Quote of the Day & Interview by Kenny Perry

“I went from hitting the greatest shot of my life to the poorest shot of my life within 20 minutes”

Gotta feel sorry for the guy, he almost had one arm in what was supposed to be his new green jacket until he missed his chip on the first hole of the playoff. Kenny Perry might have gained more fans by losing The Masters than he would have by winning it. “I’ve received hundreds of cards and letters from people who genuinely care about me,” Perry said

This Week he makes his return at Zurich Classic of New Orleans.

Kenny Perry answered some questions at the Zurich Classic press confrence this week, Keep Reading for transcripts from the Interview that day:

Q. How was it when you got back to see your dad? Any story there when you got back to Kentucky?

KENNY PERRY: He just felt sorry for me. He just wanted to give me a hug. He’s such a competitor just like me. He actually was speechless. There wasn’t a lot said.

You know, we just kind of hung on out and we sat there for a while. Then he started opening up a little bit, not a lot. He just didn’t want to go back there, I don’t think. He just wanted to tell me how proud he was of me, and it was a good time.

Q. I know you just said you ran the gamut of emotions, you know, from one extreme to the next. Can you share with us a personal moment when you just kind of finally got to yourself and was just by yourself and kind of, wow. And what went through your mind at that time?

KENNY PERRY: The personal moment was I drove home from Augusta. Got home about 4 in the afternoon on Monday afternoon. And I didn’t sleep at all Monday night, and I got in my car about 5 a.m., and I just drove for about three hours. Just drove out to the countryside. You know, being thankful for everything after that that’s happened to me. It really was.

I wasn’t sorrowful, but I just contemplated for three hours just driving around in the country. I live in a small, rural town, it’s a farming community, lot of cattle. Lot of horses, very peaceful, very serene. It was just kind of my time to just kind of reflect, and it was all very positive. It was good.

I mean, I still relived those last, you know, here I am for four days, you know, for hour upon hour, just playing beautiful golf. And then it all boils down to one little chip shot on the 71st hole. You know, I had it all all the way up to the last half hour of the tournament. You know, to be in control.

So, you know, but that’s OK. I mean, I’ve relived that chip over and over again. And I wouldn’t have done it any different. I just need to get better at that shot.

You know, the moments I had were the cards I was reading, the letters I was reading that would just bring tears to my eyes. You know, that was more emotional to me than me just sitting and reflecting on what went on, what was happening. It was the outpouring of love and support from everybody that was really more emotional to me than anything.

Q. Will it be difficult for you during the first round on Thursday to put all of that behind you and focus exclusively on the round at hand?

KENNY PERRY: Very difficult. I thought about not coming this week, but that wouldn’t have been right for this tournament. You know, I really love coming here. I love the people here, and this is a great run event. And it’s very relaxed and very peaceful place.

I think if it had been a high-stressed atmosphere, more of a major world event, I would have seriously considered kind of, you know, not coming. But this event to me, I love supporting it. They do such a great job.

They’ve had a lot of pain and heartache here with Katrina hitting, and I just want to support this event and make it better, and they do a wonderful job. So Thursday morning or afternoon whenever I tee off it’s going to be very difficult. It’s going to be one of the hardest things I’m ever going to do. But for me the sooner I get back into it and get over it, the better it’s going to be for me. So that’s another way to look at it.

I need to throw myself back out there and get ready. We’ve got the Players coming and Bethpage coming and Turnberry and PGA. You know what, I just need to get over it. Somehow I’ve got to get through it better than I did the ’96 PGA. I didn’t get over that very well.

I think I’m better prepared and better equipped than I have been in the past. We’ll see how the front nine goes, and the back nine goes, wherever I start on Thursday. Hopefully I’ll have enough energy. I’ve been very tired. It’s like a lot of weight on on my chest, shoulders. I just have muscle fatigue. I just feel very drained.

And hopefully I can get another good rest here tonight, and tomorrow, and come Thursday I can just get out to a nice, even-keeled start. I just hope I don’t get off to a poor start. I hope somehow I don’t have to start battling and fighting early. If I can get off to an average start and just kind of cruise it along and work my way into the round, I think I’ll be OK. If I get off struggling early, it’s going to be a tough deal.

Q. How did Sandy handle it?

KENNY PERRY: Sandy is great. My oldest daughter is the one who struggled. She was crying, she couldn’t contain herself she was crying so hard. She didn’t stop all night. She’s so tender-hearted and so sweet. She just wanted it. It’s tough when people are hurting for you. It’s not for themselves, it’s nothing involved for themselves, that was tougher for me than losing the tournament. I looked at her and said, I’m the one that should be crying here.

She’s a sweetheart. Even when she was a little child, she’s always been very tender-hearted and always cried. So that was sweet. I knew what she meant.

Q. Can you talk about the course here at TPC Louisiana and how it plays for you?

KENNY PERRY: Terrific golf course. You know, it’s the dead opposite of Hilton Head. I don’t feel claustrophobic out there. I love the beauty of it. And the holes and all, it’s very generous off the tees with the fairways. I always feel comfortable when I come here. I love golf courses that set up like this.
The greens are great. They’re always in good shape here. And to me it’s just a fun course to play. You’ve got those parallel par 3s – 17 and 9 – with the boards and all, very difficult, demanding shot. They’ll test every shot you’ve got out there.

And I love a golf course when it challenges you like that. To me it’s a joy to come here and play.

Q. Good morning. I don’t know that I would ask this question of any other guy, but you’ve been around the block, and you’ve been so brutally honest about the way you’ve played in the past. But when you were driving around out among the horses and the cows, were you — did you feel like you had choked the tournament away? Was that some of the stuff that was running through your mind?

KENNY PERRY: No, I wouldn’t consider it a choke. By far, that is the last thing that entered my mind. You know what, I just kind of, you know, I think winning and losing is a lot about decision making. It’s about the process you go through out there.

And what I was always contemplating was the chip shot on 17, or the first putt on 13, those are the two main things that stuck out in my mind. When I was banging around, and on a bump and run from 20 feet away on a flat surface, should you hit a 64-degree sand wedge? Probably for me at the time, that was probably the shot I should have hit.

But when I was driving around, I was just to me, it was a special time for me to kind of reflect. People said I blew the ’96 PGA, and I thought that was wrong. I thought the media was totally wrong. You don’t get stiff. I was a lot on younger at that time, too.

I actually hit the drive and the playoff was very similar to the drive on the 72nd hole. They both felt beautiful to me. They were both on good lines, and they both ended up in poor spots. The drive on the 72nd hole started in the middle of the fairway, and I couldn’t pick it up once it started drawing. And to me, I thought it was going to be perfect. Just crawled into the back right portion of the bunker. I hit a good drive on the 71st hole, and hit a beautiful 6-iron. It just carried a little far and went over the green.

So, you know what, I wouldn’t consider it choking. I was nervous, yes. But I was enjoying it. I enjoyed the moment. I enjoyed being in it. I was actually thriving on it more than I ever have in the past.

You know, so, I haven’t beaten myself up much about this deal. I really haven’t. I’ve enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to the majors coming you up. I feel like I can be competitive in all of them. To me it’s given me a shot of confidence more than it has deterred me from getting after it more.

Q. Can you talk about among all the cards and letters and emails and stuff you got, what did they say?

KENNY PERRY: Greg Norman called me. Phil Mickelson called me. Scott Hoch called me. George W. Bush wrote me a letter. It was just incredible the outpouring of support. I had so many people just, you know, proud of the way I handled the loss.

Hated how the outcome was for me but were rooting for me. Scott Hoch called me. He’s a guy that missed a little putt to win the Masters. So, people who have been there, done that. It’s always encouraging to me to listen to words of encouragement. They’ve been there, they’ve experienced it, and to me that was very special.

Q. When was the first time after the Masters that you picked up a club? Is that difficult at all? How did that go?

KENNY PERRY: I didn’t pick up a golf club until Thursday. I actually played with two club pros, at Old Stone in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Two kids who are playing the Hooters Tour and who are struggling. We had a great day. We had a lot of laughs, lot of fun.

Like I said before, I was totally out of energy and whipped. The golf club just felt heavy. I was tired. But I knew I needed to get back into it. I needed to start swinging that club a little bit.

I have a weighted club that I’ll swing at night in my room. But that was the only day I really played and hit balls. Then I showed up here on Monday, and yesterday hit a few balls yesterday afternoon. So I really haven’t done much since the Masters has ended.

Q. You just referred to the confidence you took out of it, and you put away the loss, and you have been playing great the past year. I’m just wondering how you feel about sustaining that, and are you you playing next week also?

KENNY PERRY: I am not. I am the grand marshall, my dad and I are the grand marshals at the Kentucky Derby parade next Thursday, the Derby week in Louisville, Kentucky. So that’s pretty neat. Something I will enjoy with my dad. So I couldn’t play Wachovia. But I’ll play the Players the week following.

Q. The crying that you said you did, how much of it was there, and what prompted it whether it was thinking about the chip or the whole thing?

KENNY PERRY: No, all the tears and emotions were from other people when they were coming up, congratulating me, consoling me. They would be crying. Then it was mostly from the cards, and letters and emails I received.

When I would get off by myself and start reading all this stuff, it was mind boggling how I was receiving letters from New Zealand, Australia, Europe, Canada. I received letters from pretty much all over the world saying, I don’t know you. But I am a true Kenny Perry fan now.

So I touched a lot of hearts in defeat. So to me that was pretty neat. They’ve up lifted me and made me feel a lot better. To me, I was OK with it.

I fell apart, I did everything I could do. I threw it all out there. I stuck my neck out, thought I was going to win, but I just came up a little bit short. As an athlete, or a player, that’s all you can ask of yourself.

Q. What did you learn from it? And if there’s anything that you would do differently now, because you’re making all those split decisions under the heat coming down the stretch. If there’s anything you’d do different, what would it be? What would you do differently?

KENNY PERRY: I would learn not to quite get ahead of myself so fast. When I got two up with two to play, my thought was, all right, two pars and you win the Masters. Well, to me, I hadn’t been playing like that all week. To me I was playing, let’s hit it here, put it on this part of the green, get an uphill putt here for birdie.

I was playing, I guess you could say conservatively aggressive, if there is such a word. And I was playing great golf. When I knew I had to make two pars, I got defensive. To me that was probably the biggest thing. Instead of being aggressive, I started to hang on. And that’s the worst thing to do in golf. When you you try to hang on on, bad things start happening.

Q. Among those emails and cards and letters, did you hear anything from Jack?

KENNY PERRY: I did not. No, nothing from Jack.

Q. Obviously you’ve closed out a lot of tournaments successfully in your career. Three of them here at Muirfield. I wondered if you could just talk about the nerves factor coming down the last few holes of the masters, compared to what you felt at other venues where you won?

KENNY PERRY: To me, it was a lot similar to my Ryder Cup. Every hole of the Ryder Cup to me felt like the 17th and 19th hole at the Masters. I was under it seemed like intense pressure. Every hole in Match Play felt like sudden death. It was very similar. That kind of prepared me for what I was going to get into at Augusta.

I was nervous, but it wasn’t to the point I was shaking violently. It seemed like everything sped up on me a little bit. Normally when I get in the lead like that, everything slows down. But it seemed like when all that happened, it was all happening pretty fast my heart rate got up and my blood pressure got up a little bit and my golf swing got a little fast.

When my golf swing gets a little faster and out of rhythm and out of tempo, I tend to pull shots to the left. So I knew right then I was feeling a little differently than I had the previous 16 holes.

You know, that iron shot I hit on 16 was the greatest iron shot I ever hit. Right when I hit it, I felt like Gary Player. I was chasing it immediately. I took a step toward the ball, I saw it in flight and I started running, almost running down the fairway off the tee box.

So I went from hitting the greatest shot of my life, to hitting the poorest shot of my life all within a matter of 20 minutes.

I turn 50 next year, so I’m doing stuff probably most people shouldn’t be doing. I’m very thankful for it. My health is good. I’m hitting it 300-plus yards. I’m doing neat stuff. But it’s a shame I figured it out so late in my career. I wish I could roll back 20 years and have my mindset now and my golf swing.
I hit it beautifully 20 years ago, I didn’t have the short game and didn’t have the head where I have it now. I’m just a slow learner, I guess.

You know, I think when I get in that situation again, hopefully, I can draw from this. I’ll calm down. Hopefully, I’ll have that shot at the U.S. Open or at Turnberry or maybe not when I roll around back at Augusta next year. I don’t know.

Q. I hope so. Looking forward to having you back. That’s my question. How does this experience — you talked about carrying some extra weight right now and not feeling like you’re ready to play. How does that play into your title defenses? You’ve got a few of those coming up, and then again early part of next year.

KENNY PERRY: Busy schedule. Actually, it’s good. It will keep me motivated, keep me focused, keep me grinded. I’m glad I’ve got those defenses coming up, and I’m looking forward to it.

The John Deere was very similar. You watched me last year, I skulled on 15, my chip shot, and I skulled on 18 coming in, and then I win the playoff. I thought after I skull that chip on 17 at Augusta and got that three-way playoff like John Deere, it was like you know what, I’m going to win this playoff because it’s already happened. That was kind of funny how I was thinking about that deal.

But, yeah, it’s going to be great. I look forward to try to get in there and defend. I love the John Deere. I love that golf course. It sets up good to my game. So I look forward to getting in there and being successful.