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U.S. SENIOR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPJuly 28, 2010Corey PavinSEATTLE, WASHINGTON PETE KOWALSKI: Folks, we would like to welcome Corey Pavin? Playing in his first Senior Open, 1995 U.S. Open champion and the Ryder Cup captain for this coming event in Wales in September. Corey, you've had a couple of days to see what Sahalee is like, give us first impressions of the golf course. COREY PAVIN: I played yesterday and I'll play this afternoon again but the first impression was, No. 1, it had a lot of trees on it and it was tight. The whole golf course is beautiful, I played here in '98 in the PGA Championship and I remember it's a wonderful course and it requires placement off the tee more than distance, which is a good thing for me and just have to hit it very straight here, keep the ball in play. The shots into the greens are demanding here and it's a wonderful old style golf course but it's funny coming from Carnoustie and standing on the tee it's such a different look but that's what's fun about what we have to do, we have to play different styles and adapt quick and I love the condition of the golf course here. I think it's set up perfectly. Hopefully the greens won't get too hard out there, they were pretty firm yesterday morning when I played but I think the course is in great shape and it's going to be a pretty strong test this week I think for us. PETE KOWALSKI: Speaking of Carnoustie, you had a good finish and tried to overcome Bernhard on the weekend. Give us an assessment of your play at this point. COREY PAVIN: I've been playing fairly well for a little while now, a few months and even last week was a nice week but it's also a little disappointing in a way as well. Bernhard did everything he needed to do to win and he didn't play his best golf on Sunday but the champion that he is he managed to figure out how to win. I was trying to get there and I had a lot of putts last week that just didn't go in for me and hopefully those putts will go in this week and I'll play as well as I've been playing and I would like to have an opportunity on Sunday again to have a run at the Championship. Q. Corey, it's probably 25 years or more since you felt like a young gun! Do you feel like that now out here on this Senior Tour? COREY PAVIN: I feel like a rookie, I guess, but a pretty experienced rookie. It's fun, you know, coming out here on the Champions Tour has been fun for me, I've seen guys I haven't seen for a long time, and it's nice to have a fresh start in a way. You know, it's obviously not like when I was a rookie in 1984 on this Tour when I played in Europe in '83 but with the experience and the know how when I come out here I feel good about coming out and I've been looking forward to the Champions Tour for a few years. It's refreshing, nice to play new golf courses all the time, go to new cities as well. It's great to see everybody I haven't seen for a long time and the competition out here is very strong. I knew it was going to be tough but I think it surprised me how tough it is, the scoring is good and you've got to play exceptional golf to win out here. Q. It was interesting yesterday walking down the range there were guys like yourself and Freddy, obviously, and also I saw a couple of guys still with the round belly and the chomping of a cigar. How do you assess the Seniors Tour, do you think it's different than it was 15, 20 years ago, is it for guys like you or is there room for the cigar-chomping, round belly guys? COREY PAVIN: I think the Champions Tour, you can look at everybody who is out here that's playing, whether we're 50 or 60, or even above, there are some guys that are in their 60s that are very competitive out here. You know, they're in "golf shape," they know how to play golf. And it doesn't matter what you look like, it's a matter of getting the ball in the hole. And there are a lot of guys out here that can do that and I think it's getting nothing but stronger out here. You know, I'm not really -- I couldn't sit here and say what it was like 15 or 20 years ago not being out here and I watched it a little bit, but there are so many more good players, the depth out here is greater and greater every year and it's going to continue to get that way. You know, I know when I probably was in my early 40s, certainly when I was about 45 I was thinking seriously about when I was going to get out here and what I was going to do, so I was preparing for years before I came out here, mentally and physically. There are more guys doing that out here and there will be in the future and it's going to get nothing but stronger out here. Q. Corey, being a Ryder Cup captain has turned into a production over the years and some guys, their games went away. You've played excellent golf despite wearing the two hats, if you will. COREY PAVIN: Why is that, huh? It's one word "Lisa." She's done all the behind-the-scenes stuff. We've talked about what I would like to get accomplished and what she would like to get accomplished but she is making it all happen. You know, I'm involved, obviously, but I'm not in the day-to-day type of things for very much, there are a few things, but it's going to get different now coming up with the PGA and the eight guys making it on points then I have my four captains picks on September is 7th, so my duties are going to get a little more plentiful here for myself. Lisa has helped so much and it's allowed me to concentrate on my golf and on the guys when I'm out on the regular TOUR and communicating with the guys as well. I've had more time than other captains have had maybe because Lisa is helping out, it's a true joint effort with her and I and I wouldn't be playing as well as I am if Lisa wasn't doing all that. It's allowed me a lot of freedom with my time. Q. Corey, you look at the current standings and Tiger is sitting there 8th in the final automatic qualifying spot for the team, can you imagine a scenario where he is not on this team, whether it's an automatic spot or as a captain's pick? COREY PAVIN: I'm pretty confident he's going to make it on points, he's got Bridge stone which he's won the last 7 of 11 years, something like that and the PGA Championship, I think he's playing better and better as the years go on and I expect him to play well the next couple of weeks and make it on points. Q. How many guys are in your mind that they are going to be on the team one way or another? There must be like three guys -- three bubble guys right now that probably fall in that category, true? COREY PAVIN: What category is that? Q. Just "that guy is going to be on my team, if he doesn't make it he will be a captain's pick"? COREY PAVIN: The only eight guys that are going to be on the team are the guys that qualify on points right now. I can sit here and tell you I don't have a list of 11 or 12 guys that, you know, I drew up a while ago and said "that's what I want on the team." I'm playing it as it comes to me. I'm not a hypothetical guy, I don't sit around and think, what if this, what if that. So I'm basically waiting for the PGA to end. And when that ends and I have eight guys that are definitively on the team then I'm going to get serious about who I think the four players that will complement those eight the best. There has been extremely small amounts of conjecture on my part because to me it's a waste of time and energy to think about that very much. Q. The golf course, I presume you've seen it and what kind of player is going to fit there better than others? COREY PAVIN: You know, I think it's a very typical USGA setup here -- Q. Not here, I'm talking about the Celtic Manor course. COREY PAVIN: I just assumed. Celtic Manor is an important golf course to keep the ball in the fairway off the tee. It's not extremely tight but if you miss the fairways there, the rough is going to be up, it's likely to be wet and moist and thick so it's going to be important to hit the driver pretty straight or whatever you hit off the tee to keep it in play and from there it's all straightforward as a golf course. The green complexes aren't crazy, it's just a matter of hitting shots and executing. So I think it's going to require a lot of good iron play and it's just going to come down to what it always comes down to in the Ryder Cup, who is going to make the putts and chip in here and there and do the key things at the right time. But the golf course is very straightforward. It's pretty flat, there just the last few hills up by the hillside. The 15 is a reachable par 4 and the 18 is a hole over water, typical risk/reward type of hole. It's a golf course that requires a lot of good, smart play, I believe. Q. Can you assess the eight that are in the Ryder Cup field right now? Looks like there's new ones and old ones and guys in different positions. COREY PAVIN: It's a good mix right now, I think the top four or five guys look like they will probably make it. Obviously Phil is going to make it and Jim is locked and I think Anthony Kim is probably locked and Kucher is eighth, Lucas is fifth, who am I skipping? Q. Dustin? COREY PAVIN: He's 7th, maybe, is that correct? Stricker, there you go. Noisy Steve. I'm pleased with the top four or five guys, everybody in this room and most golf fans would say that's a good, solid start to the team. I think the last three spots and possibly four spots are up for grabs. With three more tournaments in the PGA being double points, you know, you can't really sit there and look at the last four guys or three guys and say that they're going to be on the team. A lot can happen between now and then. When I have a press conference on Monday after the PGA Championship I'll talk a lot more about the eight at that point. Q. Corey, you've actually almost won a PGA Tour event at 50, 194th in driving distance -- COREY PAVIN: Shocking stat that last one. Q. Are you a dinosaur or are there always going to be players like yourself who are able to win at the highest level? COREY PAVIN: If I'm a dinosaur I hope I'm a T-Rex or something like that, but for me obviously driving distance has never been -- I've never been high in that and I've probably been last the last ten years at least. That's just my game. There are certain golf courses that fit my game and Hartford is one of them and Colonial is one of them and those are tournaments I like to play and I feel like I have a chance to do well. I wouldn't play those tournaments if I didn't think I had a chance to win the tournament. It was nice at Hartford, I wish it was nicer, but it was a fun week. And like I said, I wouldn't play in these tournaments if I didn't think I had a chance to complete. So I think there are players out here that play on the Champions Tour that can certainly win on the regular TOUR, there is no doubt in my mind about that, and I think we've seen it over the years and as we were talking earlier, I think we'll see it more and more in the future because guys are thinking about the Champions Tour in the future so they're staying in better golf shape and they will be competitive longer. It will continue to be that way and I think there will be more and more guys that you might see play a couple of Tour events and have a chance to win. Q. Speaking of the greens, and your putting, they say this is a course -- remember I said how hard can they make it? And they said depends on where they put the pin. Is it like any other course where the pin placement is key? Are these greens -- how do you assess the greens on this course? COREY PAVIN: They're tough. They definitely have a lot of slope on them and there are good places to hide 'em. You can hide pins out here because of the firmness of the greens, too. So it's a combination of pin placements and how firm the greens are going to get. If these greens are as firm as they were yesterday it's going to be tough to score out here, there will be high scores and that's just into the greens. You need to hit these fairways so you can control your irons into these greens. If you miss fairways out here you will struggle to make par on any hole. The rough is not as deep certainly as the regular U.S. Open, but it doesn't need to be. I suspect if they had a regular U.S. Open the rough would be slightly longer than it is now, but you're going to see people hit shots around the green from the rough but it will be impossible to hit them directly out of the rough because the firmness. Q. How many thousand times have you been asked about the four-wood at Shinnecock? COREY PAVIN: I haven't counted but it's -- it seems -- certainly I don't think a week has gone by that someone hasn't said something to me somewhere and usually it's not much more than a day or two no matter where I am, and that's a good thing. It's nice to be remembered for something positive like that, so it's a great memory of mine and it seems like there are a lot of people that remember it as well and it's a good thing. Q. What about the 26 score, that's the all-time record. Were you on Planet Earth that day? How did that happen? COREY PAVIN: You know, it was funny, I don't remember playing particularly great leading up to that. I was working on my game and it was just one of those nines where everything came together. I made a couple of long putts and I hit a bunch of good iron shots and birdied eight out of nine on the front nine and I didn't realize it was a 26 until about the 13th or 14th hole, I hadn't really thought about it. I knew I was 8-under after nine but I didn't think about it being a par 34 and it was a TOUR record and a lot of guys have shot 27 but I guess that's the only 26 so far. Q. Corey, you mentioned the U.S. Open in your last response. Do you think this course is capable of hosting the U.S. Open? COREY PAVIN: I think it definitely can host a U.S. Senior Open. The PGA was here in '98 and one of the World Golf events, NEC was here in '02. It is a hard golf course. And, you know, a golf course like this is a wonderful course to play. It doesn't have, you know, the 7500-yard length that some of the newer courses might have but you don't need length to make a golf course difficult. It's obviously tree-lined, there is plenty of rough and the green complexes are very difficult. That's what you need. I would love to see the USGA coming to an old-style golf course like this, the Open is going to Merion, as well, here in the near future and it's great to see old courses like that being played again, it's not all about length and this course could stand up to the regular TOUR as well, a U.S. Senior Open could be played here, no problem. Q. Corey, following up on the course question, is there room to actually work the ball here because of the trees? Do you have to sort of hit it straight? COREY PAVIN: Yeah, I can work it. I worked it a little bit yesterday but there is not as much room obviously, side-to-side as some other places. So I'm trying to hit a lot of kind of low, you know, hard shots off the tee, I'm not putting the ball up in the air a lot. But that's what -- that's what a U.S. Open course can be sometimes. For me when I want to the ball in play I try to hit it low and there are a lot of 3-woods out here for me and I can get a 3-wood out here and hit it a reasonable distance. And it's not going to rain in the forecast, so these fairways can get firm and if they do get firmer you can hit them but you can let the ball run and get out there further. So this is the kind of setup I enjoy when the ground is firm and especially off the tee. I like that a lot. Q. You may not have an answer for this but we talked about the U.S. Open going to Chambers Bay and have you seen it? It's a bold move for the USGA to put it there. COREY PAVIN: I think it's good to mix it up sometimes, you don't want to say you get stale playing the same courses because there are so many that are played but it's nice to get new courses not necessarily in the rotation but just to play 'em. I have not been out to Chambers Bay, I'm going to be there September 11th doing an outing, so I'll see it then so you can ask me after that but I heard it's a pretty cool golf course, pretty neat and kind of a linksy course, I believe, so I'm actually looking forward to seeing it and playing it. Q. One tree. COREY PAVIN: One tree? Sort of like last week at Carnoustie there is one tree on the course. So I'm looking forward to getting out there and playing it. PETE KOWALSKI: Thank you very much, Corey, appreciate it. End of FastScripts |
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