SENIOR TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP AT GAILLARDIA

October 27, 2002

Hale Irwin

Q. Final round, 71, and you finished solo 4th, good enough to get you over the three million mark, what are your thoughts?

HALE IRWIN: First thought is I'm glad it's over. It's been a wonderful year, but it's time to jump off and get a little R&R. The push over this last several months has been to -- has been several fold, really. It was to try and maintain the No. 1 position, not only in the money standings, with the Schwab Cup, and doing that, probably -- I should say additional to that would have been the three million dollar mark, and I accomplished all those goals. Probably the single disappointing thing was this week was such an odd week and uncomfortable week for everybody that it didn't really get a good run at this championship. But I tried not to think too much about the three million mark. I'm very proud of that, I'm not saying I'm disturbed by any means, I'm very pleased with it. But at the same time it's nice to put all that behind and have a chance to let some of the fruits of the year be enjoyed and let some of the aches and pains from that battle, heal up a little bit.

Could I have predicted that I'd have this kind of a year? I think you can only hope for it. There are times when I think that it's almost an impossible task, because of the number of good players and the competition that is out there, when you look at just a few years ago how many tournament wins you had -- that you could get, and now this year only four with the leading -- I guess Bob and I. So I think that says something about the competitive nature of this Tour.

And looking forward to next year is something I'm not prepared to do right now. I just want to kind of safer what is left of this year, and hope that next year can come along and be certainly as good a start, because it's too long a year to say well, these are my goals, I'm going to reevaluate all those and see where I stand. But what a week it was. Boy, what a week it was. I think there was in that locker room and in that clubhouse, a lot of hours, would we ever get this thing in? But here we are.

Q. (Inaudible.)

HALE IRWIN: I was waiting for that question. I'm involved in enough charities, and we have an endowment we're involved with. There's plenty of opportunities to do something with that. Again, I have not set down a plan, but my wife and I, in our financial planning, we go through that each year, and it will be properly addressed.

Q. (Inaudible.)

HALE IRWIN: Well, Tom has been a great player. You look at some of his wins and how he's played in them. He's very good at that. And Gil, I think certainly was spurred on by the home environment. I played with Gil yesterday and he played very well. I did not play with Tom, but he's played equally well. I didn't look at a score board today. Generally I do, but I just tried to keep my head down and just tried to make birdies, because I knew that they would be -- and neither Fuzzy nor I got anything going to spur the other on. And that's helpful sometimes. And neither one of us played the kind of golf that was conducive to feeding off of the other. And when I finally looked at the board, I saw Bob and I were tied and the next time I looked up he was ahead. And Fuzzy was dropping back, so it looked like I had to birdie to tie for third. And not knowing about the three million thing -- when it looked like I couldn't win now, I was starting to look at the three million. The last hole was anti-climactic, I was going to finish fourth, if I didn't make that last putt, it didn't matter what I did. I hate to end like that, but I'll get over it.

Q. (Inaudible.)

HALE IRWIN: Somebody else might make that concession. I don't feel like -- I worked out yesterday after we finished. I don't feel like I need to be apologetic for 57 or because it's muddy and I feel tired. I don't feel any more or less than the other players. I think we're all relieved that it got in, surprised that it did, because we sat up there this morning looking at the weather channel and seeing what was happening and thought, what's the staff thinking about? Let's call this puppy, and get on home. If they had done it, I would an increased my winnings a little bit.

Q. (Inaudible.)

HALE IRWIN: Oh, yeah. But I wanted to play. I wanted to play and have a chance. I felt like if I could get out and get a good start, birdying five and six was certainly a good start, but I knew I needed more. I felt like I had to shoot 68 or better today to really get in there, because that meant those two -- 71 was not an impossible score for us, so I had to go low today to catch two of them. If it was one of them, it would be different. But the length they have on the soft conditions makes a huge difference. I might catch up to them with some roll, because they hit the ball quite far, but it's a little harder task.

Q. (Inaudible.)

HALE IRWIN: Well, it's a little bit like 55 is the speed limit, how many people went that fast? I'm kind of looking that that's just a number. Hopefully there's no highway patrolman out there to stop me, no. I just think that -- I work at being in shape. I'm proud of being in shape. I'm going to get in better shape. Genetically I've been blessed. But then again there's a lot of work that's gone into it, too. It's not just by accident. I work on my game. I work on my physical health. I work on my mental well-being. When somebody is going to sit down and talk about being old, I leave the room, I don't want to hear it. It's not part of my vocabulary.

Q. (Inaudible.)

HALE IRWIN: I think if you look back at a lot of the highlights, there were certainly a great many of them. And I think part of at least this latter half of the year, I just played so much that I didn't get wrapped up in the whole thing. I was just sort of going along, because I played a schedule that was a little abnormal for me. I finished third last year on the Schwab, I think I was the same in the money. And I think I can win this, I can do this. And that was my task starting the year was to finish No. 1. And that hasn't been -- that having been accomplished, I'm very proud of that. That's something that I again will say it for you, at my age, which I don't feel -- I'm "47", and I'll be "46" next year. And that's just the way I look at it. I welcome the competition, and I welcome that. I don't feel like I'm giving anything up. Certainly I have enough experience, so I can't blame it on a lack of experience. I might blame it on a lack of good playing. But that to me, folks, is what keeps us going.

Q. (Inaudible.)

HALE IRWIN: There's no better. When you've got -- these are what I'm going to call hard core. These are hard core fans. And I say that in a nice way. I don't mean that derogatorily at all. People that would come out and watch us and enjoy us and encourage us in this kind of stuff, it's -- that's better than Colorado beating Oklahoma, maybe. I think that's what we're trying to do, we're trying to get into these kind of communities where we have this kind of support, and it really -- it's really too bad that the year has finished off with such really, I think, some great play out there with those guys today and some good play that happened under such adverse conditions. The people, it was so hard for them to get around. It's a tough course to get around to start with, but with all the -- you really have to work on your weather man.

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