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SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 25, 2006

Dana Quigley

EDMOND, OKLAHOMA

KELLY ELBIN: Dana Quigley, ladies and gentlemen, in with around of 2 under par 69. One shot back of the club house leaders. Dana, it looked like a pretty clean round for the most part.

DANA QUIGLEY: Yeah. The only bogey I made, I drove it in the fairway bunker there and missed it. I had it probably 20 feet from the pin, but I was in the rough on a sharp bank, so I missed about an eight footer for par there. Other than that, I was pretty consistent. I hit most of the greens and made a couple putts.

KELLY ELBIN: Want to go through the three birdies and the one bogey.

DANA QUIGLEY: Um hum. Sixth hole I remember that hole, I tell you, it had about, let's call that one a four footer. I hit driver, and I think gap wedge in there to about six feet and made it. Four feet, I don't know what that is.

The next one is a par 3, the 8th hole. I hit a beautiful it played 181, I hit 7 iron. The green's kind of release out for me with my low ball flight, and I hit 7 iron and it ran back there to about, I would say three or four feet. Made that.

Then 10 I hit driver, good driver, good 8 iron into the wind. I had 160 to the hole. And I think I had 148 there. I hit the 8 iron to about, I'm going to say about 7 or 8 feet. Made that.

Other than that, it was pretty commercial. I really was, after I got off to a nice start, I made some nice pars starting out. I just tried not to implode, you know. I didn't want to give any away and I played more or less very commercially and I had my eye on the leaderboard and no one was making any kind of move, so I felt like if I could keep it around a couple under I would be all right.

KELLY ELBIN: Questions?

Q. Are you feeling better this week than were you?

DANA QUIGLEY: I'm feeling a little better. I'm getting better. I still have some dizzy spots when I bend over and straighten up. But I think that will, those things are getting less and less more frequent. Less frequent.

I have another problem, I got a new problem with my PSA count's kind of rising and I'm worried about that. I got to go home in a few weeks when I can get there and have some more tests and they're going to give me another thorough examination. So I think that I don't think I'm out of the woodwork, but when you get in a tournament like this you tend to forget about your problem, because there's so much trouble out there on the golf course, so I kind of focus on the golf course and didn't think about what was going on with me. Hopefully the doctors are going to get this all squared away with the proper medication for my body, you know. They have hit a lot more practice shots with the pills than I do with the golf ball.

Q. What would it mean to win this after last year's tournament, the way that one ended?

DANA QUIGLEY: Well, if you can believe it or not, I was, I didn't have the least bit of disappointment about last year. I was really psyched about how I played last year. You can only play as well as you can and if you get lucky at the end and Mike Reid made eagle on 18 to catch us. Of course Jerry Pate made bogey. So it's, you never know when it is your turn. The best you can do is play your best and I did last year and I was really psyched for the rest of the summer about the way I played and when I got here this week the wind blowing the way it did in the practice round I really didn't give myself much chance here at this golf course. I thought it was probably a little bit too hard for the way I hit the ball. And I was pleasantly surprise this had morning when there was no wind. And I took advantage of it. It's always real fun for me to play in a Major event where everything is really hard. I mean you got to be just, you got to be spot on every shot that you hit in a Major and this course absolutely does not afford you any breathers out there. You got to go strong for 18 holes out here. And I think that's why I like a Major venue is just the fact that you just, it keeps your interest. You really don't get too lax out there or if you do, you're not going to be able to score. So to answer your question, it would be nice, but I don't have anything but positive feelings about what happened last year.

Q. You had some forced time off this year because of the health issues, can you just talk about what that's been like, health issues aside, has that been good for you to get away from the course a little bit, obviously not for the right reasons, but.

DANA QUIGLEY: It does not I do not get away from the golf course, I still play every day at West Palm when I'm home. When I'm not playing at a tournament. I just, my routine changes a little, I don't play at 7:30, I'm usually in the doctor's office at 8 o'clock every morning and he does a bunch of tests on me. But I found that, I think I found out this year for the first time that I really enjoy being home. I really, to be honest with you, the last 10 years I didn't, No. 1, I don't go home and No. 2, I never thought I could be home and enjoy it and watch the golf on TV. So it does prove to me that I'm going to have a life after all this fantasy world that I've been on, this fantasy trip I've been on for the last 10 years. So it really has been a great plus for me in the fact that I'm kind of looking forward to being home. I have some, a lot of good friends at home that care a lot about me and we have a great time. So I may not miss this as badly as I thought I might. So it was a good lesson for me, to be honest with you. But I do enjoy watching every telecast and watching these guys live and die with golf the way I do. And it's just, you know, it's every one comes to the end of their regime and I think mine's getting there, but I think I'm going to be all right, which is a very valuable lesson for me.

Q. Could you elaborate on your current medical issues that you've been dealing with.

DANA QUIGLEY: I've been through it started three months ago when I went out to Las Vegas on the way to California, but I've been through six medications in the last month and a half. Each one you got to let it run its course to see if it's going to be all right. I've been with diuretics, without diuretics, now I'm on a pill that's not even a blood pressure pill, it's more for opening up your arteries so that the blood will flow more easily through it so there won't be pressure on your heart, which is what they're saying. And I still have, they can't answer why I have dizzy spells, but more people I've talked to, the more players I've talked to out here the more of them have said that they have it too. So it's probably not unique. Larry Nelson is going through a particular problem with his dizziness and it's not related to blood pressure. So we, you know, when you get our age, I guess some stuff is going to happen. And I don't think that the doctors have they can't open up a textbook and tell you what it is. They got to mess around and give you different things and different combinations to see if that will work with you. So I think I feel okay. I don't have the, I have a little bit more energy than I did a month ago on medication. So I think I'm getting a little better in that respect. Every one that knows me well thinks my swing has gotten a lot easier. That may and good thing. But I was not a long hitter when I was swinging hard at it, so I may be I may try the Hubert Green theory of golf. Where now I got four hybrids in my bag and I'm looking for a few more to hit. So my ball striking is not as crisp, I don't think, or as, I don't have as, I haven't generated as much speed. So I think that's directly related to the amount of energy that I have in my body. So it's just something where you get towards 60 that you're going to have to deal with, I think. I don't think that, you know, Hale's the only guy that can stay strong at his age, so. In my particular case I think I'm going to lose a little bit as we go along.

Q. You sort of answered this, but is it tough making the adjustment going from ironman to comeback man?

DANA QUIGLEY: Yeah, that I thought it was going to be tougher than it is. I always thought all my life I was Superman, that I could do anything, eat anything, and not have to worry about my health. And now since I had this problem, since I got the high blood pressure, I quit, I don't use salt any more, I don't drink caffeine, I don't have nicotine, I didn't smoke a cigar today on the golf course. I don't eat much red meat, I mean I changed everything. I told the doctor I think my body's going through withdrawals. I've taken everything away from it, and I don't drink soda, I don't drink, I don't do anything bad but play dice with Thorpe, so I'm looking forward to next week when we have casinos.

Q. That could be it.

DANA QUIGLEY: That could be it. Listen, if I come out strong next week, you're going to know it's dice table. That's giving me my energy back. But if there's a way that I think that to tie in your question about being in here at a Major championship, I think the adrenaline flows a little bit stronger in this and you think that's probably why I feel better is that have you this adrenaline rush which is making up for some of your energy loss. So I think that's probably why I felt pretty decent today.

Q. Can you talk about number 18 and how difficult it could play with the expected 15, 20, 25 mile an hour winds these next couple days?

DANA QUIGLEY: Sure, we played a practice round on Tuesday, Jim Thorpe and myself and Doyle and Ed, we all hit three woods into the green. Two of us were ten yards short. There's a huge false front there that the ball, if you hit it anywhere near the top of it, it's coming back 20 yards after the green. So 18 is a bear.

9 is a bear, with that same 20 mile an hour wind you got to hit your shot up over some trees that are hanging out on the corner. So 18 and 9 are both holes, if you make four, you're really happy and you're out of there. And they're extremely hard driving holes into a 20 mile an hour wind because out about 240 or between 240, 250, there's arise in the fairway with bunkers left and rough right or vice versa, and if you don't carry it 250 into that wind, which we probably won't, it better be darn straight, because you only have a 20 yard fairway up there. So lots of problems on those two holes, no question about it. A guy could come into 18 on Sunday with a, if it were very windy, and he could lose or win the tournament with a par there, which is very unusual for a tournament play. Monster holes, no question about it. The whole golf course is just absolutely perfect. It's a hard, hard golf course, and you just can't nap out there. As we 60 year olds like to do on occasion. You don't get a chance to take a nap.

Q. You mentioned enjoying your time at home, have you discovered any new interests or

DANA QUIGLEY: Golf is still my only interest. I'm starting to look at boats a little bit now and thinking I might like to go out on the ocean, we're very close to it right now. But as far as all my last visits at home, it's all been golf oriented. I still play every day. I don't play all day, but I do play every day. I still have that need inside of me to go out and try to figure out where that ball's going. But if you got any ideas, I'll certainly entertain them.

Q. For us that don't get to cover you all the time, could you just briefly recount how you turned your life around 15 years ago?

DANA QUIGLEY: You mean with the drinking? In 1988 I had, I was a club pro since 1982 I was a club pro at Crestwood. I got into drinking pretty strong when I was on the Regular TOUR from '78 to '82. And if you're someone that drinks a lot, you don't ever think you particularly have the problem. You think you can handle it and everything's under control and when in reality you don't have any control over it, or you wouldn't be an alcoholic. But in '88 I had a couple car accidents, myself and a tree. And trees, I don't know if you have heard the axiom but trees don't move when you hit them. You think a car going some kind of speed would just mow down a tree, but you can't. I mean they just crack you up pretty bad.

So I had two accidents and still didn't, you know, my, actually the vice president of my club is the one that got me, his wife was the president of Butler Hospital which deals with any kind of addiction, and he said I had to check myself in that day after the second one and he talked me into it somehow and I did it. I went in for 30 days, to get educated. This is in '89, in September. And I came out and didn't drink for six months and thought, you know, I could probably handle a glass of wine at dinner. So that April when the tournament season started again in New England I started trying to have a glass of wine with dinner and it went nuts again. I went nuts. So I spent another, that was September '89, I spent until 1990 probably another year maybe 12 or 14 months drinking heavily again. Breaking everyone's heart by my own because I was too drunk to worry about it. And just in the winter time in West Palm Beach in 1990 I was driving home from the course half lit, going to a restaurant to have some more and I just for something a light dawned on me when I was driving, I pulled the car off the road and I haven't had a drink since.

It's still a problem every day. I would love to have about a six pack of beer right now it would be perfect after this heat. But I can't do it, so it's something that I don't deal with, I don't feel like I have an option to deal with, so I don't even, I don't worry about it, I don't say poor me and all this crap, but it's certainly a problem and it's a widespread problem in the world and I was just really lucky and glad, and with the good lord's help I was able to, you don't ever conquer it, but I was able to deal with it every day and not drink.

Q. When you said you pulled your car over, you just, what, stopped?

DANA QUIGLEY: I was going 70 miles an hour down 95 to this and my exit was, my exit was coming up. And I was kind of like having a fight with myself, saying, you know, why don't you go home. No, I don't want to go home this and that. And I got very close to the exit, and I was just, it was 50/50 whether I did it or not, but I just absolutely swerved the car over the road down the exit, went home and that day I just, that night I decided I wasn't going to drink any more.

KELLY ELBIN: Dana Quigley, thank you very much.

DANA QUIGLEY: All right.

End of FastScripts.

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