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EDS BYRON NELSON CHAMPIONSHIP

May 10, 2006

Kenny Perry

IRVING, TEXAS

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Kenny Perry, thank you for joining us here for a couple minutes. Talk about your layoff. You haven't played since the Ford Championship due to some injuries, but it looks like you're back and ready to go.

KENNY PERRY: I don't know if I'm ready to go, but I'm back. Eight weeks off, had knee surgery. First time I've been injured in my life, so first time I ever had surgery, so that was kind of a new experience. But it was a great eight weeks off for me. It's the first time in my 25 years as a pro I've had an extended layoff to where I felt no pressure having to practice while I was home.

I followed my son a lot, he's a sophomore at Western Kentucky. They won the Sun Belt Conference in golf, so I hung out with the golf team a lot. They're heading to the NCAA tournament next week, which I won't get to go to for Colonial. Hopefully they'll make it to Oregon. That was one of the regional sites. They're going to Tucson National.

My oldest daughter graduated college last week, so that was awesome. She graduated from Lipscomb University. And my youngest daughter graduates from high school in three weeks, so I will miss The Memorial for the first time I love The Memorial, so it's a tough year.

I didn't get to defend at Bay Hill. I'm going to be able to defend next week, but I'm probably 80 percent right now with my knee the way it feels.

But it's been great to be a dad once again, just spend time with my wife and my family, and just to kind of get up in the morning and say what are we going to do today. I added 15 more feet to my garage. I had built onto it, redesigned my shop in the back of my house. We added another room to our house, kind of a theater room my wife built on, so we've had a lot of projects, a lot of things to keep us busy. I probably only played 54 holes of golf, and I was able to play 12 holes yesterday. It's hot here. 93 degrees, I about melted out there.

I'm definitely not in golf shape yet. I'll just kind of work my way into that. It's been nice. I've enjoyed it.

Q. Have you been home long enough yet for your wife to go, isn't it time for you to get out?

KENNY PERRY: Probably got on her nerves after a week, yeah. That's probably true.

Q. Is defending at Colonial bringing you back a little bit earlier than you might have under better circumstances?

KENNY PERRY: Probably so. Definitely. My first goal when I was laying in the bed watching everybody at Bay Hill play, my thought was I've got to figure out a way to get to Colonial. That was always a big goal in my mind, just to be able to play next week. I don't know how competitive I'll be, but I just wanted to go back, see everybody, and just enjoy the week.

Q. What was it like going through rehab for the first time in your life, I guess?

KENNY PERRY: I didn't enjoy it at all. You know, it was just different. I'd get up, go to the chiropractor, go see him, too, and I'd go work out a little bit. Not as much as I should have, but I did ride the bike some. One of my buddies has got a weight room, so I'd go in there.

You know what, I just I've been on Tour for so long, I just felt like I just wanted a break. I just wanted to get away. I wanted to come back slowly. My doctor was Mike Pagnani. He's the head doctor for the Predators. He's a good doctor. He just told me, you don't need to be in a hurry with this thing. You just come back and let pain be your guide, and if it starts to hurt, just lay off a little bit. He says physically you're fine, there's nothing we've repaired it, it's fixed. You're going to have to get over the fear factor a little bit. Go on and put some pressure on it, which I've tried to do.

I had a couple instances a couple days ago where the knee gave way on me during a golf swing, just flat collapsed a little bit. I hit it about 100 yards left when I did it. I couldn't hang onto the club. It was pretty interesting.

We'll just see. I'm just going to take it slow and just get out there and hopefully middle of the summer I'll be ready to go again.

Q. With all that, what are your expectations this week, next week? How do you approach it?

KENNY PERRY: I don't know. I just think you need to have an open mind. I'm really just enjoying it. I'm not going to really put a lot of pressure on myself to have to do well. I don't expect to do well. Maybe the magical will show back up. Maybe I'll take enough pressure off myself that I'll relax and the bad shots won't get under my skin nearly as bad as they did in the past. I'll understand that, I'll accept it, and maybe I'll just try to score a little bit, work on my short game, hopefully my chipping and putting, and be able to manage my game a little bit differently.

Q. Having taken a break for the first time in your career really, did it give you any sort of thoughts on what retirement might does that look like a more appealing thing now?

KENNY PERRY: Very much. I actually enjoyed it a lot. It was hard for me to come back to tell you the truth. When you've been so focused for so long on one goal and one purpose in life, and then all of a sudden you open yourself up to a lot of other things you enjoy, it kind of made me think twice.

But I'm going to play. I've got enough exemptions out here to carry me through the Senior Tour. I've got five more years of exemptions on our Tour. I'm 45, so when I turn 50 I'll go to the Senior Tour. Sandy says, you can't quit now. My youngest graduates high school in three weeks, and she says, I'm finally going to get to travel. You're not quitting now. She wants to travel, so we'll come out and play and she'll travel with me, so we'll start a different life that way.

Q. I'm curious, all these house projects that you had going, were they things you had already planned or were these things you started to do because you were restless?

KENNY PERRY: They were things we did knowing I was going to have two months to do it. Normally in the past those are projects you need to be around to do them, to tell the contractors and all what you wanted to do. When you come in and pour the concrete, the roofing, I put an upstairs in my shop behind the house and did a lot of redesigning. It's pretty neat. I put that U Coat It, that epoxy, on the floor, so now all my hotrods are sitting on a nice floor. On the walls are all the Taylor Made covers, black, red, gray, and I kind of dressed it up a lot, so it's kind of neat when you come down there and see all the hotrods sitting down there. It's pretty cool.

Q. How many hotrods do you have?

KENNY PERRY: A lot. Too many. I've got a couple '67 Chevy II Novas, three '69 Camaros, a '68 Camaro, a new Corvette sitting down there. I've had a '55 and a '57. I'm a Chevy guy, so that's kind of what I mess with is old hotrods.

Q. Switching gears a little bit, you seem to have an affinity for winning tournaments that are affiliated with legendary players. I guess this one would kind of fit that hold?

KENNY PERRY: That was already brought up to me yesterday. The guys were telling me you need to win Byron's tournament so you'll have them all. But it's always been in the back of my mind to win here. I've always loved Byron Nelson. I like what he stands for, I like his character. I just like sitting and talking with him. It's amazing how the man can reflect back 30 years and tell you every golf shot he hit, how much he spent on traveling, hotel, food. It's pretty neat. He's very sharp minded and he's a lot of fun to sit down and talk to.

He always writes me notes, probably two notes a year. He'll call me, which is pretty special. I just love him. I just think he's a great man and I like being around him.

Q. An event like this when Tiger and Phil aren't playing, does that give any of the guys a little extra idea that maybe this is my week to win? Does that change the thinking going into a tournament like this?

KENNY PERRY: No, I don't think so. I don't think it changes the guys any. I think every one of them in that room, in that clubhouse thinks they can win the golf tournament, or they wouldn't be out here. I just think when Tiger and Phil are at an event it makes the event a little more special, brings a lot more media, brings a lot more attention to the tournament, and I just wish they were here supporting Byron.

Tiger with the loss of his dad last week, we all understand that. That's a big loss for him. We all have personal problems and we're all human beings. We're hurt sometimes. Sometimes we're mentally hurt; the golf gets to you a little bit. There's a lot of reasons. It's kind of tough to get all the top players together. Maybe this FedEx Cup, we will see if that gets us a little closer.

Q. Has the time you've taken off given you different perspective on this, on all this stuff out here?

KENNY PERRY: On the Tour?

Q. Yeah.

KENNY PERRY: No, not really. I've lived a dream. I realize how special it is out here and how many people want to get out here and play. It just made me realize how fortunate I've been and how easy my wins were, and yet to me right now, it feels like it's almost impossible to get back to where I was in my game and stay in my mind and in my physical abilities.

I've been playing with those Western Kentucky kids. I played with them a little last week and they're all hitting it 30 yards by me. My son is even out hitting me now. I was looking at Justin saying, you're not longer than me, there's no way. I've got to be hitting on one leg here or something. He has really increased his club head speed, and it's really been fun they've been beating on me. I played 54 holes and they just killed me. They just laughed and had a big time about it. That was special for me.

I realized right then I was in trouble a little bit, and I knew I had a long way to go to get back to where I was. Do I have enough drive and ambition to want to get back to the leaderboard, to being one of the best players in the world? I think so. It's just going to be a matter of time. Hopefully my knee will let me.

I've taken a lot of video of my swing, and my right leg will not go to the golf ball. I'm kind of hanging back on my right side. In turn when you hang back you kind of throw your hands at it, and you lose the club head angle and lose a lot of power and you also hit it really high. I'm hitting everything really high and I'm adding left to the club by falling back a little, and I've lost the penetrating ball flight I've always had. I'll get it back.

It's going to take a lot of practice and a lot of hard work. I'm not a mechanical player by any means, so I think what feels good to me and when I get it right, I know. I know right now it's not right. It's tough to play the game when you're out of sync; your body is out of kilter and you're just not hitting it the way you know you can hit a golf shot.

But I actually won a golf tournament doing that. I won Boston one year playing pitiful. For whatever reason I was able to manage my game and chip and putt and score well. It's going to be a time in my life where I'm going to have to not expect to hit it 300 plus down the middle. It's probably going to be right or left field, mostly left because I'm hooking it right now. I'm going to have to figure out a way, maybe 3 wood off the tee a little bit, maybe use a little more loft to put less sidespin on the ball and try to maybe think a little bit more out there.

I've always just taken it for granted how well I drive a golf ball. It's always been a strength of my game, and I've always been able to drive it fairly long, fairly straight, and I am not doing that right now. It's going to be a new chapter. We're going to have to kind of figure out how to play the game a little bit differently. Hopefully it's only going to maybe take two months, one month. I don't know how long it's going to take me to really get my legs strong enough to where I get the fear out of my head where I can swing at it, go after it, and it's not going to hurt me.

Q. You raised a question a moment ago, do I have enough drive to get back. Is that a question you ask yourself?

KENNY PERRY: Yeah, how long can you last out here? I like what Jay Haas has been doing; he did great out here when he was 48. Fred Funk, there are players up in years who are actually still having a lot of success out here. But you've still got to think, what is my motivation? What is my drive? What is my desire now?

Q. Your wife wants to travel.

KENNY PERRY: Yeah, and plus both my girls are coming here to SMU next year. My oldest daughter is going to do her graduate work in accounting and my youngest will be an undergraduate here. SMU is not a cheap school (laughter).

You know, we'll just see. I love competition. I'm a very driven person, and I like to win, and my dad kind of instilled that in me about winning. He used to beat on me pretty bad as a kid, and he said you're never going to beat me. He really instilled that winning into me. I still have that, I like to win, whether it's a card game, board game, drag racing, whatever. That's just kind of part of me. That's what's instilled in me.

But then again, physically you've got to kind of look, 25 years of pounding golf balls, millions of golf balls, it takes a toll on your body, also.

Q. Seeing as how Colonial was kind of your dangling carrot out there, I wonder how you feel about being part of the 60th anniversary?

KENNY PERRY: I think it's neat. I'm going to be nervous with all the great champions coming back to the champions dinner that night. It'll be a thrill. I mean, I just love the membership there. I love the history, I love the golf course. Just when I walk upon that ground, even though I know I'm not going to be 100 percent, I feel like I'm going to be competitive in that tournament next week for whatever reason. When I walk out there I feel like I can compete and I can play well.

Q. Well, they're coming to Perry's place.

KENNY PERRY: Maybe if I win it one more time (laughing).

Q. Are you more excited than apprehensive, more apprehensive than excited? How would you describe what your frame of mind is?

KENNY PERRY: I'll be nervous, I'll be concerned, I'll be excited. I'm looking forward to it. A little bit of everything.

There will be a lot of emotions going in me just when I tee it up tomorrow. This week will be a little bit of a barometer for next week; two totally different golf courses obviously. This one is very wet right now. That's what was hard walking yesterday, very spongy out there on the golf course with all the rain. Next week will be all Bermuda, very firm, very fast, two totally different golf courses, but at least this week I'll get a little competition in me, kind of get the juices flowing again.

But basically I'm looking forward to next week. I'm kind of anxious to get there, ready to get to that tournament, get there, kind of get in the flow again and actually seeing what I've got. I don't know if I've got much at all, I don't know. I can't answer and tell you how I'm playing, if I'm playing well, because I've just not played enough golf to I've only hit a few shots here and there, played a few holes. I hit some good ones and I hit some bad ones. You can't do that on Tour. You need to hit 90 something percent of your shots pretty accurate. That's a tough question; I don't know.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Kenny Perry, thank you very much.

End of FastScripts.

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