get it to trickle down the ridge and I was able to do that and shoot 1-under on the back nine, which was my front nine. And starting on the front, No. 1, I hit a good drive and a 9-iron, and it landed right on the ridge and came back all the way down the hill and I was a little bit disappointed with that -- and I made the putt. Those type of things are a real bonus. They don't happen all the time, and that's one of the reasons why I'm in here is I had something like that happen today. I birdied No. 2. No. 1 was about 30 feet, I guess, going up the ridge to where the pin was. And No. 2, I was just on the front edge of the green and I hit a little bump-chip, and about 42 feet. Then 3 was just a 2-putt for par. 4, I hit a really good 3-iron in there 15 feet left of the hole and made a good putt. 5, going down the hill, the par 5, I hit a driver, 3-wood right on the front edge of the green and 2-putted it for birdie. Then 6 and 7 made par. 8 was kind of neat. I hit a tee ball and almost made a 2. My divot was like this close (indicating five inches) and my ball was like this close (indicating two inches); so that was nice. And finishing on No. 9, I thought I hit a really good shot into No. 9 my second shot. It ended up being a little bit long. And it will test your nerves some of these putts you get downhill. I don't really like those uphill putts, either, going over those ridges. But that's pretty much it. Like I said, I didn't have a lot of expectation today as far as what I was going to shoot. I never look at the scoreboard. I never even looked at the guy that was carrying in our group to see how many under I was. I was just trying to play golf and eliminate making mistakes. I feel like I've been making a lot of mistakes out here so far this year. I'm making lots of birdies, but I'm making lots of bogeys, too. So I want to try to eliminate making bogeys. And how do you do that? Well, two ways: You try not to stay too aggressive with your iron shots and things like that into the greens, and work on your short game, so that when you do miss the greens or, you know, you're able to get the ball up-and-down, which is difficult on this golf course -- I think that you can hit a lot of fairways and a lot of greens, you should be able to score decently. Kind of surprised the scores were as low as they were today, but the greens were soft and the fairways were soft. And I played well.

DANNY BRIGGS: It's still fun. I still enjoy playing golf, whether it is with my buddies riding in a cart, and competitive golf is still fun. I don't have a glamorous type of golfing career. I've won some Arizona Opens there at home. I've won some tournaments. I've been out here a long time, off and on, off and on, and when I didn't have my card, I've been fortunate enough to Monday qualify and have a couple of Top-10s and keep playing. I'm not one of the PGA TOUR stars. It would be fun after this week to kind of become one for a week, I guess. But there's three days left for that. All I know is my kids and my wife still love me, so I'm okay.

DANNY BRIGGS: I think that's a good question. I think that you will have guys that you have to use the imagination, and you have to be able to just basically commit yourself to the shot that you're going to play and try not to let there be any tension or tenderness being able to pull the shot off. As far as the leaderboard, you know, it's day one. It's like the first three miles of a marathon. You have three more days and a lot could happen. The weather could change. Sure was pretty today here, though, wasn't it? Man, it reminded me of home. Really a nice day.

DANNY BRIGGS: Yeah, 18 months.

DANNY BRIGGS: I did a television show with Johnny Bench called Golf in Paradise. It was a television show that you went around to all of these different resorts, and you would have two different guest celebrities, and I was the pro that was doing the golf tips, and I always enjoyed doing kind of whacky, fun type of golf tips and things. The reason I did that was because my wife was pregnant with twins and I had a four-year-old and two-year-old in diapers, and she was pregnant with twins and it was a really difficult pregnancy for her. So I decided that at that point in time -- actually I still had my Ben Hogan card, Nike card. I think it was the Ben Hogan Tour at the time before it went to Nike. I had an opportunity to go work for a gentleman that paid me a decent amount of money so that I could feed my family and cover the bills at home, and I had an opportunity to do that. I really enjoyed doing it. I didn't miss -- I got to play golf all the time with clients and people, so it wasn't like I was completely out of playing golf. I just wasn't playing competitive golf. And it was fun, and I got to be at home and -- I'll tell you what, with a four-year-old, two-year-old and twins, it wore us out. We were going through a couple dozen diapers a day, and my wife is awesome. She's breast-feeding two babies at the same time. It just doesn't happen. In fact, the pediatrician was so impressed that when other women were having twins, he would have them call up my wife to ask her how she did it. I don't know how she does it. I haven't been home in four weeks and she's home with five kids; I don't know how she does it. She's awesome, especially now that we're getting to those teenage years.

DANNY BRIGGS: Because it's a dream. It's a dream, and it's -- look at how much money we're playing for out here now, too. I mean, thank you, Tiger Woods for being out here. It's been fantastic. I'll be honest. There's times that you think, you know what man, I've had enough of this, traveling and hotels and airplanes being delayed two or three hours and you can't get to certain places and you're not playing well. I have tried to have a good attitude and confidence. That's all I've tried to have. If I'm fortunate enough to work hard and my confidence gets a little bit better and I'm able to finish out this year strong, then I'll keep playing. If it goes the other direction for me, I'll still try to have a good attitude and be confident and continue to do whatever.

DANNY BRIGGS: Oh, I think Bob May has been an inspiration for a lot of players. I even think Tiger Woods has been an enormous amount of inspiration for a lot of guys. Guys are working out more. Guys are trying to get fit. They are practicing harder. They are trying to get better. You see the younger generation of kids that are coming up out of high school and college and things like that, and for me, the role model was obviously Arnold Palmer Jack Nicklaus. I think now with the Tiger Woods era that has come upon all of us, kids are trying to swing like him, putt like him. Michael Jordan, I think the only person Michael Jordan ever, ever talked about wanting to be like somebody is Tiger Woods (laughs), which I think is funny.

End of FastScripts...