I didn't do anything spectacular when I won the Open in 2001. I hit the ball good, not great. I putted good, not great, but I think I missed maybe two putts inside eight feet all week.
I'm not here just to walk two rounds or four rounds and just show up. I want to be able to be competitive, and I truly believe I can still be competitive when I'm playing well and feeling good.
Obviously it's my second senior event, and I'm tired obviously coming back from the British Open, from surgery, which was priority No. 1, did that successfully, and each week since the British Open I've felt in pretty good control of my golf game.
When I turned 50, I said to myself, well, if this is what it's like turning 50, I can't wait to turn 60 because I still felt very, very mentally and physically good, outside my back surgery.
To have the opportunity to work with Tiger Woods was just so awesome. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the challenge. I enjoyed the good parts where he was winning. And I enjoyed the challenge to help him get better. But six years was enough.
I was a hunter and fisherman, and many a time I have slipped out into the woods and prairies at 4 a.m. and brought home plenty of game, or have gone in a canoe to the cove and brought back a good supply of fresh fish.
People don't want to go to the dump and have a picnic, they want to go out to a beautiful place and enjoy their day. And so I think our job is to try to take the environment, take what the good Lord has given us, and expand upon it or enhance it, wit...
I've played such good golf, and it was hard coming up and it wasn't easy in any matches or any shots. It means a lot. I think hopefully it will mean a lot to New Zealand because I'm the next winner of the U.S. Amateur after Danny Lee.
Now I need to take a piece of wood and make it sound like the railroad track, but I also had to make it beautiful and lovable so that a person playing it would think of it in terms of his mistress, a bartender, his wife, a good psychiatrist - whateve...
I will fall in love with any golf course that you have to drive the ball straight. You understand what I'm saying? That's my advantage. My advantage wasn't putting. In fact, I wasn't even a great putter or a good putter.
I love watching Anthony Kim play, but I'm not a fan of the way he grips down a good two inches on his full-swing shots. Choking down lightens the club's swingweight and effectively makes the shaft stiffer.
My 2005 calendar we actually did a shoot in Lake Las Vegas. Since I had requests do some swimwear and athletic shots we tried them and they came out good so we inserted them into the new calendar.
I always said that if I could just find a guy who could chop wood and had a nice smile, it wouldn't bother me if he was a thug or an aristocrat, as long as he was a good guy. And I've ended up with an educated thug.
I had played in a tournament with the captain of the University of Minnesota's golf team, and he thought I was good. He called his coach, and the coach called me and recruited me. A five-minute phone call changed my life.
I started flying because I had a fear of it early on. I figured if I learned to fly, I would understand better what was happening and started taking lessons in the late 1950's, once I had made some money on tour.
Our God listens to us. Our God is a living God. He's not a block of wood you made up that's not going to answer you. My God listens to me. He answers me.
I mean, I can actually say goodbye to the game of golf, never hit another golf shot the rest of my life and I'd be happy because I can get back in life without any rotation.
Americans believe if you go to college, you have something to fall back on, which makes sense. I don't have any degrees. If I hadn't become a golfer, I have no idea what I would be doing with my life.
I sat staring, staring, staring - half lost, learning a new language or rather the same language in a different dialect. So still were the big woods where I sat, sound might not yet have been born.
I love to eat a lot, but I try to eat healthy stuff. Especially when you're riding, sometimes I get hooked up with the cycling and when you're riding three, four, five hours, then you can put whatever you want in your body.
The majors are very important, and I would love to win one or many. I'll continue to compete in them hard and win if I can. There's not much more I can say. I'd love to be part of the club of people who've won majors.
