While I get my tournament wrap-up written, let’s all have a few chuckles with some of the players during their interviews.
Padraig Harrington is always good for a colorful amswer:
Q. I’m just wondering if going for three in a row, there’s been a significant increase in e-mail messages and whether you’ve been sort of soaking that up.
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, I’ve been getting the text messages and the e-mails and the encouragement. I think the best one, I do have to bring it up, Lee Westwood said to me yesterday, “What’s all this about the Paddy Slam? Are you starting up wrestling?” (Laughter).
Someone is always going to try to get two questions in on the big guys. Here’s a novel way to get a follow up:
Q. When you come to this place, you’ve always done so very well here. Is there something about this course and the way it sets up that suits your eye? And as an addendum to that, when you are working with Butch and you are working with Dave Pelz, do they mesh in terms of the information you receive?
PHIL MICKELSON: I don’t see how that’s an addendum to your first question. (Laughter).
Q. I wanted to be a lawyer.
(more laughter)
Then the next writer gets a little cheeky:
Q. No addendum…(laughter)
Thank goodness some of these guys are laconic, like Tiger:
Q. So much has happened since the last time you were in a major championship by any definition; given all that, you’ve touched on this before; what is the biggest question mark you carry in here, for you?
TIGER WOODS: For me? How the golf course is going to be playing.
Q. That’s it?
TIGER WOODS: Mmm.
Oh well. At least that’s better than the guy who asked Tiger last year if he was gonna take it easy on Rocco Mediate because Tiger had won thirteen majors and Rocco had won none!
Anyway, Woods had more to say, but not much…
Q. There’s a 39-year-old amateur from Mississippi playing in this tournament. He’s a gas station owner. He’s never played but one other PGA tournament in his life. If you would be so kind — his name is Steve Wilson — what would you say to him about playing in the Masters?
TIGER WOODS: Hit it straight, hit it on the green and make putts. All be good. (Laughter)
Jim Furyk got in on the fun, and he showed why you really shouldn’t ask players questions about other players…
Q. Paddy was in here and said this might be the most generous setup he’s ever seen at Augusta National. What do you think of that assessment?
JIM FURYK: That will really make them mad. (Laughter).
But neither shame nor failure daunts a golf writer from his story line, no matter how strange.
Q. He [Phil Mickelson] said he feels like he’s got really five years left to drop the hammer and make things work. Do you think about stuff like that at all? I’m not saying your milk carton has an expiration date with Kenny Perry is winning at 49.
[Author’s Note: Huh???]
JIM FURYK: ….I get it more probably than Phil does because I’m not long; so everyone thinks my expiration is going to end a lot quicker. (Laughter) The game is going the other way. Before my best year ever in 2006, I can’t remember anymore who asked, but somebody asked me about, do you feel like the game is going to pass you by because you’re short and I was ranked No. 2 in the world and he came back later in the year and said, “I guess you weren’t really worried about it, were you”? (Laughter).
And of course Gary player doesn’t need a question to make the room fall apart in pieces…
GARY PLAYER: You know you are getting old when you have to tune in on Sunday night to find Gunsmoke. (Laughter).
As I said to my American press friends, it’s a little different — they heard me say this, my international friends didn’t hear me say it, I said, “I’m hitting the ball so short now, I can hear it land.” (Laughter).
But then, of course, questions can get him going too!
Q. Pressure is on. Give us your favorite Masters.
(after a long answer…)
PLAYER: I’ve always said, when you finish second, only your wife and your dog remember it. That’s if you’ve got a good wife. (Laughter).
I said to my wife: “Let me ask you a question. If I put you in the trunk of the car and our dog and I drove for an hour, would you love me?”
She said “No.”
I said, “My dog would. ” (Laughter).
Finally, one more time with the questions about other guys, this time Nicklaus and Palmer…
PLAYER: It would have been just fascinating to see if Nicklaus could have played with the grooves that they have on the club, and no spike marks on the tee and every bunker raked the same and a metal head and a ball that goes 50 yards further and a jet that comes in. (Laughter).
Honestly I stand back and think, I was in Fort Worth one year, a guy gave me a ride to Houston, I don’t know if I told you this story. And he had his putter on the lap. I’m thinking I’m going to go take the Greyhound bus to Houston from Fort Worth. I know it’s too extravagant to go flying and this guy said, “What are you doing sitting here for pondering? What are you doing?”
I said, “I don’t know how I’m going to get in Houston.
He said, “Oh, I’ll give you a ride.”
So I get in his car and he says, :you drive.”
I say, “No, I don’t have a license.”
He says, he’s got the putter on his lap, “If you’re coming with me, you drive.” And I’m going along, and in those days you didn’t have the press button windows and things.
And next thing he says: “Go faster and faster and put the pedal to the metal.”
Yes…That’s Reedonkyulous!
