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FUNAI GOLF CLASSIC AT WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT

October 18, 2005

Jason Gore

LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLORIDA

TODD BUDNICK: Jason, we have Jason Gore here at the 2005 Funai Classic at the Walt Disney Resort. Thank you for stopping by. It's been a whirlwind year for you. Start off with your thoughts about the golf course.

JASON GORE: It's been pretty crazy. It's been a lot of fun. I hope it keeps going on, still become better and we'll see what we can do.

TODD BUDNICK: Speaking of becoming better, what goals do we have with just a couple of events left this season. And now do we start thinking about what we have to do in the few events from now and the other goals down the line?

JASON GORE: I'm not really one to set goals. I just keep it pretty simple, and do the borrowing one at a time thing. Sometimes I think goals can limit yourself and sometimes they set you up for a lot of disappointment. So I just try to keep playing good golf and trying to play smart and do the best I can.

TODD BUDNICK: You've become the first player on the Nationwide Tour to win three times in a row, three consecutive starts. You've won four times this year.

JASON GORE: How many Nationwide events did I win? (Laughter). The Nationwide Tour is a great place. And as I said before, it's been overlooked way too much. Even though it's not on the level of those guys, I still take a lot of pride in being able to say that I did that and keep that in the back pocket and try to keep moving forward and come up and win 84 Lumber. And it's special.

I don't think I would have been able to do that without the experience I got on the Nationwide Tour. Not taking anything away from them, and not taking anything away from myself, I think it's just a great place to play and I learned a lot.

Winning is winning, it doesn't matter what it is. It's important to say you've done it and had that appearance.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: I think anybody who has ever gone through the trials and tribulations of a mini tour and stuff like that and feel like they've worked as hard as I have and I love doing what I do, so it's not really a job, but I enjoy working very hard and I take pride in doing that.

I just think when you're not seeing what you think you should be seeing out of yourself and nothing is really paying off, maybe you can stop and look in the mirror and say, This just isn't for me. I think the low point was probably, you know, five or six weeks before The Open and thinking, you know, this isn't going to work out. I'm struggling, and I just found out. I was just crying not crying, but just whining and complaining and just not doing what I had to do, and that is just keep playing hard and hope things work out.

It's hard to sit there and face up to yourself and say, hey, listen, this isn't about nobody owes you anything. You have to go out and make your destiny. And that's kind of what it was, sit back and look in the mirror and find out what you're made of, and I'm glad I did that.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: Well, yeah, I think that's why playing in those events was so important. I think we talked about that earlier. Just about walking out there and being feared. You know, I played on Tour for two years and the accomplishments that I had done, and walk out there and have them say, "Oh, my God, there's Gore." I think that's what I needed. I was that low and begging for, I guess for respect, and really what I needed was to respect myself and understand that, you know, this had really nothing to do with it, I just had to face up to the challenge and do the best I could.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: Kind of a big microcosm there. I think that's what it was. We walked out that Monday morning and found we had nothing left in the car. April, May, was you know, we walked out, boom, nothing was left. You can either sit there and say, whoas me, or you know, just keep moving on. That's it.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: What can you do? It's life. And like I said, microcosm of golf. You'll wake up one day and you'll have nothing there. And that's how it was, you kind of react. Nobody was hurt. I still had my wife and family, and that's what it comes down to. It was just a car. It was just some things I had in there. It didn't really affect me or who I was or how much I loved my family.

That's really kind of what it was, and that's the way I started looking at golf. It's just golf, it's just a game. It's what I love to do for a living and it's what I do for a living. You know, I think, before, if I played a bad round, then I probably was a bad person. You know, I was not being this guy that I had to be to my wife and son. And I was failing.

It really is not that important. It's great and people will say, it's just going to change you. No, it's just doing my job better. And that's what it comes down to. I think that's why I've been able to it's been a great summer, because I realized, hey, you know what, this has been a lot of fun. It's just what it is. It's just one shot, it's not going to feed the starving in the world. It's a great thing.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: Not really. I think I'm happy with everything that's happened, but I'm not satisfied. It's one of those things you have to keep working hard to try to get better. That's what I'm trying to do. I could sit back and stay at home and say, I don't need to sit there and grind out these last few weeks, I can sit at home in California and sit on the couch. It's not what it is about. It actually made me a lot hungrier.

It's what all the great players in the world do. I'm not saying I'm one of them, but there is a reason why they are there. They have that burning desire to become better and to be a great player. And that's kind of what I'm trying to do.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: Yeah, we played junior golf together and the short story long, since you brought it up. I was trying to play in the AT&T with Dave Matthews. I'm a huge Dave Matthews fan. And we had connection, you know, cousin's brother's uncle's roommate, or I don't know what it was. And Jerry Chang, who is Tiger's friend, called me up and said we have a friend who we played junior golf with and he wants to play with you. Okay, cool. And it turned out to be Carson. I remembered Carson, but not being Carson Daly.

That's how it was and he invited me on the show. And I really wasn't sure why I was there. It was a cool thing. He is a really, really good guy and good friend.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: I think I would have been if he hadn't made me feel so comfortable. You try not to look at the people out there going, "Who is this guy? Put Sean Paul up there." I felt very comfortable with him there. It was good. It was six minutes or something like that. It was a good time.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: I thought that's what it was. It was a great opportunity. You know, I knew that whatever kind of golf tournament I would be in it wouldn't ever be that bad. I knew I wouldn't see anything worse than that. I took it as a learning experience. I competed with the best players in the world for whatever, 63 holes and it was I hung in there.

I think I needed to see that. I needed to have the confidence of knowing I can play at this level. You know, that golf course is brutal. You didn't really have to do anything that crazy and then all of a sudden then you think if I can make five birdies on the back nine, I can win this thing. And then five birdies turns into six doubles.

That was a great lesson learned right there. You can't do that stuff. That's kind of what it turned out. I thought I might go out and shoot 4 under par, and I have a chance to win the Open. And then I shoot 85 for nine holes no, I think I shot 43 or 44. It was a great learning experience and I knew the next time I teed it up, it wouldn't be as bad as that.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: I wouldn't say it helped. It does happen. It's the U.S. Open, that's why it's such a great golf tournament. I absolutely was not glad that he shot that. You always want to see somebody play well. For me, at that point, it would have been great to be able to say, yeah, I played with Goosen when he won back to back U.S. Opens, but there is a great champion and great gentleman that had a bad day and it happens.

I think it was a valuable lesson I learned either way, if I would have gone out and won by 10 or shot 81 like he did. It was a great learning experience to be able to be alongside a great champion on the last day in the last group of the Open.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: That is a good question. I think it had a lot to do with it, especially going into the final round of those tournaments thinking, you know, I've seen almost all of it. I haven't seen obviously what Tiger has or Vijay or Phil, but I've definitely seen a lot more of the Nationwide guys. And I was prepared to go in and play well in golf tournaments, and that's kind of what I took. I started to play well at that point. I kind of felt, he isn't getting warm. I think it had a lot to do with the Open, no question.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: No, I had to travel cross country from Richmond, Virginia, to home and try to do the first day. I was feeling it on the 17th hole. I was probably like 6 or 7 under par the first day, I would have been all right. No, it was a pretty special tournament, to a lot of people, especially me. I wasn't going to miss that one.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: 300 guys in the world?

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: I don't know. I think there's a lot of them. I think there definitely is a difference in the game now than there was ten years ago, I would say. There is a good number.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: There are a lot of great players. I don't know. There's a great number of guys especially on the Nationwide Tour that can come up. Especially now with that Tour, guys can experience winning, and that's really what it is. They were asking me at the Open, how nervous are you going to be? Jeez, how nervous can you actually get. You reach a threshold and you're done, you know. That's it, how much nervous can you actually be. You can play for the club championship and be as nervous as I was for the Open. It's all how you perceive it.

I would say there is a good number of guys especially coming out of this graduating class on the Nationwide Tour that their game is built for this Tour and it will be real interesting to watch. There are a lot of good young players out there now. You're getting better athletes that are playing golf. It's a cool sport. Less portly guys, yes.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: No, actually I bought a new truck. That was really about it. Bought my son a swing set for his first birthday. Other than that, we really have just kind of been hoarding it, putting it away so

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: No, I'm scared.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: No, my friends would not let me live that down.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: The cheese ball comment? Gosh, I was hoping it wouldn't. At that point you really don't know how to react. I'm trying to get it to break and I'm pointing it in, and I thought, Oh, no, I didn't really just do that. I asked him, and he said, yeah, you do. You know at that point you really don't know what's going through your head. You have 6 billion things going through my two brain cells, and that's what came out. I'm sorry.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: I guess I really just didn't have that much to hide. I'm a pretty honest guy and pretty easy.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: Maybe four, maybe 3, I don't know.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: Guys falling in water, hitting it in the water on 17. Besides the fact that I almost knocked over my mom going to the scoring tent after I got my tour card. She went to hug me and I went right through her. I was going to sign the card, because I wasn't going to screw that up. I wasn't even think looking at her. She put her arm out. I ran right over her. No, nobody was hurt.

Q. (No microphone.)

JASON GORE: Did I? Was it 50 to get in? You know, those are kind of a long way off. I guess it's not, considering you've got all the way to April to do it. 818 at the Open. The old 818 er. Sure, that's something we all dream of. I would say it's more of a dream than a goal, I guess. You have to realize there is a long ways to go to get there. And what I'm trying to focus on is the journey not the vacation. Really the only thing I can worry about right now is playing in the Funai Classic and hitting my first shot on Thursday morning. That's really all I'm trying to do. I'm not trying to out think myself.

End of FastScripts.

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