May 27, 2012
QUICK QUOTES FROM:
BILL BRITTON
FRED COUPLES
BILL BRITTON
Q.Tell me what it means to be the low club pro.
BILL BRITTON: Well it means a lot. I was fortunate to do it a few years ago and a lot of the other guys I saw later in the year were very kind to me. So it's nice. Evidently you know it means a lot to all of us to play in this and it's great.
Q. It was Oak Hill that you were low club pro before?
BILL BRITTON: Yeah.
Q. Compare the two experiences doing it a second time.
BILL BRITTON: I don't know. It seemed like I had more fun this week. The weather was warm. Oak Hill it was, I think it was the second Senior PGA Championship that I played in and I felt like I played great that whole week except for a few holes one day and a few holes another day, I really played about as good as I could play.
And this week was similar. I played really good yesterday and I played really good at times throughout the week and slipped up here and there, but for the most part I played really good. So it's nice to come here and play well.
Q. Talking to your caddie, he described you as a thoughtful guy. Tell me some of those thoughts you need to make it around this layout, both tee to green and then there's no let up when you get on the greens.
BILL BRITTON: Yeah, there's no let up and in a sense I think you got to kind of play the golf course backwards. You want to know where the pin is and of course you got to drive it in the fairway. The fairways are pretty generous. And then you really have to hit good iron shots, otherwise you'll have a really hard time getting it upanddown or putting.
I tend to over think a little bit, I wish I could be a little less thoughtful, but it's kind of a complicated course, you know. A lot of certain carries and bunkering here and there, so you have to play practice rounds and get your yardages and then you got to be able to hit the shots, that's the most important thing of all.
Q. In terms of the low club professional honors, your caddie says, well, we still haven't talked about it or we said we wouldn't talk about it, we still haven't talked about it. I guess you had to talk about not talking about it. Was that a conscious decision to not pay attention to that and just pay attention to your own game or how did you approach that?
BILL BRITTON: It was conscious. I don't even know if Tom knew anything about it. I never mentioned anything to him about it. We might have to change our plans about getting out of here. He might be sticking around longer than he thought he was.
But, yeah, we didn't talk about it. I just tried to play my game the best I can and add them up at the end of the round, as boring as that may sound.
Q. Tell me, I kind of got in a little late, your caddie, tell me the relationship there. He's from your home club?
BILL BRITTON: Yeah, I work at Colt's Neck in New Jersey and he's a member there. And last year my son caddied for me and he's not really nuts about caddying for me, but I asked him if he wanted to do it again, and Tom had asked me if he could do it and I said, I'll see what my son wants to do and if not, you're in. And Tom wanted to do it and he did a terrific job. He worked like a madman out there. It was a lot of fun.
Q. Are you going to keep him on your bag now?
BILL BRITTON: He may not be able to get more, any more time off. But it was a lot of fun. Socially it was a lot of fun too to have a friend around and spend some of your time with him.
Q. Speaking of time off, just kind of the age old story and I know you've played on TOUR fulltime, but now you have a job down there, what is that balance like for you of trying to play at a world class level, but then you've obviously got other responsibilities, how do you make that happen?
BILL BRITTON: Once the season gets started there's only so much time you can spend on your golf game, which isn't much, really. So I try and do whatever I can in the winter, believe it or not, practice a little bit in the winter time.
I did go away and play a tournament, the PGA runs a senior stroke play, I played that in January down in Port Saint Lucie, which I haven't done in the past, but I just do what I can.
QUICK QUOTES FROM:
FRED COUPLES
Q.It looks like you kind of figured this golf course out today. Can you take us through that a little bit and how do you feel about it?
FRED COUPLES: To be honest with you, they set it up pretty nice. There's some really good scores, but Kenny Perry's capable of shooting anything. And Calc. But to be honest with you, even the first day I played pretty good golf and shot 76, which is highly disappointing. And the last three days I played better and had a couple good rounds. But it was fun.
It's always nice to play well and get out of here, but I actually, you know, it was good to make the cut. I know that sounds stupid to make the cut at a Senior PGA, but after 76, I needed to play Saturday and Sunday to get some feel. I'm going to play in Jack's tournament next week, so I needed some more rounds.
I'll take tomorrow off, probably Tuesday, and then play Wednesday and start Thursday. But as far as here, I don't think I figured the course out, I hit the ball well and I made a few putts. And the front side actually I played, I got in my way to shoot 2under. I was 3under and then I hit a 5iron to the next hole, the par5 and made par.
And then a wedge to number 7 from the middle of the fairway and hit it over the green and made bogey.
When you're trying hard to birdie every hole and then you get in your own way but it was fun and I'm happy for Roger Chapman, it looks like he's going to close it out. He's played a long, long, long time and this will be a nice win.
Q. The eagle on 10.
FRED COUPLES: Well somehow the drive hit hard and I had 8iron in there and I didn't hit a great shot, I got it on the green about 30, 40 feet and I made it.
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