home jobs contact us
Our Clients:
Browse by Sport
Find us on ASAP sports on Facebook ASAP sports on Twitter
ASAP Sports RSS Subscribe to RSS
Click to go to
Asaptext.com
ASAPtext.com
ASAP Sports e-Brochure View our
e-Brochure

UBS CUP


November 19, 2004


Fred Funk

Hale Irwin


KIAWAH ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA

PHIL STAMBAUGH: You won the match 5&3, and I had you for seven birdies, which would have tied the foursomes record. But you said at the hole where they made an eagle you guys had a long one, so I goods you actually made six.

FRED FUNK: I think we had seven. That would have made us at 8.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Just a few thoughts about playing together and really dominating this match.

FRED FUNK: Well, we didn't dominate till the back nine. It was a very close match. They were playing well, too. You know I felt like at the par 5, Hale hit a great chip on No. 6, and Sam hit it out of the bunker to a gimmee and that was kind of a little momentum keeper and a giver to them and I missed that putt and that was a big one. Hale makes a nice, a great putt on 7, but then he holed it on 8. So it's just going back and forth, back and forth.

Then the back nine, just started staking irons and just kept making, basically, didn't give them a chance on the back nine. So, it was great. The comfort level with me, playing with Hale, I was just as relaxed as can be having a great time. Hale and I have been friends for a long time and he's been one of my favorite people out here, so the pairing with him was something I really looked forward to. Didn't know it was happening, but none of us on the team knew who was playing with who.

HALE IRWIN: I didn't do anything today. I just sort of watched and got to go up and prepare the ball Mark and get the putt given to me. So I did very little today in terms of anything spectacular. Fred did such a wonderful job, particularly on the back nine. If I could get him in play, he just hit those irons terrifically. We were kidding one another that I was giving him shots from the fairway from inopportune places, off of the mound and drainage areas, and then he started hitting the ball close, but leaving me downhill three- and four-foot putts. So we decided we would take care of that and give them gimmes.

I felt today, Fred obviously is a very accurate tee ball player, and he's very solid; given my game is pretty much along the same lines, that if we just didn't give holes away, we could play well. I felt that Sam and Barry are a very formidable team, to be honest with you. We just didn't give them anything. Nor they us. No hole was won with anything less than a birdie.

So, it was, as Fred indicated, the front nine was very much of a back and forth. It was really up for grabs, but Fred hit a wonderful shot at No. 10 and I got the birdie. Boy, then he just kept firing them in there close, pick up, gimmee birdies and that will do it just about every time.

FRED FUNK: 10 was really a big hole. I hit it close because it was by far not an easy putt, it was a 5-footer, left-to-right, downhill, downgrain and Barry made the putt from 15, 18 feet for par. Now all of the sudden Hale has to putt this thing, and it wasn't a gimmee, and that was a biggy, because I think if for any reason we miss that putt, they would have felt like they really escaped one. Instead we really put the hammer down on them there and really put it down the next few holes.

I think that was a pivotal part of the match, really.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: We probably ought to go through and tell who hit all the shots and how far they were.

FRED FUNK: Our first birdie, Hale hit a wedge shot in there about three feet. Actually didn't have to putt it because they got in trouble on their second shot, but that was their first birdie.

5, the par 3, I hit the tee shot in there six feet, five, six feet to the right the hole. Hale made a beautiful putt. I hit 8-iron.

7, I hit a 3-iron to 35, 40 feet.

HALE IRWIN: It was closer than that. I would say 25 feet or so but it was up the hill. It was one of those putts that you hope to get up there nice and close and get your halve and move on to the next hole, and hit a good putt and it went in the hole.

Then they got the momentum back with that when Barry holed it from the fairway on next hole for an eagle. We had a big swing and excitement at one hole, they get it back on the next. When you're 1-down, 1-up, whatever the case may be, even if you stay that way the rest of the day, you know you're going to 18 holes.

It doesn't matter if you're 1-up or 1-down; it's how you perceive the rest of the day, and I felt like being 1-up was not enough against those guys. They are just too solid of a team, and Barry hits the ball quite a long ways; and with his strength and Sam's experience and the way he can get going, we just needed to be very solid. Pretty much I think Fred and I did today what you need to do in this kind of a format, and that's be very solid and not give anything away to your opponents.

FRED FUNK: Alternate-shot is really awkward in itself anyway. It's hard to get any momentum on yourself, depends on how the course unfolds. It was really relaxing out there, but obviously we hit some really great shots on the back nine.

10, I hit a 7-iron to four to five feet. Tough putt.

11, I hit a 54 degree wedge to inches (close).

13, I hit a 6-iron to inches (close.)

HALE IRWIN: Let's go back to 12. You talk about holes that are sort of pivotal and perspectives, I drove in the right bunker up against the lip and they had a good position shot. Fred hits just a great pitching wedge out of the bunker, got it on the green, which did not look possible. A long putt, nevertheless, about 40, 45 feet, but it was a wonderful shot and they knocked it over the green. So it almost looked like we could win the hole, but certainly a psychological shift. If we could get out of that with a par and they a par and get a halve, I thought was an extremely big momentum-holder. Didn't generate, but it held, and then he hits a 6-iron at the next hole stiff again for a tap-in birdie. You just look at, I think, 11, 12, 13 -- 10, yes, played well, but to me 11, 12 and 13 in retrospect were the holes that kind of put us in the real driver's seat.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: You closed it out at 15.

HALE IRWIN: Have to go back to 14. Fred made about a seven- or eight-foot par putt for a halve. And then he hit a really good shot at 14 or 15 and they gave us about a six-foot birdie.

FRED FUNK: And they missed their birdie chip.

HALE IRWIN: It was over then. But I would not have wanted to play against us today. I think that's pretty well -- looking back on it, I think we played the kind of day that would be very difficult for any other team to have matched that. If they did, it would have been one heck of a match.

FRED FUNK: Yeah.

Q. Do you think he paired you two guys because you do play similarly?

HALE IRWIN: I have no idea. We didn't know who was playing whom until we got the pairings after play. I asked Arnie yesterday morning if he had given it any thought, and he said no. So could have been spur of the moment or flip of the coin or whatever direction the tee was facing or just ran off the list till he started checking off names; I don't know how he did it. (Laughing.)

Q. Can you give a recount of what Barry and Sam did on 2, the second shot. He went for the green in two, the ball was hit on the hill, did it end up on that bridge?

HALE IRWIN: He ended up on the bridge, yes.

Q. And then what happened after that?

HALE IRWIN: Once it got on the bridge, it got against one of the -- I know the side board is there and there's a space about like this and it got against, in that crack between the tread way and that board, that 2 X 6. Sam took a swing at it with his putter and he hit the sideboard and whiffed the ball. Then Barry took a fairway medal and turned it toe-over to get something down in there. It was an unfortunate -- fortunate in the sense that they were in the hazard, but not in the water to be able to play it, but unfortunately they were right up in that crack. And then of course the board, if you're in the hole that was pointed over this way, the best they could do was to get it up and maybe have a 50-, 60-foot effort.

FRED FUNK: The second shot, I was thinking if I hit my Sunday punch, I could get there. But Hale said, "No, let's lay up, get me to a wedge, get me to what my strength is and let them force the play on them." It wasn't any gimmee that we knew Barry was going to go for it. You lose anything just short right on that hole or anywhere right, it's going in the creek normally; it's not on the bridge.

That was a great decision on Hale's part because I think in a normal situation, I probably would have gone, and I would have had to hit my best shot to get it there and be safe with all that trouble up there. It was a great play as it turned out.

HALE IRWIN: It's just too early in the day to take that kind of a risk.

FRED FUNK: Again, don't give it away.

HALE IRWIN: What I told Fred was I'm glad they are where they are, because now they feel like they have to go for it; and the target is really small where that flag is. If you miss it at all -- if you catch it and really hit it, he's through the green so now he's got the downhill. Let's play back to where we don't give them anything. If we can make a 4, great. But make them have to make the 4. So we end up making the 4 and they make the X and here we go. Just kind of got to be patient sometimes.

FRED FUNK: What happened to that last match, the first match, Arnie? What happened? They halved?

HALE IRWIN: That's like a win.

FRED FUNK: That was like a win. And what happened with Kite and Floyd? Okay.

Q. Compared to just a regular Tour event, how much more fun is it playing something like this? Do you feel the pressure at all?

HALE IRWIN: Well, I think because there's few opportunities for us Champions Tour players to play against or with, either way, with the guys that are still wearing diapers, it's fun. But you're also at a level in the game, and I say that meaning that perhaps years of experience, to know the difference between sportsmanship and what this game is about, versus what we might see in other events.

FRED FUNK: I tell you, for me, I said to Mark, we were on the sixth hole and they had the big board there. I was waiting for Hale to hit a chip shot, and I just looked at the board and see all the names again. This is my second UBS Cup and I felt the same way before, but still even more today, I look at myself being a part of this field with all of these legends that are playing and guys that are just so good, they can just flat play. Hale, 59 years old, he could win on our tour right now. It's phenomenal.

But to just be part of it with all of these guys that I so look up to growing up and coming out here, I just said, I've still got to pinch myself that I'm still here and I'm here with this company that I have and be part of a team like this and go against the other team with all of those big names they have.

It's a neat experience for me and I just really have never taken anything for granted out here on TOUR. When I have an opportunity to experience what I've experienced, really the last three years, I've had two UBS Cups and a Presidents Cup and a Ryder Cup in three years, and I just feel like, wow, I've gotten to this part of my career where most guys are winding down, and yet it's my best I've ever done and best experiences I've ever had.

So for me, it's huge. I just look so forward -- when I found out I was asked to be on this team and I wanted to be on the team, and when I found out they wanted me on the team, I just was really happy. So it means a lot to me. I think it's a really, really neat tournament for people to come out and watch. It's about the -- it's still competition, but it's about what the game is all about and sportsmanship.

HALE IRWIN: It's still to the point where respect and integrity are still at the forefront of everybody's minds. The pride, we all have our own pride, but I think we certainly respect and try to treat the game as the winner. We want golf to be the winner at the end of the day and not individuals, but present golf in a fashion that people enjoy. So that's my ultimate goal.

Yes, Fred and I won today, but hopefully golf was presented in a way that will make others excited about being a part of it.

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Thank you.

End of FastScripts.

About ASAP SportsFastScripts ArchiveRecent InterviewsCaptioningUpcoming EventsContact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297