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FORD SENIOR PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

July 9, 2005

Hale Irwin

DEARBORN, MICHIGAN

THE MODERATOR: Hale Irwin.

Q. What do you think about this place?

HALE IRWIN: Well, I just think it's the kind of golf course that requires a lot of placement. It's not necessarily a long golf course. Certainly there are some longer holes, but it's not as if we're hitting a lot of long irons into many of these greens. But it is a course that does require some good irons, good precision, good judgment, simply because there's enough problem areas where the wayward shot can lead to a big score. I've had my share. I've had one this week on the 6th hole. Trying to be aggressive where aggressive is smart and be a little more conservative where that's a better way to go.

Honestly, not that I'm not a scoreboard watcher, but I just didn't look at the board. I really don't have a clue. I know 68's a good round. Three of them's a good round. I know I'm 12 under. To tell you, I don't know if I'm in the lead, not in the lead. You tell me.

Q. You're in the lead by one.

HALE IRWIN: Then that's good.

I don't have any great game plan. What I've tried to do, my caddie and I I've kind of had a problem over the last two or three months maybe pressing a little bit. I just haven't putted well, haven't played near like I could. He reminded me when I started the year I was a little bit more content to play to the middle of the greens, just don't short side myself. On this golf course, when you miss it on the short side, you really have some difficult opportunities to save. They're almost just impossible.

I tried today and I should say the three rounds very much to hit to the long side of the hole and not get caught up in hitting to some of these hole locations. Whereas the greens in regulations may be up, your putting stats might not look as good as they might because you're going to have a few more putts, but you're eliminating some of those difficult par chances.

While I haven't been totally successful in that this week, I've been very successful in hitting a lot of very good, crisp iron shots.

THE MODERATOR: No. 1?

HALE IRWIN: No. 1, I bogeyed. Here was a case where I didn't necessarily play a shot badly, I just hit too much club. If there's a problem right now in my game outside of some indifferent putting on occasion, I'm hitting the ball very solidly with my irons, and consequently I'm hitting it a little farther than what I anticipate. I'm a little unsure how far I'm hitting it right now.

You say that's not a problem, but it is a problem when you're used to hitting it X distance, now you've got X plus. But that's what happened at the 1st hole. I tried to play a shot just to the middle of the green. I hit it too far into the back left bunker. That's virtually an impossible up and down. I made bogey.

I did birdie the 3rd, 56 yards, hit it to within three feet of the hole.

THE MODERATOR: What did you hit?

HALE IRWIN: Sand wedge, of course.

THE MODERATOR: No. 6?

HALE IRWIN: No. 6, here again it was a hole I made a big mistake on the other day. I hit a poor shot. I didn't plan it badly, I just hit a bad shot, made a double bogey. Today very much more of a difficult hole location. Had very much the same yardage. I played to the middle of the green with a pitching wedge. I made about a 20 foot putt for birdie.

That to me, there's a hole that's a bonus. You're not playing for birdie, but the only way to birdie is probably a long putt.

I bogeyed No. 7 thinking I was going to hit the ball farther than I did. The wind came up. Hit it in the front bunker, short side, bogey.

9, I birdied hitting an 8 iron to within three feet of the hole.

10, I birdied, making a 20 foot putt.

12, I birdied, hitting a 6 iron to within 10 feet.

14, I bogeyed, hitting my drive a little left, ran through the fairway, some very deep rough. Pitched it out sideways, went on from there and made a bogey.

16, I made about a 25 foot birdie putt hitting a 3 wood and a 9 iron.

17, I birdied, hitting a sand wedge third shot from 86 yards, making about a 10 foot birdie putt.

Then 2 putting the last hole for a par.

Q. Was 14 one of those examples of you just trying to play intelligently, as you said?

HALE IRWIN: Well, I pulled my drive. I didn't think I deserved to get what I got, but I got what I got. No hesitation that way. Perhaps if I had really gotten into one, I might have made it over, but odds were not good. There's not much reason to chew off this because now there's nowhere to hit it. It's just one of those things. You take your bogey and go.

Q. You've had so much success here. Does that raise your comfort level for tomorrow at all?

HALE IRWIN: I've had good success, yes. I think success breeds success, confidence breeds confidence. At the same time the question is sort of out there with the video guys, TV guys. All the guys here have experience. It's not like we're playing guys that have no experience. Some of us maybe have more success than others, but at the same time everybody's got experience.

I think it behooves those players that are hitting the ball more solidly and putting it in position, because this is definitely a positional golf course. If you're doing that, then I think this experience factor looms larger because then you know what to do with it.

But you just got to depending on what they do with the golf course. Last year, as we all remember, they let it get very dry. I thought it looked terrible on television. I thought it got too brown, too blue. If they let it get way that tomorrow, boy, anything can happen because the ball can get away from you. That's when those good shots kind of become like any shot: they all go to the same place. It gets out of hand then.

Q. You have a very high, I don't know what you want to call it, but when you got the lead into Sunday, you win a very high percentage of the time. Is that where that comes from because you know you've won enough times, you know how to finish it off?

HALE IRWIN: I think part of knowing how to finish it off is going through the rigors of trying to, you know, failing and succeeding. Succeeding is one thing, and learning from that. Maybe your greater knowledge comes from failing and learning from that. I've done both.

I think it's a good mixture to know that it's no guarantee, but you know you've done it. I think whatever level you play, it matters little. If you've been out there, you've been through the trenches, you've been through the war, all those cliches, you've been there, done that, then that experience factor really helps.

I've never been one that did not like the lead. I feel just as comfortable there as I am two or three shots back. It doesn't really matter to me. My approach does not change. The only time that approach might change is if you're coming down the last few holes, depending on what you might have to do.

But 17 is a hole I might never go at the green in two regardless of the situation just because there's so little reward there. I mean, your risk factor is huge. Your reward factor is pretty small.

But 18, that's a pretty straightforward playing hole. It might be a hole if you had a big lead, you might not hit a driver. You hit just an iron. You play for something else. I hope to have to get into that tomorrow.

Q. You felt like you were pressing the last couple months. Have you thought about why that might have been?

HALE IRWIN: Well, I got off to such a good start. I mentioned earlier this year probably the first time in a couple years that I played where my back was not an issue. Gosh, it didn't nothing bothered me. This is the way it used to be. This is the shot I needed to play.

Well, as time goes on, you play more golf, that's the worst thing for me right now. That's why I'm trying to be a little more efficient in my efforts and planning a little bit, trying not to do three in a row. I'm not going to the Senior British, for instance. Sitting on the airplane that long, going over and potentially playing in some poor weather, that's not going to do me any good. I'm trying to be a little smarter about that.

Getting back to the issue, I think I just got off with my short game. I think I just got off with it, and then I tried a little too much experimentation. I lost my timing. I lost my tempo. You do that, you lose your confidence. I'm just kind of the last couple weeks starting to get around to doing that. But as soon as I say that, I used a different putter. The last time I remember using this putter was 1990 US Open Championship for three rounds, then I went away from it in the fourth round. People don't know I changed putters fourth round in the US Open.

Q. Today's putter?

HALE IRWIN: Was the one I used the first three rounds. It's a much different putter. Different look, different length. But I used it the first day and I got away from it. It's not because it's a bad putter. I need to use it a little more. I need to hang around with this putter and become friendly with it.

The worse thing about it, I doesn't have one of those things on the back where you can pick the ball up. You have to bend over and pick it up. Just scoop it. Little things in life. You got to kind of look at that. Even though you make them all, you have to bend over to pick the putt up all the time (laughter).

If we're through, I'm going to go get a back workout.

End of FastScripts.

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