Wendy’s Champions Skins Game
Kaanapali, Maui, HI

AN INTERVIEW WITH FRED COUPLES
content provided by sportstranscripts.com

We welcome Fred Couples who will be competing in his first Wendy’s Champions Skins Game this week. You’ve competed in quite a few Skins Games over the years, a few thoughts about this week’s event and your Champions Tour debut this week.

FRED COUPLES: You know, it’s great to be here. I am now on the Champions Tour. I’m going to play probably this year half and half. But being here at the Skins game, it’s fantastic. Again it’s Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player playing. That’s a lot of years involved in golf and quite a few major championships between the two. A lot of good things will happen the next few days. Again it will be a tough format. For me, I’m the youngest guy here, but I feel like my body is as stiff as Jack Nicklaus’. He will tell you it’s not an age thing, but he struggled feeling loose. And so to play alternate-shot for nine holes, honestly I’m going to be swinging a lot on the side of the greens. I can’t walk down the holes and all of a sudden hit a drive.

Q. Is there any part of your game excelling over any other part right now?

FRED COUPLES: No, I was off for six weeks. I feel like I’ve been hitting the ball pretty well. Yesterday was brutal. I didn’t get much out of the round. The wind was so hard I was trying to hit a 7-iron 120 yards. Today it was a little more. It was okay, nothing great. I will play better tomorrow and help Nick out more. But my game is okay. I got along way to go.

Q. You got a pretty good group as this event. Are they giving the rookie a hard time?

FRED COUPLES: I was a little bit disappointed in the way they were beating me up yesterday. I was ready to go get on a plane and go back to PGA TOUR. Fuzzy Zoeller, Bruce Lietzke is not in this, but he always picks on me and has fun. But Fuzzy will get on everybody. It will be fun. I’m really looking forward to getting out there. I think this format is a great idea. You’ve got eight players out there playing for charities and that’s a good thing. But again, I will say, any time you have Jack Nicklaus it is a huge thing for the events. There is no doubt.

Q. Do you like that there will be quite a few people watching you over the next two days?

FRED COUPLES: I think it’s great. To be honest with you, the toughest thing is, you know, on the PGA TOUR, I’m still in a great pairing category. If I played in our Hawaii event, I’d still be playing with Ernie Els and other PGA TOUR winners. I can still play, I think. I’m hoping. I still want to play with those guys. My goal is to play where I belong and really it’s probably on the Champions Tour. My days on the PGA TOUR will soon be gone and right now, I enjoy still getting paired with the really good players. If I was 55 years old and went back to a PGA TOUR event, I think I would be okay, but my pairing category would be different. Right now, I know when I play this year, I get paired with what I consider the top players. When I come on the Senior Tour, it’s just a different deal. Everyone seems like a winner out here. And even the guys that didn’t play on the regular come out and do well. I’ll soon get to know a few of those guys although right now I don’t have any idea who they are.

Q. It’s like the best of both worlds?

FRED COUPLES: For this year, but that could change after Augusta pretty quickly. I have to start feeling a little better. I don’t want to not be able to compete on the PGA TOUR and just go out and play. But last year, or the year before, I had a chance to win an event and I felt pretty good. Even if I go on the Champions Tour and play the way I’m feeling now, I don’t think I’ll do very well. You can’t be mediocre. On the PGA TOUR, it just gets tougher and that’s not much fun.

Q. You covered it a little bit. General thoughts on joining the Champions Tour? You said you will play half and half. Have you talked with Jay Haas to get an idea of what it’s like on this Tour?

FRED COUPLES: When I’m at home, most of the events I watch are Champions Tour events. So I know all about it. I know the players, and I watch. There might be a few that I’ll walk up to at Hualalai that I don’t recognize. I did talk to Jay. Surprisingly enough, I played with Nick Price, and he was telling me that he played almost all of the senior events. I thought wow. He said, yeah, I actually played more now than I did the regular TOUR. He said because they’re spaced out better. For me, this year will be a little bit different because I am going to play probably 12 events on the PGA TOUR and 10 senior events and that’s 22. And I haven’t played 22 events for 20 years. That’s a goal. People want to know a goal, it’s not winning, it’s really to see if I can play that many tournaments. I look forward to it. It will help me play the PGA TOUR and it will help me when I come on the Champions Tour next year. Next year, I’ll be strictly a Champions Tour player.

Q. How about three rounds, 54 holes, versus a 72-hole event on the PGA TOUR. It’s a little different mindset where you got to start fast, you don’t have a fourth round if you have a bad round, do you think you can adjust to that pretty quickly after four round events?

FRED COUPLES: You know, I’ve heard that. I can appreciate someone who gets off to quick starts, or someone who gets off to a slow start. Once I do it, which will be next week, at Hualalai, my big concern is whether or not I can go out and sustain making putts like every single week that I play. On the PGA TOUR, when I play well, I putt well. And when I play mediocre, it’s really my putting. I don’t hit the ball poorly and I don’t hit the ball like a top player, but I can hit the ball pretty well. So on the Champions Tour, if I get out there and playing someone, and I’m hitting the ball just as well and they’re making putts and I’m not, I can’t use the excuse that I’m 49 years old on the PGA TOUR, and I make the cut, and finish 30th and that’s good. If I’m on the Champions Tour and play well and feel like I’m playing well, I would be disappointed not to have a good week. Now, that’s not to say I’m going to go out there and win and finish second or fifth a lot of times because you got to go out and earn it. So if you are asking for quick starts, I don’t know yet. I would like to say I’m going to birdie the first three holes and continue to play the whole year. But I’m smart enough to know that it’s a numbers game and you need to play good on the back 9 on Sunday, too. I feel like because I’m still playing every single year, that will help me. If I get off to a slow start, I’m in trouble. But I’m in contention playing, you know, on Sunday because I never really stopped playing. I think that will help me to.

Q. How about health-wise, you are 50, do you feel any different now than did when you were 30?

FRED COUPLES: I feel horrible. But that’s not an excuse because when I feel okay I can still practice. But to be perfectly honest, I do it on my own pace, so when I’m at home, you know, I go out and hit balls for 30 minutes. I don’t really feel good. 30 minutes I go do it. I will hit balls for only 30 minutes and then do it. Anyway it’s a known fact I have a bad back. What’s a known fact for me, if I’m able to go play, I can be able to continue to play. And that’s what I want to do. But, you know, if I don’t feel good, but I’m able to walk around, then I will struggle on the Champions Tour. I will be a mediocre player, but you never know. And if I get healthy, and I play well, then I should really be great for the Champions Tour. I should be able to win. I should be able to compete. So the health thing is a big deal, and I can promise you that since June it’s been pretty much downhill. It hasn’t been much fun. But now I have been off six weeks. My back was killing me and I played the last two weeks, and I feel okay and that’s a good sign because normally it will come and it will go.

Q. What do you think will be the most fun thing for you about a Champions Tour?

FRED COUPLES: Right away it will be being with guys that, as a very young player, I competed against – Fuzzy Zoeller, Jay Haas, Curtis Strange and Loren Roberts and other guys I played with a long time. And when I got in my 30 and 40’s, and they got to be over 45, they slowed down a few years. Then they got to be 50, and they’re dominating on the Champions Tour. So I have been looking forward to being 50. 10 years ago, I told a lot of people I would have no interest in playing the Champions Tour because it was too much of a grind. So now what I’m looking forward to is really having fun and seeing the fellows. To be honest with you, I don’t really care if I don’t play great golf. But if I’m healthy and don’t play great golf, that will be because I don’t practice. So there is that sense on the PGA TOUR the last five years, you know, I could go right from away from the game and get away and not practice and play because I was just a guy keeping his card, and I played good every now and then because I was a good player. On the Champions Tour you will see these guys shoot 16, 18, 20 over par-3 rounds, I can’t do that. I don’t do it on any PGA TOUR event let alone in four rounds. Now I know the courses are easier, but a score is a score. Maybe when I go home, I’ll start playing the course from the next tees up so I will be used to making birdies. My whole life I made a lot of birdies. When I was good in the 30’s and early 40’s, I made a lot of birdies. The last several years I’ve been more of a not many mistakes and not many birdies player. I would make three or four birdies and have a good round. That’s not going to do well on the Champions Tour.

Q. How about going into some different markets? This year two events in Seattle, your hometown, is that sort of a neat cool thing?

FRED COUPLES: Yes, one is the U.S. Senior Open at Sahalee. The other one is the Boeing Classic up in TPC Snoqualmie Ridge, which I hope to play every single year, even if I’m 60 or so and hacking it around because I grew up there. Those are going to be great spots. I know I’m playing to Toshiba event and the Cap Cana event. I’ve never seen any of these courses except in Houston. I don’t know any of these courses. On the PGA TOUR, I can play Riviera Country Club blindfolded. I could go play San Diego blindfolded. When I get to Cap Cana, I’ll step up on the first tee and I won’t know if it’s better to miss it left or miss it right. I guess I will get 2 pro-ams each week. There are really no practice rounds. I can’t go play with three other good players and see how they play the course. So that’s a disadvantage. I’ve got to live with that. Just like a young kid who gets his PGA TOUR card when he is 23 years old. He is playing in the Sony Open this week and he has never seen the course. So I’m definitely a rookie.