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U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPJuly 29, 2009Bruce LietzkeCARMEL, INDIANA THE MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to welcome Bruce Lietzke to the interview area. This is Bruce's seventh Senior Open, having won in 2003. He is a 13-time PGA Tour Champion and seven-time winner on the Champion's Tour. Bruce, talk about the state of your game and your expectations this week, if you would. BRUCE LIETZKE: State of the game isn't real, real good right now. I haven't played really well this year so I'm hoping that changes this week. I'm coming to a course that I've got a real good history on. Unfortunately, that history was 18 years ago, so it's ancient history, almost. Sometimes those kind of thoughts and confidence can turn a game around. But 18 years is a long time. But I finished second to John Daly here in 1991. Three shots back, if I remember right. It was really his tournament the whole week. I don't think I ever got within more than two shots of the lead. But he was also a ninth alternate and a player that nobody on our Tour knew about. And I kept expecting him to act like a rookie and fold sometime. I played with him on Saturday and he played very nice. Kind of expecting him to fold a little bit on that Saturday. He didn't. If he didn't do it on Saturday, I thought he would, you know, fall apart on Sunday, and that didn't happen either. I shot either 71 or 70 though last day. Which a lot of times in a major championship, especially on a real tough golf course like this, and you're near the lead, that can win, and it didn't. I think I finished three shots back of John, and I finished 2 or 3 shots ahead of the next guy. So I played real, real well. I think my total might have been 9 or 10 under. It just saw -- they 'got a scoreboard in the locker room, and I might have been nine under for the week. But, anyway, I've got some positive thoughts. I didn't remember a whole lot about the golf course, but I've been reminded lately, especially in the last couple years, I've been working with Pete Dye. We're building a TPC golf course in San Antonio, Texas. I'm his consultant. All TPC courses besides an architect are required to have a PGA Tour consultant. So I've been picking that old brain of Pete's for a couple of years now, two-and-a-half years. And he brings up just a few of his courses, especially three. In these two years I've heard him mention Crooked Stick, Kiawah Island and Whistling Straits almost constantly. And he is terribly proud of this golf course here. One of his very, very early works. And I still think some of his thoughts designing this course in San Antonio, even though it's a completely different kind of terrain, he loves some of the features at this golf course. And he also mentions Kiawah and Whistling Straits quite a bit, too. So I really enjoyed my couple years with Pete. I guess I've admired him from a distance from a player's standpoint. We're not sure if he is an angel or the devil himself. Because he has built some diabolical golf courses. But I have grown to appreciate -- tried look through his eye as little bit. He still sees things different than I do, but last couple years have been fun working with Pete and trying to understand what goes through his mind. And one of the things that goes through that mind of his is this golf course right here. Q. Bruce, a couple things, I guess. Now that you're looking at golf courses through these eyes, with that mindset, what is it about this course that will be key this week do you think? And, maybe, is there something about it that allowed a John Daly to win in '91? BRUCE LIETZKE: Well, I thought I had this golf course pegged pretty good thinking that because John Daly won here -- and the 14th hole might be the hole that kind of skewed my thinking a little bit. Fourteen is a 90-degree dog leg left that has a creek out there that to carry, it's in the 275 or 280 range. What I remember from that '91 tournament, I'm pretty sure I played with Greg Norman the first two days. In 1991 he was the best long driver that this Tour had ever seen. He and I and all the rest of us human beings -- we couldn't carry the ball. This was Belotta golf balls, I guess maybe some wooden heads but certainly Belotta golf balls back then and 275 and 280 was out of the question. We had to play way around the dog leg. This hole, I think, it's 460, 480, I think it's 480 if you go around the dog leg and stay away from that water. Even Norman had to do that. I got paired with Daly on Saturday. I hit a really good drive just as daring as I could hit it. And I hit 3-iron to the green and John Daly hit 8-iron. He was the one guy in the field that could knock it over the creek. And I just kept -- and because he won, I just kept thinking of this as a long hitter's golf course. But I think Lanny Watkins today mentioned, he said, "You know, you finished second," meaning me, and Kenny Knox finished third, Jim Gallagher, some guys that weren't big hitters right there the whole time. So I think maybe just that 14th hole in particular, and now having played for a couple practice rounds, there's only 1 or 2 of those little dog leg that Daly took advantage of. The rest of the time it's just a monster golf course for everybody, including him. But that 14th hole really stuck out in my mind. I'm thinking, boy, no wonder this guy's going to win, I'm hitting 3-irons and he is hitting 8-irons. But that's not the kind of golf course it is. Some fairly average hitters were chasing John all the way down to the wire. So I don't think this golf course favors any long hitters, like I was predicting. But what I have seen through Pete's eyes is the angles of things that he likes to throw at you, you know, I'm very target oriented; I'm looking for the green. I'm looking for a pin placement and I'm trying to determine if I want to be putting uphill. He loves to throw bunkers and fairway cuts to throw you off. And I've even kind of heard him mention distractions and things like that. He really likes to distract, and I guess it happens for the public too. But he really wants to put something in your eye that doesn't really have anything to do with hitting a good shot. He wants you to be a little distracted. This golf course has tons of those kind of bunkers. Those are some of the things he's doing in San Antonio. And I wonder why he keeps angling bunkers a certain way. And that's what -- he's not looking at it too much from a player's standpoint. He is looking at it from his architect and how he wants a player to be distracted, or at least think his way around an approach shot. And because I've never gotten much into golf course design, I've never thought about the angles or the bunkers and the faces of the bunkers, whether they appear or they don't appear, those are critical to him. He wants you to see the face of the bunker as often as he can, because that's going be a distraction. If that bunker's hidden, you don't know it's there, he wants you to know where the trouble is, and if the shot favors a left or right shot he wants to put something in your eye that makes you think that it might be a right to left shot. Like I said, we've -- I'm beginning to believe he is just a genius in designing golf courses like that. There's too many of his great courses in the world now, both old and some new ones. So we're looking forward to the San Antonio course being open, and I'm a little less critical of Pete than I probably was four or five years ago. Of course, I can't say anything bad in this area here. He's quite a symbol and an icon around here. Q. Bruce, coming back so many years later with the equipment, how it's changed, can you recall any clubs you hit then and what you are hitting this week? Anything along those lines? BRUCE LIETZKE: I remember that 14th hole, that one has stuck in my mind. I can't recall any other club selections. I've only been able to recall -- I recognized about three or four, maybe five of the greens out there. Mostly the Par 3s. I seem to remember the Par 3s okay. Several of the holes I just don't remember much, and I don't remember much about clubs. I'm pretty sure, especially talking to Pete, I think he has tweaked -- he has done something to this golf course maybe even a couple of times. They've added a tee to that 14th hole, I understand, that we played from today. And we played from an up tee yesterday. I'm not sure, I think with the changes that Pete surely has made in the last couple years, and my poor memory, the club selection on 14 has stood out in my mind for 18 years of me be grudgingly having to play way out safely, and this guy name John Daly just blowing a driver over the corner and hitting short approach shots in there. I guess I remember that because that was my excuse for getting beat. But as I've seen in the golf course now, there's only 1 or 2 of those kind of dog legs. The rest of the time he just beat our brains in because he was playing better that week. Q. Did you have the same type club in there today on that one hole? BRUCE LIETZKE: Today I couldn't -- we played from a new tee today. And, yes, I hit a good of a drive, as challenging as a drive as I could today, and I hit 3-iron into that green again today. But that's from a new tee box that looks like it's maybe 20, 25 yards back from the other one. But, like I said, I played with Daly on Saturday, and it wasn't just his bat hitting. He putted beautifully that day. I know the last day he played with Kenny Knox, and I don't think I ever saw much of the coverage, but he shot either 70 or 71. He kept a 3 or 4-shot lead that he started with that day, and the golf course was playing really tough. This was just his -- I use to think this was just his perfect kind of golf course. And now that I've been reminded, this was just his week, is what it was. Q. Bruce, wonder if you could talk about the greens a little bit. Talked to some guys about the subtleness of the breaks and maybe some difficulty in reading the greens, how tricky are they? BRUCE LIETZKE: They've been totally different. Yesterday they were dry. I played in the afternoon yesterday, and they were dry and crusty -- becoming crusty I should say. I don't know how much rain they had overnight. Today and the morning tee time, they stayed wet and they were tracking up, spiking up pretty bad. So two completely different sets of greens in the two days that I'm going to play. There are no real huge breaks out there. But there is subtle movement everywhere on every green. And that just so happens I don't know if that's a Pete Dye characteristic, but the greens that we're working on in San Antonio are almost identical to this. They're going have all subtle breaks, no big upper tiers on any of these pins in San Antonio. There's only a couple of greens here that have a couple of shelves. We tried to drive it on the green on 12. They moved the tee up there. They may let us try to drive it on 12. And there is a back shelf on the 12th green, but just about nowhere else. Everywhere else the greens are real subtle. It feels like there's a little bit of grain in the greens. Uphill putts are extremely slow, at least so far. And the downhill putts are extremely fast, from what we've seen for a couple of days now. I don't know if it was the moisture in the green today, but I thought they were quite a bit slower today in the morning round. But I don't think putting is -- you know putting is going to be one of the keys here. I don't think it's the primary key to playing this golf course. I think it's avoiding the severe bunkers out there, staying out of the rough. The rough is about the way the USGA has done with us. I think it's been very fair for the seniors the last few years for the Open. It is mostly playable rough, but it is penalizing. I think the tournament's won more from the tee box getting to the green. Again, the greens just aren't tricky enough and sloped enough that they can let them get fast, and I think they'll still be manageable. So I think the problem is getting to the green safely and avoiding all the tough penalty shots out there. Lots of water and some pretty good rough. THE MODERATOR: Bruce, thank you for your time. End of FastScripts |
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