U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 28, 2000

Jack Nicklaus

JACK NICKLAUS: Oh, obviously before I got here I couldn't have told you one hole from the next. But after I played it, I obviously remembered the golf course; remembered most of it. The golf course is in nice shape, good shape. Greens are firm. Rough is probably tougher than I expected. Again, they planted rye grass, (laughter) and the golf course is good. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing at all.

JACK NICKLAUS: My play today was playing a round. Actually, I hit the ball pretty decently.

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, I never know what I am going to do. You found that out from the years you have been with me.

JACK NICKLAUS: I met him on the first tee. I walked over the first tee to play. Jerry Bruner had asked me to play; Larry Nelson and Gary Daniels were there, and we joined them.

JACK NICKLAUS: Showed me all the way a round.

JACK NICKLAUS: Yeah, I remember that. Unfortunately, that was too many years ago, Al. But the last time I played here -- I don't know what I lost by -- Larry Laoretti won the tournament obviously, and I finished second. I don't remember what it was by. A couple shots?

JACK NICKLAUS: Whatever it was, he played very well and beat everybody here by a pretty good ways.

JACK NICKLAUS: I did read the article. I thought it was a very nice article. I thought he did a very nice job. What I was most impressed with, it sounded like his words from talking with him and so forth. I thought that was very nice. He has obviously played very well. I think it wasn't any accident why he was asked to write that article.

JACK NICKLAUS: Oh, I don't know. I would imagine the same thing it did last time, the under par. Be right a round there.

JACK NICKLAUS: Yeah, I am all right with that. I really got -- yesterday, I was getting ready to come up. My pilot called me. He said, Jack, the weather is terrible; going to be awful. I called up the USGA and they said: I recommend you stay home if you don't want to work on your golf game. I do not think we are going to play this afternoon. Never got a drop of rain, right?

JACK NICKLAUS: That figures. But I got a good day's work yesterday at home. I would like to add more, but I didn't. So that is the way it goes.

JACK NICKLAUS: I am going to start playing well somewhere down the line. It basically revolves around scoring. I have been hitting the ball decently. And Pebble Beach, I hit it good just didn't do anything with it. There, I missed every green by a couple of yards. You miss a green by a couple of yards, you make bogey unless you are really good with the hay around the green. I am not very good with it. You got the same hay here. Looks like they transplanted it from Pebble Beach to here. Same grass. But oddly enough, Scotty my caddie, Scotty is a golf pro, and Scotty looks at my swing a lot. Last night, he looked at it and made a couple of comments about some of the things I was doing, and hit the ball very well yesterday, and hit the ball very well today. Just a very, very little thing. Nothing you could even talk about really. But allowed me to hit through the ball rather than to the ball which has been one of the problems I have had all year. Really doesn't make a whole lot of difference. I am hitting the ball well enough. I just haven't got the ball in the hole very well. I just got to get the ball in the hole.

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, that is -- I haven't putted very well for quite a while. I don't think -- it is really funny, I have never been a bad putter; always been a pretty darn good putter; always been a strong part of my game, but I don't think it has been a strong part of my game the last few years. I still don't miss a lot of short putts, but I don't ever seem to make anything either. If it gets outside six, seven feet, then I don't seem to make it. That has been sort of what I have been doing and, you know, if I go through a tournament, if I hole a 15- or 20-footer, one or two at a tournament, I could seem to remember every one of them because they are so few and far between, I used to make a lot of putts. I am just not making putts. You have to make putts if you want to win obviously. That is a pretty stupid statement, I guess, on my part.

JACK NICKLAUS: I don't think Gary would know either. I think putting is pretty much up here. (pointing to his head) It's in your hands and in your head, or your eyes - you have got to be able to feel the ball into the hole; you have got see where you want to hit it. I think my putting -- I don't see anything wrong with it; just doesn't seem to go in the hole. Some day it will. It will. Just be patient. I don't want to outpatient the year though.

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