TOM WATSON: '85? '87? Something like that. When you could start spinning the ball out of the rough, stopping the ball on the greens out of the rough, it made the game easier. When you made, when you went to the metal headed drivers with the longer shafts, you could obviously swing it, swing the club head faster with the same effort and hit the ball farther. Then they added better aerodynamics and lift to the ball and the golf ball, along with the driver, along with spinning the ball out of the rough, has made the game play a lot easier. And we don't want and what's happened is we have made the golf courses longer and longer to compensate for that when we play on our championships.
For the average golfer if you look at how much benefit do they get from the clubs, they get some benefit, but not as much benefit as the pros do. The pros get more benefit from the clubs and ball. Because they swing it faster. So if it were up to me, I would like to see the golf ball and clubs in total be brought back a little bit. I just think the game is actually, I looked at the golf ball at, who was it, Roger Maltby was playing the Nike ball and that Nike ball, this was in when we played in the Mutual, Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf. And he hit this shot down wind and it was the first time I had seen a ball do this in a long time, but down wind the ball actually rose in the air like this (Indicating). Went like this. We call it an up shooter. And you can see it into the wind where you hit the ball into the wind and the ball climbs in the air. But down wind, you know, you used to be able to do it with the balls that you could spin with higher spin rates like this (Indicating), and it made it so you could hit a shot down wind and hold the ball on the greens. But with the new golf ball construction, the ball comes out with less spin, you always see the ball go this way down wind and when it does that it hits the greens hard and it's harder to stop.
And I mentioned to him, I said, "Is that the same ball that Tiger is using?" And he said, "Yes, it is." And I said, "What the in the hell are you using it for, man? You need that rock that goes out there."
But the point is, is that the golf balls have changed, obviously the drivers, you can swing them faster, you can spin the ball out of the rough, getting back to that point, you can spin the ball out of the rough. It's not as much a penalty being in the rough, if any penalty being in the short rough any more. It's made the game easier for us to play in competition. And overall, I would like to see the golf ball and everything brought back to a certain degree. What that degree is, I really can't tell you, but I would like to see it brought back. Not remain the same.
Q. Based on what you've seen from the golf course this week so far, would you care to make a prediction on a potential winning score?
TOM WATSON: Well, what's the winning score going to be? Well, given the wind today, my guess is the winning score is going to be between 6 and 10 under par. That's the way I think it's going to be. If we have the same type of wind conditions we do today. And if we have the same wind conditions we had yesterday, you can just go around even par. But don't trust me, I'm the worst predictor of scores in the world.
KELLY ELBIN: Tom Watson, thank you very much.
TOM WATSON: Well, thank you. Thank you very much.
End of FastScripts.
