FRED FUNK: Well, the course is in great shape. I think it would be very similar to what it was whatever it ends up today, just kind of keep going from there, because the greens are perfect. I've never seen greens so good. The best. Champion-7 I heard it. Some sort of hybrid. It's just phenomenal. That last putt I had 45 feet away, I looked up, it still had 20 some feet to go and I knew I made it. It was just going just perfect. Of course I should have -- you don't want to think that and then it misses. You go, what the hell was that? But they are the kind of greens that if you get it on line, and you see the line that you intended it, it's going to go in. They're pretty special. It's also one of those golf courses, it's kind of -- you can shoot a low number, you shouldn't say this, but you should only shoot so high. It kind of keeps everybody kind of close. Because the greens are so big. And you can keep a bad day -- hopefully you can keep a bad day, not that it will do you any good, but around 75, 76. And you can maybe rebound with a 65, 66 on one of the other days. But I don't think that made any sense, but if you're off you can get it.
I could easily -- you can put a guy 18 times on a green and in the wrong spot and he's going to shoot 90, as big as these greens are. And number 7 today, you're out there with a pin sheet and you look and it's 60 yards and that's like, 60 yards doesn't compute. 60 yards deep. I had to lay up. And I was 90 yards or whatever it was, 137 minus 60, what is that? 77? Yeah. 77 yards from the front of the green. And my caddy says, and it looks like I can just go and throw it on the green. And he says, oh, 137 yards. And I just, well, it can't be 137 yards. It looks like it's right there. But it was. It's just hard. That's when you've got to trust your yardages because your depth perception gets all fouled up with the size of these greens.
Q. I was just going to say, are they the biggest greens you play?
FRED FUNK: I think easily they're the biggest greens we play. I can't imagine any greens bigger than these anywhere.
Q. Western Open? They're twice the size of Oakhill's average. 10,000.
FRED FUNK: The Western's are big, but they're not this big. I don't think. Not the whole setup. 18 of them. To me they're huge. The biggest one is 7. That's 60 some yards deep. Something like that.
Q. Several clubs different from front to back.
FRED FUNK: Well, it is. That particular hole, I remember when I was here in '99, I had a 9-iron from the same spot in the fairway, and the same wind conditions. I hit 9-iron to the front pin. I hit a 3-iron to the back pin. It's like I just hit a 9-iron yesterday, now it's a 3-iron. This is ridiculous. And that's what makes it kind of fun. When they put the pins in the corners of the greens it's very difficult to get to. Your green isn't really that big. It starts right out on one. The pin's in that front right corner and there's really not that much room over there in that right corner.
And all the greens seem to have a little fall off, the front, the sides or the backs. They seem to all fall a little bit. The pin they had on 13, the par-5, it's in that back right corner and it's in a terrible spot. It's slopes away and that's where everybody's going to be putting towards the creek. In the back of that green. And J.L., He hit a beautiful second shot in there about 30 feet left of the hole and putted it off of the green. Didn't hit it that hard. Barely got by the hole and just kept on going. Sometimes I don't understand our setup guys.
Q. Did you play as well this year as you did last year?
FRED FUNK: No. Not as well overall. I played better early this year than I did last year. But I played really good from the week before -- well, BC, I guess from middle of July on I played really good last year. The best I ever played in my career. I had the four seconds and the top-10s and had the great PGA and then the WGC event I played really well. Fourth at the PGA and second at Sahalee. So I played really good in some really strong fields.
Q. What was the difference last year versus this year?
FRED FUNK: Well, I was driving the ball good at the end of last year, but I was putting phenomenal. Obviously I was just finishing it off. I was scoring really well. It didn't seem to matter how I hit it that much, I was real patient, I was having fun on the golf course. That was the big thing that changed. I went in with the intent of having fun and the chicken and the egg thing: Does good playing allow you to have fun or do you have fun and that allows you to have good play? In the case last year it was having fun and that created the good play.
TODD BUDNICK: Let's go through the card, Fred. Birdie on 6.
FRED FUNK: What did I do on 6? I drove it like an inch into the high stuff out of the first cut. Had a flier lie to the -- I hit a 9-iron to pin high just on the green. So I made about a 30-footer on that hole.
I bogeyed the next. I had to chip out.
14, I hit a 9-iron to about 8 feet, 10 feet.
The next hole I hit a 9-iron again to at least 25 feet there.
Then 18 was a 45-footer from the front.
TODD BUDNICK: You had a chip out on 7. The bogey was what?
FRED FUNK: I hit a chip out and then the pin was -- that's the 60-yard deep thing and I didn't believe what I was looking at. I left a pitching wedge 50 feet short. I said I just can't get it back there.
TODD BUDNICK: Okay. Thanks, Fred.
FRED FUNK: Thanks.
End of FastScripts.
