ENERGIZER SENIOR TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP

November 6, 1996

Bob Murphy

BOB MURPHY: We are doing better, actually. Feeling well and ready to go, and please, God, we will get some good weather here because this is one terrific golf course. I am a little disappointed that the fairways are as wet as they are because we should be playing them fast and hard, so the ball, if you drive it down the left side with a little hook or down the right side with a little fade, it ought to bounce into those little trees and it would play even better than it is going to play. If we get any rain we are going to be faced with mud - a lot of mud on our ball - so I just think the golf course is so good that I would just love to come here and play it one year when it was fast and hard. I think it would be just an incredible championship. Probably two or three under would win, so it wouldn't be maybe as much fun to watch for the people at home, but these greens are terrific. They have a lot of undulation in them and pin placements that we don't play a lot, very difficult pin placement. We are going to have to play a lot of defensive golf and we are not used to that. But I think your last two champions Floyd and Colbert show that you have to play very smart golf, and that is what I am preparing myself for. It was terrific last week for Lee to win after not having won all year, and I think it will put the enthusiasm back. He does have the physical problems and that is part of this wall that we talk about is how well do you age. If you age well and you don't have a lot of physical problems then the odds on you going through that line as say as Dale Douglass there and Bob Charles has and Charlie Coody did it all the way up until about, what, 56 or 7, then he had that bad arm problem and nerve problem in his neck, so that is all part of this equation, certainly the spontaneity and the desire comes back when you see Lee win. Now he is all fired up talking about winning two or three times next year. That will be terrific. There is no question all of us are going to have to fight the new kid on the block as they come and they will be thrown right in as the favorites on their arrival as Trevino likes to say the new sheriff is in town. Certainly Hale Irwin has shown exactly that. He is the new sheriff, and right now he is riding the biggest horse, isn't he? So it is fun. It is really fun.

BOB MURPHY: No, I feel like this year very similar to -- very similar to my 1994 year, where I won twice and finished second five or six times. My assessment at the end of '94 was that I think I started golf tournaments too slowly. I started too many tournaments with a 70, 71, 72, 73. And especially with 3-round events, that is very difficult. Then to make up the ground when guys are shooting 65, 6, 7, so I tried very, very hard in '95 to start better. And I did. My scoring average was much lower in the first round. My Sunday scoring average is good. But my Friday scoring average again this year is high. Of course at the Cadillac NFL I started with 62, so that was pretty low. But, yeah, I think I finished second -- two or three times - I don't even remember now - but I know a couple of times like at that moment where I lost to Nicklaus, at that moment a weird thing when I hit a shot out of a bunker and hit the edge of the bunker, came back and hit my hat, or at least I thought it hit my hat. That was a very, very difficult triple bogey on a hole and then lose by one shot. So lost opportunities, yes, but that is part of our game too. I mean, I think that Dave Stockton would tell you that he lost two opportunities coming in here last Sunday: missed a little putt on 17 and then hit a horrible shot on 18. So those are missed opportunities. You would think that could have scraped it somewhere around the green, and then certainly - as he always does - get it up-and-down. Trevino - I am sure that Trevino and Mike Hill both thought they had lost the opportunity when they made bogeys coming in on Sunday. So golf is - well, ups and downs. Lee has been running very slow all year and the different infirmities, and then he wins and it is all bubbles and Champagne, let us go and let us talk about next year and what we can do. So it is full of ups and downs. I think that I have been asked a lot about why do I play better on the Senior Tour than I did the regular Tour. I think that I probably handle those ups and downs better than I used to. I used to get, you know, high on my highs and excited, and really low when I was down and wasn't playing well, and so it is difficult to handle when you get pumped up and excited and it is very difficult to handle when you are down and not paying attention and you get down on yourself too quickly.

BOB MURPHY: I don't know. I have tried to identify that over the years. I think -- sometimes I just think that the tournament's on the weekend and that was my trouble on the regular Tour, so many tournaments, I would start -- I would just make the cut right on the line and then go out shooting 67, 67, and, you know, finish 6th. Where if you save a couple of shots Thursday and Friday, you would have had a different -- whole different ballgame and perhaps -- I don't know, I have tried to really get pumped up and ready to go and all that sort of stuff and yet that doesn't seem to work. I have tried to relax, and just go ahead and go along that doesn't seem to work either, so. I don't know.

BOB MURPHY: Yeah, I think that is why I have been able to identify that the fact that if I shot better scores on Friday I would be in a lot more golf tournaments, maybe I have overrode that statement that you don't win a tournament on Friday, but you can certainly lose it on Friday, and so maybe I have thought too much about that end of it. But it is pretty true when a good player, you know, your top-ranked players shoot a low round on Friday, the odds on them winning the tournament -- I'd like to see the numbers; I bet they are pretty good. I bet that merge is higher than we think it is. Higher than we think it is.

BOB MURPHY: I like four day tournaments especially on harder golf courses because here you can shoot 72 or 73 and you are not out of the golf tournament. So in that respect, yes, it is a better test; four days is a better test than is three days. It is, I think, a fact that it would be very, very difficult for us to play four days as seniors - four days every week - it would take its toll, and I think that window or that door or that whatever you are calling it there at 55, 56, would go down to 53 pretty quick, if we played more days of earnest, hard competition. Plus, you know, we utilize that extra day in the form of an extra Pro Am. On the Senior Tour we have, of course, at every event - with the exception of Majors and/or the bigger championships like this one - we have two Pro Ams on Wednesday, one Wednesday one Thursday, so the top -- I don't know what the numbers is. Top 20, Dave --

BOB MURPHY: Top 24 -- money winners have an option as to whether or not they play on Wednesday. They can play both if they wish. And I do that a lot of times when I am playing a golf course. Perhaps I didn't play as well as I wanted to last year, why, because I didn't remember some of the subtleties of the greens or something, so I will take an extra Pro Am day in that case, and try to learn a little bit more about the golf course and/or certainly new cites where we are going I will play both Pro Ams in them.

BOB MURPHY: Well, I'd go right to the money list I'd look at the top 12 to 15 guys and I'd start my analysis right there. The odds are that the guys who have been playing at best as of late are going to win this golf tournament. Especially if the weather - if the wind comes up and if the weather gets nasty - as it has in the past two years - and the guys who are playing the best, psychologically feeling the best, feel as if they are under control and ready to go and handling their game, if you will, those would be the guys. So right away, I think you got to go right to Colbert and Irwin, without question. Irwin is the man to beat this week. Colbert is having a little trouble after his run there, where he in four weeks finished second twice and won twice. I think he is experienced in back of that. Some good days and some bad days. And I think, as he said in Hawaii, he got up on Friday morning and went out to hit some balls and his body just said, we can't do this anymore. (Laughter.) So he crashed on Friday and came back with a couple of, you know, reasonable rounds to finish tournament. He will be up for this one, you can bet because it is his goal and his desire to beat Hale Irwin on the money list and so he will be there. Raymond hasn't been playing his best, but Raymond wasn't playing his best when he won here a couple of years ago either. So I am really looking forward to playing because I have not played well the last couple of three weeks. When Gale was sick I was home and a little bit of my psychological edge went down because I missed the Vantage Championship. I was in the right place. I was home where I should be with my wife who supports me and who has been the biggest push for me to continue to play through the aches and pains and whatnot. So we were in the right place doing the right thing. But when you look at your year, you had to be at the Vantage Championship because, of course, at that time I was still in the money race and everything else. That was a huge disappointment. Didn't quite come back from that mentally as I should to play golf, but my wife is doing fine now and I have no questions about that and I am ready to go, so I like this golf course. I have not performed well here because the weather - I have not played well in the weather, but this week I will. I will. I know it.

BOB MURPHY: Well, if you talk about what the Senior Tour was 15 years ago and what it is today, the attitude is different because this is a much more competitive arena than it was back 15 years ago. It is more competitive than it was ten years ago and it is more competitive than it was five years ago. So I think that that will be the edge that bring Tom Watsons, Tom Kites, etcetera, to this Senior Tour and when they get here as Raymond Floyd announced I will play 8 to 10 events on the Senior Tour. Right. Hale Irwin said, I will play oh, 10 or 12 events, right. They don't like to get beat. They don't like to not play well when they come out, so it becomes very competitive all over again. And I think that in some ways, as Jim said, you just can't become complacent because if you do, then you are going to get runover is what is going to happen. And, yes, it is hard for us to get up every week, but it is not hard to get up for a week like this. You have got a huge purse and you have got a terrific golf course, that is what we -- the guys who really want to win and who are playing well that is what we want to do. And so when Tom Watson comes out as he said to me after he won at Memorial, he said that was fun. He said I remembered a lot of things that I had forgotten, why? Because he hadn't won in so long and he was down. Just like Trevino. You saw a different Trevino here this morning than you would have seen last week had you talked to him last week or the week before. So he remembered how good it feels to win again. And that is what is going to happen to everyone of them. Take a little while, they will win. When they win, they will play twice as much as they ever think they would have.

BOB MURPHY: Well, I don't know. I think that golf, when you knew us on the regular Tour, that whole regular Tour is formed and continues to live on competition and the same thing is happening here. I think it is only good. I think it is only good. Maybe we don't have enough dances going on and throwing hats and ra-rahs after a lot of birdie putts, but I don't know that that makes it bad either. I think that people want to see us play well and I think they want to see us shoot good scores. They love to see us make a lot of birdies and have a good time. And that part - I don't think - is going to change. I think it is going to get better and better. And it has to, in my opinion, it has to get and continue to be competitive - more competitive even than it is today - if those same guys that we are talking about are going to come out here and play, because that is what is going to drive them, that is what is going to drive them. It is not going to be to come out and finish 10th and win $10,000. That is not going to drive them. The winning is going to drive them.

BOB MURPHY: Absolutely, and they will win and they will win a lot.

BOB MURPHY: But they are going to have it play well to do that, so that part is going to be fun. I mean, if it was as easy as we hear from some people in the media, if it was easy then Hale Irwin would have won more than twice this year; Ray Floyd would have won more than he has won this year. So if it were easy, I think -- Eddie Elias said it very well. He said, "Murph, you know if it was easy there wouldn't be a Tour, because everybody would be able to do it, so it is still healthy." I think it is evident that the purses are going up. It is evident that we have sponsors waiting to come to the Senior Tour. How many events can we play in and how many events can we support? I think that is a danger sign, how many weeks can we have on the Senior Tour. I don't know. Because you are asked then to play with Jim Colbert in the Diners Club and win that - albeit a made-for-television event - that is competition; we don't go play in that event to lose, so do you those extra events as the year goes on and you have played a lot of golf. Played a lot of golf.

BOB MURPHY: The number of players, thinking that 78 is not the right number?

BOB MURPHY: Well, yes you are running out of spots under the present guidelines and my conversations with Andy North and Gary Koch, they are not going to be exempt when they turn 50 to come to the Senior Tour. There is a way to solve that. You go play the regular Tour and you win money so that you have enough to be exempt when you get here. Jerry, no one, including Jim Albus and Larry Laoretti and Bruce Summerhayes, for example, no one Tom Wargo has been denied the access to the Senior Tour, albeit through the qualifying school or a sponsors invitation to take advantage of it and play well, the club professionals Larry Gilbert, those guys, they have come out and they have played and played well and it is up to all of us, all of us to do that exact same thing. I don't see us changing much, no.

BOB MURPHY: That is right.

BOB MURPHY: Well, the basis for that is competition. At some point there when these guys, when they are not competitive anymore, competitive enough to maintain their status, then I am afraid they have either got to work harder or go to pasture. I don't see us going to 150. It is just not a workable number, I don't.

BOB MURPHY: So you are going to continue to fill that up with better and better players so the field -- the field gets stacked with guys who are more competitive and who have played well over their year who are playing well now and know they have to play well to remain on this Tour, so that makes it even more competitive and that is exactly what is going to happen.

BOB MURPHY: Yeah, that is true.

BOB MURPHY: That is right. That is good for the Tour. When you have the number of sponsors you do, they want you to play. I think that has been terrific. Jim Colbert plays 34, 35 times a year. That is just outstanding for the sponsors. 33 this year, two or three? I am going to play 28 or 29 I am not sure because I missed those tournaments there, but 28 or 29 events this year and my goal was to play 30, so I have been playing 27, 28, but if I am going to catch Colbert and I win, I am going to have to play a couple of extra tournaments, I guess.

BOB MURPHY: Well, I don't know. I don't see that as another viable product, I will put it that way. I think the super seniors in conjunction with what we do is terrific, but as another Tour, a separate entity, another tournament, I don't envision that no.

BOB MURPHY: Quite frankly, the super seniors, they are not in the mood to do that. They want to play and have a chance as Bob Charles and Charlie Coody and Dale Douglass and Jimmy Powell have done -- they want the chance to win the whole pot even as a super senior. The other way you would have to make a choice.

BOB MURPHY: I don't know. Not in my opinion, but it may. That would allow more players, but I don't know -- in my mind I don't know why you have to go down a line to let people in. That part I don't -- I don't think I would like that. I like the guy to earns his way and continues to earn it. I thank you guys. I will see you Thursday.