INTERVIEW OF TOM WATSON

DAVE SENKO:  Tom, welcome. You played here last year and come off a win in Hawaii and a nice showing in Dubai.  But maybe just get us started, talk about how your game is right now. 

TOM WATSON:  Well, I practiced twice in the last three weeks. That's where my game is right now.  It's kind of due to the Kansas City weather.  I've been home. It's just been impossible, the snow and ice and all of that sort of stuff.  It's great to be out in some warm weather and some green grass.  There is nothing green around Kansas City right now.  That's for sure. 

I love coming to this place.  This golf course is a favorite of mine.  Of all of the famous golf courses you read about, and all of that, there are always those golf courses that really, in each individual case, those individuals really like the golf course.  And this is one that I really truly like. 

There is a lot of variety to it.  It plays long.  It's short yardage and plays long because your right up against the ocean, the cool temperatures.  It always amazes me I get by the coast and my 7‑iron, if I hit a really good 7‑iron, goes about 150 yards. 

In a normal situation it will go 160 yards.  Here it is 150.  I have to throttle back.  I have to hit more club. 

It's just part of the puzzle we have to figure out to play this course for me at least.  But I enjoy it.  It's got a great finish to it.  You have the ability to make some birdies coming right down the stretch and make your move and it's just a very enjoyable golf course to play. 

DAVE SENKO:   Questions?

Q.            When was the last time you played. Was that overseas?  Was it at Abu Dhabi?

TOM WATSON:  I played in the Dubai Classic the first of February.  It's been about a month since I played.

Q.            You talk about being curious about seeing Dubai and seeing that, so what did you think?

TOM WATSON:  Well, I had seen over years, everybody gets inundated with e-mails they delete, but you see pictures of what Dubai was eight years ago and what it is now. Actually five years ago.  They built the Palm Island landfill.  The whole development out there. 

The number of skyscrapers makes it looks like a mini Manhattan.  There are cranes everywhere.  Most of them are idle.  They are not working very much right now.  But they claim that they will come through this down cycle and be what they want it to be.  And they want it to be a tourist and economic center of the Middle East.  They are certainly in a position that way right now, the way they built it.  It's done well.  That quick development, it's done well.  The way I look at it.

If I were an architect, that would be the place to be.  They seem like there was quite a few projects there that had unlimited checkbooks that said you envisioned the skyscraper the way you wanted to.  They have a building where each floor rotates.  You are on a floor that rotates. 

Of course, they got the Burj Khalifa, the huge tall tower up there.  There is just a variety of different architectures.  It's really nice.  It's not cheesy at all to me in my eyes. 

We had a chance to go out in the desert, ride a camel, see an exhibition of falconry.  He worked a bird for about a half hour on a piece of chicken.  It was interesting to see the bird in‑flight attack.  It was very interesting.  The racetrack there, Meydan Racetrack,  where they're holding the World Cup this year is beyond the pace.  It's elegant.  It's opulent but done very, very well.  It's first class.  And the golf course we played is a wonderful golf course.  Emirates golf course is very good.  It played like a U.S. Open course.  The rough is about that deep.  I couldn't get the club through it. 

It actually kind of fits into my envelope there, because I hit the ball pretty straight of the tee, and they had quite a bit of wind the last couple of days and the kids couldn't run away with it.  I played pretty well.  I had a good four days there.

Q.            Were you surprised and/or flattered that at your age you got an appearance fee?  That happens very seldom. 

TOM WATSON:  Do I what?  Sorry.

Q.            An appearance fee to go there. 

TOM WATSON:  An appearance fee. Yes, at my age, it is.

Q.            Tom, what's your take on the competition of the Toshiba Classic?

TOM WATSON:  Take a look at the Pro‑Am list today, and any sponsor in the world would love to have that.  I don't care if it's on the regular TOUR or Senior Tour. You take a look at the people playing the Pro‑Am today, the names, it's a great, great field, terrific field.

Q.            Were you actually more surprised you were battling Couples when you were in Hualalai this year?

TOM WATSON:  That wasn't surprising at all.  I knew Freddie would come out here and do very, very well.  He controls his game very well, and he is so long that he doesn't have to compete against those long kids out there.  He can compete against us short popcorners on this Tour. Playing with him in the Skins Game in Hawaii, he was out driving me 40 or 50 yards. I may have been a little bit straighter than he was, but he can still drive the ball where he is supposed to. I suspect he will do very well this week, too.

Q.            Playing in Dubai in the Open Championship last year, you get to see that guys out here are probably a little faster than guys on the regular TOUR. If there is one thing, if you were commissioner for a day, and you could do something about the slow play, what do you think would work that would pick up the pace of play?

TOM WATSON:  Basically the only thing that you ask of somebody: be ready to play when it's your turn.  Be ready, meaning you've already got your yardage.  If you are second to hit, you ask your caddy, what's the yardage. You should be thinking about it. Watching the other guy hit and having your yardage in mind, and watching his ball fly, what he hit, and that gives you information of what you should be doing. Be ready. That's basically it. Just be ready.

Q.            That doesn't happen much with the younger guys?

TOM WATSON:  Well, it does with some of them.  Some of them, they have a process they have to go through.  They have a routine they have to go through.  The older you get, the more patience you get.  When I was young I was a fast player, and Lanny Wadkins and I were always, come on, hit it.  Cary Middlecoff, Jack Nicklaus, some of the slower players back in the 50's and 60's. 

But other players played fast.  You just be ready.  It's pretty simple if you're ready.  Just know what you're going to do. 

And after the other guy hits it, you are already in the thought process of hitting the ball, rather than, okay, now, where is the wind?  What's the yardage?  What did I do here in the previous round here, Luke, my caddy?  You go through that process, that builds up the seconds. You just need a little bit of patience, I guess.

Q.            It took the leaders at Torrey Pines 6:02 to play the final round this year, no amateurs. 

TOM WATSON:  Is that right?  No amateurs, 6:02.  Thank God I didn't have to watch that. 

Q.            We did. 

TOM WATSON:  6:02, that's a little long, like about an hour-and-a-half long.  That's too long to play.  How many generations have I been out here, Dave?  I've been out here four generations.  Almost four generations out here.  Every generation the same ol', same ol', play faster. How do you play faster?  Fine the guys.  Do this, do that. The same ol', same ol'. 

Honestly there are just some people that take more time than other people. It's their rhythm.  And you've got to accommodate that rhythm within reason.  What you're asking is what's reasonable?

DAVE SENKO:   It's like that in baseball.  The pitcher, some guys gets ready and throw and other guys are tugging at their shirts.  Batters taking their gloves off and adjusting their body armour or whatever the heck they wear. 

Q.            You talk about strength of field a minute ago?

TOM WATSON:  It's a great field.

Q.            On the Champions Tour there are always some people out there that don't have a real viable chance of winning anymore. Is it the same on the regular TOUR that when you used to walk into a field, did you feel that a part of that group didn't have a real chance of winning?

TOM WATSON:  Well, from a capability standpoint, every week you've got 156 people, you are going to have some people who are not playing well. So, yes, sometimes I went into a golf tournament, I said, God, can I just make the cut.  I'm playing so cruddy. How do I do that? Out here you have some players who have earned the right to be on the Champions Tour, and maybe they don't have a chance to win but they still will bring something to the plate out here. 

The regular TOUR, if you don't perform, you don't stay. That's the difference between our two tours. 

But the leading players out here on the Champions Tour, they can flat play. What we ought to do, we ought to have a tournament, the Top‑30 Champions Tour players versus the Top‑30 kids. Have a tournament about a 7,000-yard golf course.

Q.            Same tees for everybody? 

TOM WATSON:  Same tees. Let's go tee it up. Let's hit it.

Q.            If you remember for a couple of years they played the Tournament of Champions at La Costa with both the Senior Tour and regular TOUR. One year Stockton and Murphy led the tournament on the same tee?

TOM WATSON:  Yes, yes.

Q.            What's the difference non‑competitively about being out here on the Senior Tour?

TOM WATSON:  It's not nearly as complicated and it's not nearly as intense.  Just the numbers of people that we have to deal with. If I were at the British Open doing this interview right here there would be 100 people or 150 people. If I'm in Hawaii, there may be two for the championship over there. That's just the way it is. 

But that's just the nature of our tournaments.  We have certain tournaments, for instance, I guess at West Palm they open up the gallery to free tickets. Anybody that wanted to come in, they had a lot of people that came out and watched.  Our Tour is competitive, let's put it that way.  We have competitors out here that still flat play and compete with the kids.  That's not just talking from my standpoint but we could.

Q.            Do you take pride in the fact that last year we did the British Open, it probably raised the stature of this Tour, that a lot of casual fans didn't realize how good the golf is?

TOM WATSON:  You look at Greg Norman the previous year, and look at my performance last year and say these guys, they're not so old.  I've said many times, one of the most pleasurable things that happened, I got a lot of people sending me notes and letters after the British Open last year stating you have given me a second lease on life.  I had given up on what I wanted to do, not just golf, but something else.  No way.  I'm not too old.  The cliche, age is but a number.  That happened hundreds of times, people saying you've given me a second lease on life.  I said, I was just trying to win a golf tournament.

Q.            A lot of people are calling Fred Couples the favorite here.  What's your take on that?

TOM WATSON:  Fred Couples is the favorite.  This golf course, with the par‑5s the way they play, Freddie's length gives him a great advantage.  I have to struggle to knock the ball on these par‑5s out here.  I really struggle to get it there, get it on the green.  Freddie doesn't have any trouble with that, not at all and that length helps.  I promise you.  It always does.

Q.            Do you think the design of this course helps bring more people into the mix as far as competing, contending?

TOM WATSON:  No, actually I think it actually kind of separates, I think the players. You got to play well to win here. It's not a putting contest. You have to have a variety of shots and be very thoughtful how you play this golf course. 

The more I play it, the more intricate it is. The greens, you got a variety of greens here, and you better put it on the right side of the hole. 

Look at 17, you can't hit it to the back level when the pin is on the front level. That forces you with the bunker and the water right there in the front, it's a tough shot. 

I always like 8, the par‑3. That's a critical hole for me.  Put the ball in the proper position there.  Yes, you might miss the green. The chip shot is not easy. It's kind of a crowned green. You kind of go up and it goes away from you.  It's always going away from you.  And it's just a very elegant low profile design, but it works. 

I put that in my memory bank for building golf courses. That type of complex there. It's not difficult to build, it's low maintenance, and the more you play it ‑‑ yes, you play this hole three or four times, it's a tough hole. You better put the ball in the right center of the green there, the right front of the green there. 

If it's in the back, it better not be right front because you have to hit up and over and you better get it to the back and you can't hit it too far, it will bound over the green, and you will be chipping out. 

You've got a lot of things to think about, just in that shape of the green.  That's what I like about these greens here in this golf course. There is a variety of them that makes you think.

Q.            Have you mapped out your schedule from here on out?

TOM WATSON:  I'm going to play The Masters and The Outback and The Legends and the Senior PGA.  That's about as far as I've gone from that standpoint. I will be playing the British Open, British Open Senior Open and U.S. Senior Open, all back‑to‑back-to-back in the summer in July. 

Q.            What are your thoughts on Sahalee?

TOM WATSON:  I played Sahalee, played pretty well there. I didn't play too badly. My first thought of Sahalee are trees.  You break your neck looking at the top of the trees at Sahalee. You look straight up, there is some tall lumber there.

Q.            Are you worried about being fresh after being your third straight week of playing?

TOM WATSON:  Yes.

Q.            What do you do to stay ready to play the third week?

TOM WATSON:  Well, I hope I don't have the same problem as last year.  Let's put it this way, it's not the optimum type of scheduling to have that happen. To have the British Open and British Senior Open back‑to‑back, there is not a lot of time there. We have enough time in our schedule they ought to be able to accommodate a week in between. I think they will. 

DAVE SENKO:  Thank you.