April 22, 1995



72nd Senior PGA Championship presented by KitchenAid

Media Day, April 19, 2011

Valhalla Golf Club ~ Louisville, Ky.

JULIUS MASON: Good afternoon, everyone, I'm Julius Mason, Senior Director of Communications and Media Relations for the PGA of America.

As we all get settled, please turn your attention to the monitors around the room for a reminder of the history and tradition that is the Senior PGA Championship.

(Video played.)

JULIUS MASON: Once again, welcome to Media Day at Valhalla Golf Club, as we count down to the 72nd Senior PGA Championship presented by KitchenAid.

We have some very special guests in our audience and I'd like to recognize a few of them.

From the Kentucky PGA Section, Vice President, Chris Osborne. Secretary, Kelly Williams. Director at Large, Gary Bebelaar. Executive Director, Mark Hill.

From Valhalla Golf Club we have Dwight and Anna Lee Gahm, Gahm, Gordy Gahm, and Phil Gahm.

We have General Manager Mike Montague, PGA Head Golf, Keith Reese, and Superintendent, Roger Meier.

Also joining us from our Championship Office right here at Valhalla Golf Club, the PGA of America's Championship Director, Rubin. From PGA of America Headquarters in Palm Beach

Gardens, Florida, David Charles, Senior Director of Championships. Ellison, Director of Business and Community Relations.

Now it is my pleasure to turn the microphone over to the General Chairman of the 72nd Senior PGA Championship presented by KitchenAid, Mr. Bill Kantlehner.

BILL KANTLEHNER: Thanks, Julius. On behalf of Valhalla Golf Club, our members, the community at large, our countless volunteers that dedicate hours and hours of time to make this tournament special, we are pleased to host the 72nd Senior PGA Championship presented by KitchenAid.

I'm here today to let you know that there are still, it's still not too late to experience another Major Championship at Valhalla.

Tickets are still on sale. You can purchase them by going online at . or you can call 1-800-PGA-GOLF. That happens to be 1-800-742-4653.

A limited number of hospitality packages are still available with access to the Double-Decker Skybox located on the 14th tee and private suites overlooking the 13th green are still available.

Once again, you can call the PGA office or go on to . Juniors 17 and under will be admitted free all week as long as they are with a ticketed, paid, adult. So we're excited about that opportunity.

Also, to honor the men and women who serve our country, will be allowed in free, all they have to do is show their credentials at the Will Call Office and they can pick up their tickets at that point.

We're offering a limited number of premium parking facilities on-site at Valhalla, details are in your media kit.

Public parking will be across the street for the Tournament and shuttles will be pulling people from there up to the main spectator entrance throughout the tournament.

Spectators for this particular tournament will be allowed to bring in cell phones and mobile devices. That is new for this particular tournament and we're excited about giving the spectators the opportunity to do that.

In closing, I would like to welcome all of you y'all and tell you how proud we are at Valhalla Golf Club of sponsoring this particular event. Thank you.

JULIUS MASON: Thank you very much, Bill. And thank you very much for your hospitality this week and also allowing the media to park free during championship week.

And now ladies and gentlemen let's hear from the 50th Mayor of Louisville, the Honorable Greg Fischer. Greg.

MAYOR GREG FISCHER: Thank you, Julius. Well we had a little fireworks show over the weekend here, for those of you in town, the Thunder Over Louisville, 58 tons of fireworks. And they got a little horse race coming up here in a few weeks as well.

It's just a two minute race, but it consumes our city for three weeks officially as a festival, but we're thinking about it for 52 weeks a year.

So we're really proud of our Kentucky Derby tradition here, it's a three week build-up and the Derby Festival shows the world that Louisville knows how to put on a festival or an event.

As a matter of fact, Louisville was named Festival City of North America. Sydney, Australia outside of North America and Louisville right here.

So we have got a world class community of volunteers and enthusiastic folks that we know how to make world class events successful here and have a good time. It's that blend of southern

hospitality and Midwestern sensibility, I suppose.

So we have a strong record of creating high performance teams as well and partnerships that can create and certainly sustain world class events, like the one that we're going to be

seeing here at the end of May.

And there's no stronger partnership here in Louisville than the one that we formed with the PGA of America. It's great to have these high performance teams and partnerships where each

party can depend on each other and know that we're going to put on a world class event.

Churchill Downs, with our Derby, we all know that as a world class venue, but Valhalla is an incredible golf course and I wanted to thank the Gahm family here for the vision that you all had some 25 or 30 years ago when you all started talking about this in the community.

Most people thought you were crazy. But it's when they saw the vision, they signed up and y'all just created something just really tremendous here. So from all of us, thank you for this vision which then led to the subsequent vision of the PGA and these wonderful things that have unfolded here and who would have thought of that when y'all were thinking of this 30 years ago. So great job to the Gahms.

And I think when we take a look at what's happened here at Valhalla, only one of four sites in the nation to host a Senior PGA Championship, a PGA Championship, and of course the Ryder Cup.

We have done that here in Louisville and that's extraordinary by anybody's standards.

And the drama that's unfolded on these 18 holes, we just don't put on a golf tournament here, we put on events that last, memories last for a lifetime.

'96 when Mark Brooks edged Kenny Perry in a one-hole playoff for the championship -- we didn't like that for the home team, but it was exciting.

Then we had that wild PGA Championship in 2000 when Bob May kind of was the, who is that guy, who came out of nowhere and challenged Tiger Woods, locked in for one of most really remarkable Sundays in a Major Championship that Tiger pulled out there at the end by a stroke.

2004, when Hale Irwin sunk a birdie putt on the 18th hole to capture his fourth Senior PGA Championship.

And then what about, I guess two years ago, when the Ryder Cup was here and we decided we needed to repay the Europeans

for some of the pain that we have been inflicting on them. We had a huge home course advantage here as we really rode out the Ryder Cup behind six rookie players, a lot of Kentucky flavor in there,

a lot of great teamwork and coaching as well. That was one of the truly memorable events in sports.

So it seems like something extraordinary happens every time that we have a golf tournament here in Louisville at Valhalla and I'm sure it's going to happen this year again as well.

So as Mayor I couldn't be more excited for our city, it showcases us to the world, we'll have thousands of visitors coming here from throughout the country, throughout the world, to see what's going to be happening during this six-day competition. We get tremendous exposure with national TV, obviously as well.

And then I'm excited for our local citizens. We got a lot of great golf fans here who enjoy not only seeing a world championship unfold in their city, but also participating in it as volunteers. And watching the competition between the best golfers

in the world, Kenny Perry, Paul Azinger, defending champ here Tom Lehman told me he intends to win this again this year, along with more of our other local folks. Fuzzy Zoeller, I'm sure he's going

to be here making some kind of noise as well.

So I know that we'll pull out the red carpet for you guys, we really appreciate the opportunity. Again, anything we can do to help, just let us know. I look forward to seeing you all in May.

JULIUS MASON: You sound like a fun Mayor. That's a pretty good recap. For those out of towners, especially a couple of us on the head table here, how long does it take to watch 58

tons of fireworks? What is that like five minutes?

MAYOR GREG FISCHER: 24 minutes.

JULIUS MASON: 24 minutes?

MAYOR GREG FISCHER: Best fireworks show in the world.

JULIUS MASON: Keep on going.

MAYOR GREG FISCHER: We good the best golf course in the world, we make memories every day here.

JULIUS MASON: You got that, boss? We may be coming back for a fire works show. I like this.

Ladies and gentlemen, it now gives me great pleasure to call upon Deb O'Connor, the Senior Manager of Brand Experience for KitchenAid. Deb.

DEB O'CONNOR: Thank you. At KitchenAid we believe that KitchenAid and the PGA of America are a great fit. Both organizations are about quality and excellence and both organizations bring people together around family and friends.

It's really about having a good time together. And great golf and great food are a good combination and through our sponsorship we're going to connect these in exciting and engaging

ways.

I think we have some, we have some things to show up on the screen there. This is what we're calling our KitchenAid Fairway Club, and this will be located right on the corner of 13

green and 14. And a lot of exciting things are going to happen inside there.

Really, it gives us an opportunity to have people get a chance to touch and feel our product. So we'll have a demo kitchen in there. You can see the demo kitchen. These are renderings right now.

And in the demo kitchen we will have, as long as the gates are open there will be a chef in there cooking, so people can go in and sort of get tips from the pro, the cooking pro that is.

And we also have some exciting celebrity chefs in there from Thursday through Saturday. On Thursday from 2 o'clock to 3 o'clock we have Duff Goldman, who you might know as the Ace of

Cakes on the Food Network. He's going to make a cake that looks just like the trophy. So that will be fun to see.

On Friday, we have world renowned Jacque Pepin. And on Saturday we have Michael Symon and he owns quite a few restaurants

in the Midwest and you might also know him as the Iron chef on Food Network. So a lot of fun there.

After each celebrity chef each day we're going to have some local chef in there, local chefs. And Tim Laird from the Secrets of the Bluegrass Chefs, he has organized for us a whole list of chefs through the week. We have Rod Jones from Rodney's on Broadway, Mathew Antonovich at Mozz, Jeremy Ashby from Azur and Anthony Lamas from Seviche. So a lot of exciting things there.

Each of these guys are actually going to be taped for the, for Tim's show, Secrets of Bluegrass Chefs, so we're happy to be able to provide the kitchen for that.

And then also you'll see there the small appliance – if you go back one there -- the small appliance demo area. People will get a chance to go in and try to make their own pasta, make their own sausage, a lot of -- I'm kind of looking at it as a demo days for cooking.

And some of the product that people will get to use there will actually be the first time it's been used by any consumer.

So we're looking forward to getting some feedback on some exciting new product that we have.

Also, in Fairway Club we'll have a golf simulator and for a donation to Cook For the Cure, our partnership with Susan G. For the Cure, you will get a chance to shoot for the closest to the pin. And the hole that will be in the simulator is from

the fairway on the 13th green right here at Valhalla.

So it will be kind of fun. You'll get a chance to shoot at it and then you'll get to go out and watch the pros shoot at it. So that should be some fun too. And we'll be giving away some stand mixers as we go through that.

Other things going on, let's see, if you keep flipping there, we'll have a kitchen right out here on the 10th tee, we'll have an indoor kitchen and outdoor kitchen so people can go in, again touch and feel the product, see what it's going to be like and be able to ask any questions that they might have in the kitchen.

Also, we have a sweepstakes going right now. It's the KitchenAid Make the Cut. And one lucky winner will win a dream kitchen by KitchenAid. And then five winners will win

dinner for two in the Fairway Club on Saturday night and it will be hosted by Michael Symons. So that will be exciting too.

Let's see, also we have a hospitality tent right out there on the 18th green. So we will have a lot of our customers in the hospitality tent and then our many of our customers will be participating in the pro-am as well.

So you can see that we have got a lot of exciting plans, hope you'll all be out and step in the Fairway Club, but all in all what we want to do is take some of these passionate golf fans and invite them in and let them explore the possibilities of being a passionate cook as well. So thank you.

JULIUS MASON: Deb, thank you very much. It's a little painful to hear you, seeing that I just got a texted from Jody of the Louisville Courier Journal. He said, I don't want to eat in the stinking media center anymore, I want to go to the Fairway

Club. Yeah, thanks for that Jody, wherever you are.

Ladies and gentlemen, now it gives me even greater pleasure to introduce, all the way from Phoenix, Maryland, the 37th president of the PGA of America, Mr. Allen Wronowski.

ALLEN WRONOWSKI: Thanks, Julius. But I'm feeling a little unarmed without a slide presentation, billings like that, a now tons of fire works. But on behalf of the more than 27,000 men and women of the PGA of America it is my privilege to be here today. It's been an exciting day already.

The professionals of the PGA of America work hard each and every day to grow the interest in the game of golf, since our mission in 1916 has been to promote the excitement and enjoyment

and we certainly had that today this morning in playing and with everyone that's featured here.

Our deepest appreciation we begin our first year in the relationship with KitchenAid and I got spend time with Deb today playing the game of golf. And they say you can tell an awful lot about a person when you play with them. And she is just a quality act all the way.

We're really looking forward to the relationship with the company. Again we talked a little bit about the parallels.

Almost a hundred year history and the family orientation. what you will have here, the many activities, we all know how fabulous Louisville fans are. And there's no doubt in our mind that between the KitchenAid experience and all the things that will be available to them it will be just an unbelievable event.

Valhalla has been listed by Golf Digest in its stellar roster of America's greatest courses since 1992, and this marks the 20th consecutive year.

Golf Digest also announced its best in state, listing Valhalla as the No. 1 facility in Kentucky. This honor is timely, since the acknowledgment comes on Valhalla's 25th anniversary this year having opened for play in

1986. And this honor is a tribute to the Gahm family, the design by Jack Nicklaus, and the commitment to excellence by its staff.

I was going tell you a lot about the highlights of past championships of '96 and 2004, but the mayor has done a spectacular job of that.

(Laughter.)

So we vaulted through a lot of those pages.

(Laughter.)

But I really have the memory last night -- if somebody had told me you would ever have a pep rally for a golf tournament, don't think any of us believed that. And anybody that remembers 2008 and putting together the beginning of the 13th Man, that was something that I know me and so many other people won't forget and I know that they will be just as excited and it will be an exciting year this year for the Senior PGA Championship.

And it will be in about five weeks that we'll host it here. And it's one of the most historic and press at the geez events in senior golf.

It's an event that routinely features the strongest field in senior golf, and this year will be no exception. The premier field will consist of, just to name a few, Paul Azinger, Mark Brooks, Fred Couples, Jay Haas, Hale Irwin, Corey Pavin, Nick

Price, Tom Watson, and Larry Nelson, who is our 2011 PGA of America Distinguished Service Award Recipient.

And you have a few local favorites too, Kenny Perry, Russ Cochran, Ted Schultz, and Fuzzy Zoeller.

To date with the exempt player deadline being on April 22 we have 132 of 156 players already committed to the field.

Now for all you people with the numbers, take out your pencils and paper, here we go. The field currently has, 99 U.S. representing 29 states. 35 who earned their berth through the 2010 Senior PGA Professional National Championship. 34 international players representing 14 countries.

25 Major championships who have won a total of 43 Major Championship. Nine senior PGA Champions. Eight Masters Champions. Nine U.S. Open Champions. Five Open Champions.

Nine PGA Champions. 10 U.S. and European Ryder Cup Captains and seven World Golf Hall of Fame members.

Pretty impressive field.

Last year, as you recall, the championship was played at the Colorado Golf Club in Denver where another special chapter was written in senior golf.

The gentleman seated next to me -- well, there we go. I don't know if I was getting ahead of myself. I know there's a video in here. Sorry.

JULIUS MASON: Fireworks.

ALLEN WRONOWSKI: Still thinking. The gentleman seated next to me turned professional in 1982. He worked hard on his game, going through the unexpected peaks and valleys all of us

have in our golf games.

He was born in Minnesota and possesses a very special work ethic and a commitment to excellence.

He made significant leaps in his games from the beginning. First he dominated the former Ben Hogan TOUR in 1990 and 1991, during a period when he began a relationship with one of

America's legendary PGA teaching professionals, Jim Flick.

In 1996, at the Open Championship at Royal Lytham and St. Annes he posted a course record 64 in the third round to win that Open on that course, the first time since Bobby Jones that an American won.

In the process he would earn the No. 1 ranking in the world.

He competed on three U.S. Ryder Cup Teams, 1995, '97 and '99.

And we got to know him better as the 24th Ryder Cup captain in 2006, when he guided the U.S. team in Ireland.

Last year he served as our Assistant Captain in Wales.

He's won 15 events worldwide and prior to joining the Champions Tour where he has won three titles, twice already this year, to go with his 2010 Senior PGA Championship.

But just in case you're a little fuzzy about remembering some of last years highlights, please watch the video.

(Video played.)

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Tom Lehman.

(Applause.)

TOM LEHMAN: Thank you. It's absolutely great to be here. The video definitely brought back great memories. I think that all of you who play golf, which I think most of you here do, you understand that golf is more about overcoming the failures and picking yourself up and continuing on.

In watching the video there was a long putt that I made on the 18th hole on the third round for birdie and it came right on the heels of making a triple bogey on the 17th hole before that.

So that kind of symbolizes what really golf is all about.

It's about having train wrecks, getting back up and going forward and making the best of it. And last year I felt that birdie on 18 was the real key to me to kind of get that round finished on a

more positive note and then going out on Sunday and winning.

So I really enjoyed the experience, I loved the golf course. The playoff probably last year was the most unique playoff that I've ever been a part of. I've been, I think, a part of five playoffs, I've lost four of them, that one there I couldn't lose.

(Laughter.)

You know, I remember sitting in the fairway kind of looking to my left and over in the shrubs and in the bunker and not knowing what was going on and finally I asked my caddie, "What

do these guys lie anyway?" I think they both made six, so.

But to win was a thrill. It was a real thrill. It was, I think I made the comment that to win on great golf courses against a great field in a Major Championship means more. It just means more. Just plain and simple. You always hear a win is a

win and it's always great to win and that's very true, but to win a big one is extra special. Especially when it's the PGA of America who’s been so good to me.

So now we come to Louisville this year. I'm looking forward to it. We had a good look at the golf course today. I haven't played here since the year 2000 and even that year it was shortened. I had just come off knee surgery so I had two weeks of rehab after surgery and tried to play and didn't do it very well and made it one round and had to withdraw. I'm sure I made that first alternate really unhappy.

But seeing the course with the differences that have happened, the changes made since then, the 7th hole is just a monster. Or the 6th hole. 6th hole? 6th hole. The long – the par four. It used to be a 3-wood and 9-iron. Now it's a 3-wood and a 3-wood. So it's a tough hole.

But it's a good golf course, really tough. It's going to I think favor great shot makers. You need to have a great game plan and I look forward to that.

JULIUS MASON: Thank you very much, Tom. So two questions that the audience wants to know right off the bat, have you ever held a heavier trophy above your head?

TOM LEHMAN: No. That thing would be a lot heavier with a bunch of beer or champagne too.

JULIUS MASON: I wonder if -- David Charles can probably answer this question. How many quarts of liquid can fit in the Alfred S. Bourne Trophy?

TOM LEHMAN: We'll find out.

JULIUS MASON: Ladies and gentlemen, it's Q&A time. If have you a question, please raise your hand as high as you can so we can get a microphone to you.

Q. You talked a lot about the course, but what were your memories? I think you finished 14th in '96 and then obviously the one round there. But talk about the differences, maybe more beside the differences besides the 6th and the course in general?

TOM LEHMAN: Did I finish 14th or did I finish 10th? Maybe it's like a fish story, I thought I finished 10th.

I was thinking to myself that was the best finish ever for me in a PGA Championship was in '96. I thought I finished 10th, but you might be right. So the question again was what?

(Laughter.)

Yeah, typically, I guess exactly what I said, a lot of Jack Nicklaus's golf courses I think require a really good game plan. You have to have good strategy because there's a lot of places that you cannot recover from if you hit it there. It's a difficult place to recover from, period, around some of these greens.

So you have to have a real good game plan. And then once you get that going you have to hit it solid. And I think it's a shot maker's golf course. I thought it was that back then and I think it is even more so now.

There's a lot of really tough pins and therefore driving's a real key. I think you want to hit as far as you can, straight as you can, to kind of shorten up the holes and get shorter irons into some of these pin locations or else you're going to be in big trouble, I think, in missing it in spots you

don't want to miss it.

Q. For Allen and Tom maybe. Every level of the PGA you want to be ambassadors for golf, but given the amount of experience and in the game that these players have, do the senior PGA have a special role in that and then as far as promoting and being with fans and being an ambassador to the game?

ALLEN WRONOWSKI: What a question. And the seniors are a lot of the iconic figures that we looked up to. And I told Tom as we got in the cart ready to go out today, I just never as growing

up through the game thought that I would be sitting in a cart with him and playing the game of golf.

And it's all these people that we have looked up to through the years and I think it's a period in their time where they get to enjoy it a little bit more.

It's certainly a great time to be competitive, but they can relax a little bit and they can enjoy the fans and the spectators. And as you go forward, these are the people that you looked up to.

TOM LEHMAN: I agree with that. I think that a lot of the players who are 50 and older feel like they have nothing else really to prove. They seem to enjoy the game, the competition more. They don't -- they take it seriously, they work very hard, they're not maybe quite so wrapped up in the expectations and in the results as they were when they were younger.

And you simply just want to go play and play the best you can and have fun and compete and may the best man win. And then when it's all over you fill that thing up full of champagne and

enjoy it.

But I do think also, one other thing should be said is, I do think that the Champions Tour, senior golf, I think a lot of guys feel like they have been given a second lease on life. They have been able to continue competing and playing and at a time when most folks have had to quit long ago.

And I think that that's one reason why I believe that so many guys feel the real responsibility to be good citizens, to give back, to be involved with their communities and to serve.

And a lot of guys do a lot of great things and I think it's just this feeling of we're so fortunate and we're so lucky to be able to do this and to compete and so therefore we are going to do our

share and maybe even go above and beyond.

Q. Tom, talk about just the mental approach you take towards a Major on the Senior Tour as opposed to when you were on the Regular Tour.

TOM LEHMAN: Yeah, I'll get here late Wednesday night and –

(Laughter.)

No. No. You know what? My experience with golf at this stage of the game is that I'm having more fun, but doing it the same way. I still work every bit as hard, I still prepare the same way, I still will get here on Monday so I can prepare properly. I'm still going to get a game plan.

But there's this feeling that, hey, you know what, I know that I'm pretty good, I know that I am going to have probably a pretty good chance to win if I play decently, but I'm not so concerned with the results anymore.

I'm not -- I remember one time quite clearly, getting off the topic a little bit, but making a bogey on the 18th hole at San Diego on the par-5 with like a 7-iron to the green. And instead of finishing tied for third I finished like tied for 8th with six guys.

And the concern to me was that, you know, third place was going to be, let's just say, 80 Ryder Cup points, and tying for 8th with six guys was like seven. And being so angry that I slammed my clubs repeatedly on the ground at the back of the trunk of my car on the asphalt.

Just picking them up and slamming them. I'll still mad. Pick them up, slam them. I'm still mad. Pick them up, slam them.

Because I lost all those Ryder Cup points. And I wanted so badly to be on the team.

Well, you know what, those days are over. There are no more Ryder Cup teams to qualify for, it's simply now about the competition. You don't have these other things out there putting these, the pressure on you to have to do anything, to have to

compete, to have to perform.

It's just simply playing for the love of the game. And I really enjoy that. And so that's probably the biggest difference the preparation is the same, the attitude's a little bit different.

JULIUS MASON: Was that a rental car?

TOM LEHMAN: Well, they're now rental clubs.

(Laughter.)

Q. Tom, can you talk about, you talk about the competition and how difficult -- I think you've won now three times on the Champions Tour -- how difficult it is to get a win on the Champions Tour when every week you look up and it's somebody that has a Major win or is in the Hall of Fame and just different guys like that that are out there?

TOM LEHMAN: Have I won three times or four times?

(Laughter.)

I forgot. What's the question again?

(Laughter.)

I know. I'm just being stupid. The quality of the competition, is that what we were talking about? You know what? You look at what wins, the scores that win and they are awfully low.

We just played a really good golf course down in Tampa and it's a pro-am, so you play with an amateur, it's kind of like the AT&T. And so I was telling my amateur partner, I played with this guy, Stone Phillips, the news guy and I said, look, I know you're not a U.S. Open quality player, but now you know what it was like playing in the U.S. Open, because the greens were rolling about 13 and they were hard as a rock.

And John Cook shot 9-under for three rounds and which I thought was a heck of a good score. And a few weeks before that I shot 16-under at a good course.

And so the winning scores are really really low. The quality of the play at the top is extremely good. You cannot get by out here with less than your full game. You have to be on your toes and you have to be firing on all cylinders or else you're not going to win. There's just not 156 great players like there is on the PGA TOUR. There's a whole bunch of good players and there's been a bunch of great players.

Q. You mentioned in interview how many tours you played on and how far you've come and now your name is on that trophy. When you look back at your career right now, did you expect to achieve this much? Are you pretty amazed at what you've accomplished or did you always believe that you, you know what, I can do this and I'm going to keep doing it?

TOM LEHMAN: You know what, I think that if you had, if I had to be perfectly honest, there's always a dream. Did I think I was capable, yeah, I thought I might be. But how often does your dreams become reality? Very seldom.

But I think more than that though I look back at it now and I feel like I could have accomplished more. I mean, that's more the way I look at it. You tend to -- I've always been a forward thinker, I've always been the person looking to the future and rarely, rarely, rarely do I look backwards.

So when I think about golf and I think about the past it's like I could have got more done. But it's more thinking about, what do I want to do now, like, you know, what are my goals right now. What do I want to do this year in 2011. What do I

want to accomplish here in Louisville the end of May. That's more me thinking about going forward.

Q. What do you -- I'm just curious, what do you think about the city of Louisville and the golf course here and playing here in May.

TOM LEHMAN: The golf course, I'm sorry?

Q. Playing here in Louisville and what do you think about the city and the golf course here.

TOM LEHMAN: Well, I love it here and part of the reason why I like it so much is because I have some really, really good friends here. I don't know much about this city, I haven't spent a great deal of time here. I spent a lot more time in Eton, which is just down the road. We used to play a Hogan TOUR event in Eton and made some great friends, the McMahan family.

And so my experiences mostly in Louisville have been coming up from Eton with Bobby McMahan and going to Churchill Downs and watching the horses race. He always had some horses running, so there was always a lot of enthusiasm and excitement.

And so becoming such good friends with them and Ted Schultz has been a great friend for a long time, Kenny Perry has become a very good friend. So those are the things to me that give the greatest appeal about coming here is just knowing that the people who I have met here over the years have been such good friends.

Q. What did you shoot today?

TOM LEHMAN: Well give me a number and then I'll disagree with you.

(Laughter.)

You know what, Julius asked me that and I don't know.

I'm not sure that I kept score, but I'm going to guess it was --

ALLEN WRONOWSKI: 10-under.

TOM LEHMAN: Well he -- I was thinking I might have shot 1- or 2-under. Does that sound about right? I don't know. You beat me by what, 3? So what did you shoot?

(Laughter.)

So I think I made about five birdies and maybe three bogeys or four bogeys, something like that.

ALLEN WRONOWSKI: With a borrowed set of clubs.

TOM LEHMAN: Yeah, that's true.

Q. Jody was telling me he thought you were 53, I thought you were 52.

TOM LEHMAN: 52.

Q. Yeah. That's what I thought.

TOM LEHMAN: I could disagree with that though too.

Q. Can you talk about the dynamic of every year with the guys that just turned 50, it seemed like Jay Haas and he went right down to the wire the last time we had this here, but people think the 50 year olds are going to come on and dominate this TOUR, but is there kind of an adjustment period or what is that like?

TOM LEHMAN: You know, actually, I was very nervous my first event. It was the Legends of Golf and I was playing with Bernhard Langer. And I remember being on the first tee being really nervous, because it's new and the expectation about being 50 and already being one of the favorites. I hadn't been a favorite at a tournament in a long time. And suddenly being a favorite was a new position once again.

So I think there is some adjustment that way. I think there's pressure that gets put on players. Kenny Perry's a perfect example. I think that he turned 50, came out, and everybody expected Kenny to win every time he teed it up. And he didn't really play his very best.

But I think part of that has to do with dealing with where you're at, the expectations. He still has aspirations on the PGA TOUR. Does the Champions Tour really , is it a filler or is it something I really am going to go for.

So you have to kind of come to terms of, what exactly am I going to do. And so I think once, you get it all figured out, know, and you have to be single minded. Bernhard Langer is very single minded about the Champions Tour and his results speak for themselves. It's hard to go back and forth. So I forgot the question.

(Laughter.)

Did I answer the question? All right.

JULIUS MASON: With a little over a month to go for the championship, Tom, can you give us the state of your game. What the condition is right now. The state of your game.

TOM LEHMAN: I've been playing -- I've been really happy with my game for about the last three years. And when I think about the number of tournaments that I've played and the number of

tournaments where I played well over about the last three to three and a half years, it's, to me, it's really gratifying because I probably have played well in 95 percent of the tournaments.

And there's a time in my career where I feel like I was playing well every week and then it kind of slacked off in my mid 40, late 40s where I feel like I played well like once every four weeks.

And now, over the last three or four years, it's been, I feel like I play well almost every week again.

So my game is, the consistency has kind of come back from where I used to be to where I would really like it to be. So every start's been a good start and I feel therefore that it gives me a great opportunity each week to win.

And last week I didn't win, I shot 1-under, the winning score was 9-under, I played the par-5s 4-over for the week, say no more. You start thinking about, why did you not win last week,

well there's your reason.

So there's, I feel like I'm always, always close and the weeks where it really kind of starts to click I've got a great chance.

JULIUS MASON: Questions? Questions twice? We're going to be able to get to find that house of yours that you're going to be renting faster than I thought, I think, right now.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us today. For those of you that do have questions about credentials or you have not applied for media credentials for the championship

yet, please visit or if you have any other questions beyond that, Una Jones over here can help you out with anything you might have.

Again, happy 25th anniversary Valhalla Golf Club, thanks again for joining us, ladies and gentlemen.

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