U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 18, 1994

Hale Irwin

HALE IRWIN: It was not the kind of day that I was going to shoot 66 but it was the kind of day that I could have shot 68 or 69 and I did have that not in the bag, obviously, because I didn't get it in the bag, but I did have that close to hand and just let it get away from me.

LES UNGER: Question here.

Q. The approach shot on 18, did you either the ball carry too far or was it too?

HALE IRWIN: That green was as hard as any green on the golf course. I was just playing it to land in the middle part of the green. I think it flew up on top. Obviously, I hit the wrong club, but I thought that I had hit pretty good shot. I was playing it to land short of that where it did, so--

Q. Take us through the 18, and then I've got a follow up.

HALE IRWIN: You want me to take you through the 18?

Q. Yes.

HALE IRWIN: I teed it up with a driver and I -- as I'd said, my hand slipped just on the downswing and I kind of lost the club. Hit a little pop up to the right, to the right rough from where I just -- I had a bad lie. Pitched it back to the fairway. I was 141 yards from the hole and I just tried to play a little 8-iron up the hill, ended short. Let it pitch up there. I don't know what to tell you. I hit well. I didn't kill it. I hit it the way I wanted to. I executed the shot well. Maybe the planning was poor but the execution was very good. Then I got it over the green in the long stuff and I was dead. Just a matter of getting on and hopefully 2-putt there. That is all I am going to say about that hole.

Q. You talked about not making many mistakes. Is the final round, do you feel, more of a not making mistakes versus making good shots?

HALE IRWIN: Well, I think you can probably make that argument on any round, but I think particularly tomorrow because there is no tomorrow after tomorrow. You can't afford what I did today at the last hole, you can't afford any of that tomorrow. I think there is a point to where you can go out and play solid golf and do the thing that you kind of need to do to keep yourself in it, and I have always felt like the last 9 holes were critical in any major championships. Let us just say if today had been tomorrow, look what that last hole would have done to me. That is what I am saying, you play yourself into position then you sort of hold on and kind of see what happens. Most of the time someone does go out and play a great 9 holes, most of the time it is somebody that backs up. You just don't want to be the guy that is backing up.

Q. Do you feel the galleries are going to be looking for you as a standard bear tomorrow when we get down to the afternoon, you will be representing America, do you feel a certain burden on that?

HALE IRWIN: Not if I've got to carry one of those signs. No, not really. Honest, I don't know who is leading, is Ernie leading? Is he 7 under? Well, maybe, I don't know. I know who's standard I'll be carrying. Whether that is going to be good enough, I don't know. Those players that are in the top two positions, they are not overnight successes. They are good solid players, that is why they are here. That is why they are shooting the scores they are. Golf is very international. Ernie Els has certainly made his statement last week. If anybody wasn't listening, he made a big statement last week and he is making a bigger one this week. Nobilo is another guy that has been around awhile and especially knows how to play golf. So I am not surprised to see those players there, but we still have 18 holes to go and a lot can happen and probably will.

LES UNGER: You are 3 behind the leader in your 3 wins, were you ever that far behind or can you recall for us the position you were in for 3 rounds?

HALE IRWIN: In '90 I know I was at least three behind. I was not even in the top 15 with 8 holes to play. It can be done. And '74 I was behind, Tom Watson was in the lead and '79 I had a 5 shot lead going into the last round. So it can be done, yes. And generally is.

Q. Final rounds of majors you had the whole range wonderful days to -- I don't really remember but suspect bad ones too. When do you know in a practice tee, when do you have a sense of whether it is going to be a good day or not?

HALE IRWIN: I try not to take a whole lot of stock in my warm-up. That may sound a bit absurd, but you are not faced with that exact yardage, you are not faced with the certain putt. You are not faced with a situation that may make you respond differently than freewheeling on a practice tee. I try to just to do the basic things in warming up. That is, try to establish a good swing, good swing thoughts, tempo, and make sure that the basics are working. If the basics are not working, then they will let me down when I get on the golf course. I let the situation speak for club selection and all that other stuff, once we get on the course. Once out there, then you start reacting to different situations, of course. But I don't like -- even if I am hitting the ball very, very well practicing, I don't -- certainly that is a nice feeling, better than hitting very badly, but you don't get to where we are around now in this room by playing terribly. So I am doing some good things.

Q. Have you found you have so much experience, have you found that anything tends to turn your energy on or off to good holes or --

HALE IRWIN: For me, it may be -- I think just good solid play; knowing full well that my game is in control; not letting myself make those mistakes which some of the other players hopefully may be making and allowing me the opportunity to catch up. Now, there comes a time where maybe a critical putt or the critical drive or the good iron shot may be, indeed, the thing that does turn that engine into a caboose, then you really get fired up. That did indeed happen in '90 when I got myself going and I birdied the 11th hole, and the 12th, and the 13th, and 14th. One sort of lends itself to the other. Before I knew it, I had a chance. So it doesn't really come out, I don't think, on one critical shot in the middle of the round. It may come down to a critical shot at the end of the round such as the big putt that we had at the second hole. But generally not one in the middle of the round.

Q. In the final round of the U.S. Open, do you think foreign players feel more pressure or less pressure than American players?

HALE IRWIN: Well, I don't look at the nationalities has anything to do with it. I look at how good the players are because we all are playing in the international scene. We all know one another. We play constantly back and forth. I don't look at those as the -- players up there now as necessarily the foreign players. They may talk funny, yawl, they may have a different way of expressing themselves than I do, than the United States players, but at the same time, I think Ernie and Frank have been well accepted here and we know each other very well. At the same time, I think it is somewhat of an advantage, I would presume, for a foreign player to come over here and -- particularly if he is not as well known and on the lips of everybody as a Ballesteros or a Faldo or somebody of that nature, then I think they can freewill it. But those of us that play the game know those guys can play and those two players in particular, can certainly play.

Q. Hale, other than what happened on the last hole, are you pretty well pleased with what you have done so far this week?

HALE IRWIN: Yes. I have not had -- as yet anyway, not had the kind of round that I can sit up here and say that I was fairly content with the -- I'm just a little bit loose with things, probably more so this week than maybe some of the week's past. This also one of the more difficult weeks we've played. You are forced into some errors. I just haven't felt quite as comfortable swinging the club just the pure mechanics have not been quite as good as they have been some of the recent weeks, so I don't feel like I have had that kind of ball-striking round as yet that I am capable of, and if I can do that tomorrow, then I will feel very good about things because I have been very much under the control of putting the ball in positions I wanted to and I have been a little bit out of swing with that this week even though the scoring has been reasonable, if not good. It certainly has been manageable. But if I get -- if I get into my particular swing thoughts, then I will be very comfortable with that tomorrow, even 3 back.

Q. Hale, over and over again the word patience is used. In an Open championship, one assumes that the 159 that teed off on Thursday knew that was part of what they needed to do and probably most didn't have it. As it's primary practitioner, where do you get it and how do you keep it?

HALE IRWIN: Well, I think it is easy to get lost out there on a course like Oakmont. That is where I think the patience sets in. If you can keep yourself under control, keep yourself from getting too high or too low, then you have a chance of getting yourself on a positive note. The patience part comes, I think, primarily from having seen other tournaments and how they are -- normally, how they are won and how they are lost. You will see most tournaments lost before you will see them won. That may sound silly, but you will probably see a player or two or three back up which allows another player to step in and have a chance to win rather than that one player stepping forward and winning. Rarely do we see a birdie made at the last hole to win the tournament, it might be a bogey somewhere. I think the patience part is not so much that you have to hit every shot perfectly and if you don't then be patient, I think the patience is going in and letting the situation drive you to better play and not let yourself get wrapped up in something that is not out of your control. I maybe explaining this very poorly, but it is a difficult question to answer. Patience is an easy word to say, but when you are out there playing you are caught up in the moment and particularly in the heat and some of the things that are going on out there, you just have to know that you are not the only person going through those problems.

Q. How have you been able to keep your game so strong so long?

HALE IRWIN: Well, I don't know, I guess I am pretty lucky. I have stayed healthy, relatively healthy a few bumps and grinds and tendonitis all that stuff we all seem to get. I have not allowed myself to lapse into a competitive funk; that's a cousin of Fred Funk. I think I have not accepted the "I can't" philosophy. I have not stepped down from the challenge. I have not given up the chase. I know when Arnie was in here yesterday, I am sure you saw in Arnie a very competitive man still, and I think that is what has driven me and I enjoy the competition. I enjoy driving myself. There are latitudes that I still don't feel that I've accomplished. As long as I can realistically approach those goals, then I will feel strong about it. But if I have dropped those goals to accommodate a lack of skills or whatever it may be, then I think you quickly lose your edge.

Q. Are you like that at home, real competitive; tennis, Ping-Pong?

HALE IRWIN: I used to be. Golf is too consuming.

LES UNGER: Thank you.

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