May 21, 2009
AN INTERVIEW WITH:
BERNHARD LANGER
KELLY ELBIN: Bernhard Langer in with a
2-under par 68 in the opening round of the 70th
Senior PGA Championship at Canterbury Golf
Club. Bernhard, three birdies, one bogey. Looks
like a pretty solid start to the championship.
BERNHARD LANGER: Yeah, I was pretty
happy with my game overall. I hit a lot of fairways,
hit a lot of greens, and kept the ball in play, out of
trouble. Left a few putts short, I need to work on
that.
But otherwise it was pretty steady. As you
said, I made three birdies and had the one bogey
when I drove it in the rough and I had to chip it
sideways pretty much.
I had a couple of
up-and-downs somewhere, but or all it was pretty
steady and it was fun to watch Scott play very well.
KELLY ELBIN: Hit 10 of 14 fairways and
13 of 18 greens in regulation. Obviously pleased
with your ball striking?
BERNHARD LANGER: Yeah, I'll take that
most days, especially on a course like this where
it's not that easy to hit the fairways and the greens.
So pretty pleased with that.
KELLY ELBIN: Thank you. Open it up for
questions, please.
Q. Did the course play any less difficult
today than you thought it would going into the
practice rounds?
BERNHARD LANGER: Once you get to
know a course more and more you get a feel for it,
I think. You understand it better. You know where
to go, where not to go. And then we also had the
same wind conditions for the last three or four
days, so that helps too. I think if the wind would
switch around totally, then it would present itself
very different again.
But I think we just get used to what club to
hit off certain tees and get to know the greens a
little bit better, so after three or four rounds you get
the hang of it and you get a bit of a feel for how to
play the golf course. But it's definitely not easy out
there. And I think the scores reflect it. There's not
too many scores under par, I would imagine.
Q.
Where did you have to hit
sideways? Which hole?
BERNHARD LANGER: No. 12. I drove it
in the left rough and it was really deep down. I
could only hit it about 50 yards. So I chopped it
out, hit it on the edge of the green and 2-putted for
bogey.
Q. How did you find the rough on the
golf course in general?
BERNHARD LANGER: Well in general it's
pretty even. Pretty consistent. Some areas you
can get a 6-iron to it or something like that or
5-iron, even if you get a good lie. But other times
you just got to take the sand wedge and pitching
wedge and hack it out.
Q. I know you're not a cocky guy, but
when you show up as well as you're playing
this year, do you feel like you're the player to
beat?
BERNHARD LANGER: I would like to
think that I'm one of the players to beat. I've had a
pretty good season last year, I was one of the best
players on the Champions Tour, and I had a really
good start this year again. So I would like to think
of myself as being one of those guys that has a
chance to win. But I wouldn't single myself out.
You have a lot of great champions playing in this
tournament and not just in this, but in every week
out on the Champions Tour. It's never easy to win.
KELLY ELBIN: As a remainder, Bernhard
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was runner-up at the is Senior PGA Championship
last year at Oak Hill.
Q. Yesterday you were mentioning that
it was difficult to judge how to play your
second shot on the 16th hole, the par-5. Have
you been able it figure it out any better or is it
still going to remain one of the more difficult
par-5s you try to play?
BERNHARD LANGER: No, my strategy
now is to just get as close to the green as I
possibly can. So I hit a good tee shot today and
just tried to hit a 3-wood as far over the hill and
down there as close to the green as I can. And I
pulled it a little bit, so that was one of my bad shots
today, but again, I was only about 60, 70 yards
away, so I was able to hit a sand wedge on to the
green from there.
less up. So you can't really land it short because it
will come back at you. Anyway, yeah, so it's just
some greens are severe and you have -- I probably
should have hit a shot that has less spin instead of
hitting a full sand wedge I should have chipped a
little pitching wedge with less spin and tried to hit
the perfect shot. But we live and learn.
KELLY ELBIN: Bernhard Langer, thank
you very much.
BERNHARD LANGER: All right. Thank
you.
FastScripts by ASAP Sports
Q. You have -- this is Sunday, you have
a one stroke lead, you're going into 16, 17 and
18. Does that cause concern and worry for not
only yourself but everybody else?
BERNHARD LANGER: No, I would like to
be in that position, I think, to have a one stroke
lead and obviously knowing that there's a three
difficult holes there and there's no guarantees. But
the holes are just as difficult for the second and
third place guy as they are for the leader, so
there's not much of a difference. I would rather be
ahead than behind.
KELLY ELBIN: Did you keep the ball
below the hole on a number of holes which was
kind of the comments going in?
BERNHARD LANGER: You like to. You
try to, but it's not easy. It's like No. 1 was a prime
example. I hit a beautiful hybrid down there, had a
perfect yardage for a sand wedge from the middle
of the fairway and hit a great shot and pitched
about three yards behind the hole and took one
hop almost into the fringe. And I thought, well that,
if it comes back a little bit it's perfect. But about 10
seconds later it's running off the green, 10 yards
down the, 20 yards down the fairway and into the
rough.
So I've just hit two as good a shot as I can
hit off the tee and for my second and I'm 20 yards
short of the green, 35 yards away from the pin,
facing a difficult chip shot. And I chipped it by
about 12, 14 feet and had to make a downhill putt
to save par after hitting two great shots.
And on that hole, if you try to leave it short
of the pin, you definitely suck it down the hill,
because the green goes up and then it goes a little
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