U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 8, 1999

Hale Irwin

HALE IRWIN: Not too bad.

HALE IRWIN: Absolutely. This was not -- first of all, how in the hell do you expect seniors to read those little itty-bitty numbers? Had I played a little better, we might have seen a little bit lower score. I don't think the golf course is playing terribly easy right now. As we have commented earlier, there is great difficulty around the greens, and holding any sizeable putt is very difficult. Even some of the shorter ones, because of the slopes in the greens, they, too, are pretty hard to make. All and all, I think we have got a very competitive course tee-to-green. It is not the hardest course we will ever see, but the greens are the difficult -- they are the gremlin right now. But then, because this tent is moving around, you can see what the wind is doing as well. It is not playing easy. Some of the holes that are going back into the wind are playing quite long, much longer than one would anticipate or that we have seen in the practice rounds. So we have a little bit of a different golf course today. I think the round Ed Dougherty played was a very good round, 4-under is very solid. But in the practice rounds, some of the players, I think, were probably getting up on whatever the hole it is he made eagle on -- he had two eagles? That is not fair.

HALE IRWIN: That is playing your ball. All and all, I think he played very well. The eagles certainly help. But just some of the holes are playing a lot more -- a lot differently than one would have anticipated. But my game's not quite as sharp, a little left-footed at times. I played the last hole very badly. Why I tried to hit a driver off the tee, I don't know. I guess I had one of those senior's moments. I lost my mind. It was a stupid play. It wasn't -- I felt like it. I had a little tantrum on the tee, so I felt like it.

HALE IRWIN: Had I putted a little better, I could have had 4-, 5-under par, yes. Not all those putts are going to go in, because you might have a 6-foot putt, but it might be breaking a foot. So it is not like -- well, most 6-footers you think you are going to make. But here, I missed a 5-foot birdie putt at the first, and that just sort of got me started off bad. Hit a very poor second, I mean, at 2nd, hit another very poor putt. So didn't start well with my putting. As well as I putted at the Ford Seniors, it was sort of the flip-side. I got a little bit of the medicine back at me today.

HALE IRWIN: Well, that is a pretty good score, 4-under par. Although I don't think it is going to do it, no. I don't think the course is going to play any more difficult than it did today. The pressure of the tournament I think will add some problems to the players as we get closer to Sunday. But I don't think 4-under is going to do it, no. I don't know what it is going to be, but I don't think it is going to be 4-under.

HALE IRWIN: Absolutely, I am going to used today's round as sort of -- I left some strokes out there. I didn't leave an inordinate amount as I did last year. I could have shot 87 last year. The goal today was to get off to a good solid start and I didn't do that. That will be the goal tomorrow is to get off to one of those good starts where you get the momentum early; you don't feel like you are trying to catch up during the round. Because again, I hate to keep hitting on this but the greens are not going to allow to you catch up a lot. You are just not going to hit the ball real close that many times and have easy shots. There is just too many slopes and too many breaks. Many putts are double and triple breaking putts. Those of you that play know what I am talking about, so it is not as if I have a long ways to go to catch up, but at the same time I am not in the lead, so I do need to get into that same frame of mind, yes.

HALE IRWIN: No. I don't think so. Much different -- the only similarities would be in some ways some of these rolls are. We don't have the chipping areas here. You have some of the heavier rough. These greens, some of them tend to hold the ball in the green. They didn't do that at all at Pinehurst. Every green there repelled a ball. Once you got to the edge it repelled it off. So the similarities would only be in that you have slopes in the greens here; whereas at Pinehurst, you had slopes at the edges of the greens. For the most part, No. 2, once you got into the middle of the green it was relatively flat. That is not an assurance here. These greens have a lot of slopes all over. They can help you into the green just as easy as they can take you off.

HALE IRWIN: Oh, yes. I don't think there is any problems with that. The only suitable part is what -- where are they going to put some pins that aren't duplicates of today. I think even the USGA, Tom Meeks has mentioned that they are going to have some difficulty in finding different hole locations. Some of the pins today, they are on some pretty good slopes. You don't have to hit the ball too hard and you have got a runaway-rabbit on your hands.