May 21, 2009
QUICK QUOTES FROM:
JUAN QUIROS
JOHN AUBREY
JOHN COOK
JIM WHITE
TOM KITE
CONSTANTINO ROCCA
AN INTERVIEW WITH:
JUAN QUIROS
Q. You started out kind of shaky and
you had a strong finish, yes?
JUAN QUIROS: Yes, I started so badly. I
hit the ball terrible. My head is not so good
concentrating.
Q. Okay.
JUAN QUIROS: But I finished pretty well.
Q. So a little nervous or a little on the
first hole?
JUAN QUIROS: No, no, not nervous. I
played so many tournaments it's not nerves. No,
not nervous. But I start practicing this morning
good, and I don't understand why I hit the tee shot
on the first hole terrible. But then it was good.
Q. You've had a great run since 2005,
you came back from kind of a physical injury
and you have had a great 2007 and 2008.
JUAN QUIROS: Um-hum. My back there,
yes. But I had a good recovery. And I start with
the physical preparation and it turned out great.
Q. So is it more physical or technical,
the last two years, your great years?
JUAN QUIROS: It's been more physical.
The technical, I already got that.
Q. Last year you won the Irish Senior
Open. That's fantastic.
JUAN QUIROS: Yes, fantastic because
the condition was, I never played like that before,
so it's cold, rain, wind, yeah. But obviously on the
last hole I said to my caddie, okay, I want to finish
now, because I finish second. But I win by one
shot. And I want to finish a good week for me if I
finish second. And it was a strong week for me, so
I thought.
So I told him, it was very, very cold and so
windy. But the first hole I hit a pitching wedge and
I said, oh, the ball is very, very near. And he said,
yeah, that's very near the green too. And I had a
bad 3-putt and I said, whoa, how did that happen?
Q. How do you like the course today?
JUAN QUIROS: The course is very tough
course. But in here, I never see a lot -- it's getting
so much more in America, I see all the time that I
see bigger greens, I see the small greens here and
they are very tough. The greens, the courses are
very tough. But they're great, great courses.
Q. You birdied on 8 and 15. Good
holes for you?
JUAN QUIROS: Yeah. Yeah. If I make
birdie, it's a good hole for me. No, I hit a good
drive in there and a pitching wedge, second shot a
pitching wedge. It's such a difficult green, but I
think it's a much, I think it's the most difficult green
on the course.
15, I had a good putt. I had two great
shots near the green and chipping not so well, but I
had a good putt and that's a birdie.
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AN INTERVIEW WITH:
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JOHN AUBREY
Q. You had a great day today. 1-over.
JOHN AUBREY: Yeah. I did.
Q. Fantastic. Three birdies?
JOHN AUBREY: Yeah. I birdied them
hard holes. I birdied holes like 12 and 7 and those
are hard holes.
Q.
Did the course play like you
expected?
JOHN AUBREY: Well, it's hard and fast
and it's to my liking now, you know. I don't like
them soft and muddy.
Q. Last year you had a great year at
this event as well, oh, I mean the Professional
National Championship. You came in second.
JOHN AUBREY: Yeah, I did.
Q. It looks like you maybe had some
time off for a couple years.
JOHN AUBREY: Yeah, I did. I was with
my kids, spending some time with the family and I
have a couple businesses, a golf course and I'm
busy doing that. And, no, there's more in life than
golf.
JOHN COOK
Q. How did the game go today?
JOHN COOK: Sloppy and not very good.
Very disappointing.
Q. Oh, I'm sorry. It was 30 years ago
you and Mark were matched up.
JOHN COOK: Yeah.
Q. Talk about how that felt.
JOHN COOK: Well, we play a lot of golf
together, but it was pretty special walking around
here, 30 years after the fact.
But to get off to a bad start and hit it in the
wrong places and then he kind of rallied and then I
started hitting it in the wrong places. And then it
just wasn't, it wasn't the best of days for the both of
us, but it's enjoyable being out there.
Q. You got some birdies today.
JOHN COOK: Yeah, well, a couple. Not
enough.
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AN INTERVIEW WITH:
Q. You got the bug back?
JOHN AUBREY: Yeah.
Q. And last year was a good year for
you?
JOHN AUBREY: Yeah.
Q. It's like how many tournaments you
played this year?
JOHN AUBREY: This is the first. A
couple of little ones in our section, but other than
that, nothing.
Q. How did the greens play today?
JOHN AUBREY: They played very good.
Real tough. The whole golf course is tough, it's
good, but it's tough. What else can you say? It's
hard.
FastScripts by ASAP Sports.
AN INTERVIEW WITH:
JIM WHITE
Q. Talk a little bit about your sixth
appearance here at the Senior PGA
Championship and what it means to you to get
the first round out of the way here.
JIM WHITE: You know, it was one of
those -- I loved my pairing, I had Dana Quigley I
played with him for quite awhile, he's a good
player and he hits it straight and a good guy to play
with. And Joe is a really nice guy, so the pairing
make as difference.
We had a good time. The weather was
perfect. The golf course was great. I felt like I hit
the ball better than my practice preparation would
indicate, but yeah, it was nice to get it out of the
way. I bogeyed the last two, which is kind of
frustrating, but that's the way it goes.
Q. What can you take from today into
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tomorrow's round?
JIM WHITE: Actually, I didn't do -- there
wasn't anything that was anything out of the
unusual, no good breaks, no putts falling, and yet I
got it to 4-over. So you know, I feel like I can
improve on that tomorrow and still have a chance
to make the cut and see what happens.
FastScripts by ASAP Sports.
AN INTERVIEW WITH:
TOM KITE
Q. Can you run down your birdies real
quick?
TOM KITE: Let's see, I birdied 13? 15? I
hit a 6-iron to the par-3 about five feet. Made that.
I hit 9-iron on 14 to about three feet. Made
that.
And birdied number 3, I hit a sand wedge
or L wedge about 15 feet. Made that.
Misclubbed on the next hole. I was right
between eight and nine, I hit nine and came up just
short. Hit a pretty decent chip shot up there about
six feet short and missed the putt. And then
3-putted the last.
On these greens you're going to have to
make some 4-, 5-, 6-footers for your 2-putt a lot of
times. Just to lag it up there stone dead all the
time, you can't do that, especially when they stick
the pin at the front of the green and you're putting
down this hill, across those slopes, you're just
going to have to make a bunch of those 4-, 5-,
6-footers. And I made most of them today.
the greens are open in front, so if you drive it in the
rough, on those you can sometimes chase it up
there. Like Fuzzy and I did on 7.
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AN INTERVIEW WITH:
CONSTANTINO ROCCA
Q. How did your day go?
CONSTANTINO ROCCA: 2-over. Not so
good, but back nine coming back very good.
Q. You had a good back nine there, a
couple birdies and -CONSTANTINO ROCCA: A couple birdie
and like a bogey.
Q. The course getting tougher as the
day goes on with the sun beating down on it a
little bit?
CONSTANTINO ROCCA: It's not a fun
hole, you cannot miss some shot and if you miss
on the wrong side, you make a bad score.
On No. 9 I hit a very good 7-iron and just
three yards short and it bounced and go back
down. And I make bogey.
Q. What do you change between this
afternoon and tomorrow morning when you go
off early?
CONSTANTINO ROCCA:
Oh, I don't
know, maybe there is less wind tomorrow morning
and you try to make the score less.
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Q. Still is this a fun golf course?
TOM KITE: Yeah, I mean it makes you
think a lot. It's hard work out there. Obviously you
look at the layout and you think it's not long, but
then you look at the greens and, man, it's just
unbelievable. And that's kind of how it is. The
greens make up for the lack of length. You can't
fall asleep. And the rough is brutal out there. The
fairways are bouncing as much as they are, the
rough really comes into play.
Q. It looks like you can advance it
though.
TOM KITE: Sometimes. Sometimes. Not
with a lot of control though. The one thing most of
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